bullying is primal in nature and something that humans will likely never fully rid ourselves of without thousands of more years of evolution. at it's core, I suspect it can be traced back to the alpha male of the pack attempting to cull the herd of all weak links for the survival of the rest of the pack. of course, it's utterly meaningless in the modern world, but so are a lot of our primal instincts. our culture and surroundings have evolved much quicker than our brains or bodies.
I grew up in a small town as well. 35 people in my class, roughly 125 in my high school and about 2,500 in my town. there was an alpha male in our town that was my age. we grew up together from kindergarten all the way through high school. for the most part, outside of a few guys that were at least 3 or 4 years older than him, he ran the school. he wasn't the biggest or strongest kid in the school, not by a long shot. in fact, I'm just under 6 feet and about 175 lbs and he was shorter than me, but he was stocky. all the girls wanted to be with him and all the guys wanted to be like him...and he knew it. he carried around this air of superiority and confidence with him that was impossible to ignore. he controlled who was in the cool kid's clique at any given time and would literally use people like chess pieces for his own entertainment. one week he would be your best friend and the next week he was using someone else to bully and intimidate you...or doing it himself. looking back on it, it's fascinating how he managed to control the feelings and actions of so many people. from kindergarten through my senior year, we alternated between what I considered at the time to be "best friends" that would do everything together, to him intimidating me, threatening me, and generally leaving me with no friends at any given time. I would say about 80% of the time we were "friends." we'd go on trips together, hunt together, party together...everything. the other 20% was pure hell. if you were ousted from the group...for whatever stupid rough ridin' reason he decided...you found yourself on the outside looking in. he, and everyone else in his "club" at the time, would torment you, threaten you, ridicule you, and just generally make your life hell. it was a pretty hopeless feeling. the town was small so there weren't many other options for friends. that was the group all the cool kids wanted to be a part of. basically the only other options were the "nerds" or the "druggies."
I wasn't immune from either being his pawn and tormenting (bullying?) other kids that weren't in the clique (at least at the moment), but I also certainly wasn't immune from being tormented (bullied?) myself. I'm very jealous when I hear people talk about how much they liked high school, because I hated it. sure, I have some great memories, but most of them involve him in some way and it's hard to look back and remember those times fondly when you step away from the situation and have time to reflect on how much of a crap human being he was (is?).
I'm not sure that's bullying, but it sure felt like it. now that I'm a father of a 5 year old son, I've seen flashes of both in him, and it's equally terrifying to me. I've seen him do things that resemble "bullying" to other kids and I've watched him be the victim of what feels like "bullying." I have to constantly remind myself that it's all part of establishing a hierarchy and pecking order among young kids, and you just have to let most of it play out and hope you've raised them right. you can't fight instincts that have evolved over thousands of years. bullying becomes a problem when it goes from establishing a hierarchy, to a prolonged predator and prey scenario.
sorry...that got really long.
