I am a bully who got bullied.
I’m not necessarily proud of sharing this story, but I guess it had to be done. I like writing about my past experiences, even if they are not the best ones, because the act itself can be extremely cathartic.
When I was in sixth grade, I went to Canada as an exchange student. For those of you wondering why a sixth grader would go abroad to study, it’s a very common thing that happens in Asian countries. A lot of people go to English-speaking countries for 2~3 years around that age (12~15) to learn English. I wasn’t necessarily that case. We had some personal issues back in homeland so we had to leave even if I was already fluent in English. Not that it didn’t help. But anyways, I’m not here to talk about my stay in Canada. I’m here to talk about what I did there.
Growing up, I didn’t have many friends. I had a few here and there, but I was one of those people that kept to themselves and just made a few friends here and there. I was never really “popular.”
When I was younger (even younger than sixth grade), I would buy new clothes that I didn’t even like to fit in with the popular girls. I would make up secrets to share because I wanted to be a part of their clique. Nevertheless, I was never one of “them.”
I have no idea why I was so obsessed with becoming popular. Wait, actually, I do. I mean, there wasn’t any specific reason behind it other than the fact that popularity feels kind of nice. At times. You feel powerful. I guess I was an ambitious kid.
That popularity complex stuck with me for a while and I carried it with me all the way to Canada.
When you are obsessed with being popular, here are a few things that you’ll start to notice about yourself.
- You tend to be very possessive
Popularity is maintained by a loyal group of friends and once you’ve attained them, you don’t want to let them go or share them.
2. You are never content
You will probably never be proud of your friends or your so-called social status, no matter how “popular” you get. There are always cooler people and cooler groups that you’d want to be a part of.
3. You forget to treasure what you have.
Along with #2, you tend to neglect what you already have and forget to treasure them. You will abandon your current group of friends if it means that you can get into a higher circle.
How do I know all this? Well, sadly, experience. I’ll tell you what happened in a moment.
Strangely enough, there was an unwritten rule amongst the popular clique. You had to be pretty, you had to be fit, and (most of the time) you had to be white. Me, the chubby Asian girl with glasses, did not fit into that category. But I never liked complying to those standards so I decided I was going to try to get past them. And it wasn’t some kind of a social expression — it was just simply my greed. And I admit, it was very selfish of me.
In the meantime, I had made my own group of friends. I was relatively happy with what we had, but there was just the nagging sensation of wanting to become popular. And here was the thing that caused my ultimate demise: my best friend at the time was disliked by the popular clique.
I personally still don’t really know why they hated her so much. I mean, she was, I think, one of the nicest people I have ever met in the world. She was also very pretty. The only flaw that I could see was that she was a little bit chubby but isn’t everyone chubby at sixth grade? I mean come on.
Anyways, people were always mean to her and talking shit behind her back. The ideal scenario would have been for me to stand with her, to have her back. Thinking back, I would have liked that too.
But I didn’t do that.
Instead, I turned her only other friend except me against her and I took her for myself and I used that leverage to bully her. And when the popular girls approached me, they said some mean stuff about her, and I didn’t deny anything.
And let me tell you that it wasn’t exactly the happiest days of my life. The guilt eats away at you but you find yourself holding onto your so-called “accomplishments” to remedy the guilt you feel, so I pushed her away even further. And when she finally got a new friend, I even took that person away from her. Or tried to, at least.
And all in all, I was a fake, superficial, greedy, and horrible person who bullied other people for her own sake and carried her mother’s Louis Vuitton purse because she thought that was cool and edgy.
I apologised to her. Multiple times. Again and again. But I still kept doing it, it was like a disease. I still kept being mean to her after all the times she forgave me. I didn’t deserve any of it, I know, but I still did it.
It was only after I left Canada for good that I realised just how much of a horrible person I was. Because I was bullied for 5 years after that. Karma’s a bitch.
I remembered her every time I heard whispers behind my back, boys laughing and snorting at me as I walked past them, as if I were some joke. I remembered what I did and I just took it when I walked out of the bathroom to see boys lined up against each side of the hallway, only to start laughing altogether when they saw me. One of them threw a shoe at me, I think.
I didn’t say anything and I just took it. Because I knew I deserved it. Back then, I was super Christian and I thought this was punishment from above, for the things I have done.
But honestly, was it?
Because no matter how much I suffered, she still had those wounds and that wasn’t going to change.
So I talked to her, after 5 years.
Summer in Vancouver, 2016. Vancouver Airport.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
“Thanks for picking me up, you didn’t have to.”
“No, what do you mean? You flew 13 hours here. Of course I came here.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Huh?”
“I’m so sorry. For what happened.”
“What do you mean?”
“For…you know. Doing that to you.”
“Dude, I forgave you five years ago.”
I was distraught. I thought it was going to be a much longer conversation than that. I mean, after what I did? That was it? I started crying all of the sudden, startling her.
“Dude, why are you crying?”
“I just really regret what I did to you. We could’ve had such great times but instead I was just getting caught up about superficial things. I was stupid.”
“It’s okay, we all go through that phase.”
“You didn’t.”
“You think so?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Hey. I was borderline anorexic to lose weight after I went to high school to try to get popular. I ruined my health. It was different, but we all go through it.”
“Are you okay now?”
“Yeah, I’m getting better.”
“I’m sorry. About that too.”
“It’s not your fault.”
I didn’t know what to say after that, so I just told her she looked beautiful. We got milkshakes and talked about life, what we wanted to do in the future, and it felt like one of those rare moments where I was really happy with her. I remembered our adventures back at school, by the creek that was out in the back of our school, how we used to tiptoe around the rocks. It was fun. We played hunters. I was Artemis.
My favourite character in Harry Potter is Draco Malfoy. Not because Tom Felton is hot, but because I identify with him. He made all the wrong choices. I don’t necessarily like the canon version of him as much as I like the fandom-version of Draco. I like to think he learned from his mistakes. Because mistakes are valuable once you truly repent and learn from them.
I will never be able to forgive myself for what I have done, but she has forgiven me. It still confuses me how she did that, but then I remember when I forgave the boy who used to bully me all the time after he confessed to me that he picked on me because he was going through some tough shit. His life shouldn’t have been an excuse to bully other people, but past was past, and I just forgave him. It was my loss to stay mad at him. I imagine it was the same for her. I wonder if he forgave himself.
I hope he has.
