• Question: Did you ever get bullied at school for being "nerdy"?

    Asked by Bucky to Sheona, Jack, Giuditta, Flavia, Craig on 9 Nov 2015.
    • Photo: Jack Carlyle

      Jack Carlyle answered on 9 Nov 2015:

      Unfortunately I did get bullied at school quite a lot. It can be a very difficult thing to deal with, but it is important to know that things will get better. I know it might not help knowing that right now, but hold on, be strong, and try to ignore the mean things that some people can do. Always talk about bullying to people who care about you, too, because things are much easier to deal with when you aren’t alone.

    • Photo: Giuditta Perversi

      Giuditta Perversi answered on 9 Nov 2015:

      I would like to say that nope, everything was fine, but it wasn’t.
      For one reason or another, being it my physical appearance, my attitude, my passions, my intelligence, my performance at school, I had to cope with being the outsider and get treated at such for the good part of 8 years until the end of high school. It even managed to happen a couple of times in the university.
      I can’t say it didn’t change me, because it did, but it did not make me set aside the things I liked, even though they weren’t “acceptable”.
      As I got older I managed to find people with whom I fit, the general attitude became less bully because it’s not acceptable once you grow up, and overall I got the right “you know what? Get lost” ingrained reaction to any attempt.

    • Photo: Flavia de Almeida Dias

      Flavia de Almeida Dias answered on 10 Nov 2015:

      Yes! I got bullied for being nerdy, and having high grades, being too thin (they called me broomstick), having too long straight hair, having too many spots on my face, liking to wear the colour black (they used to call me Wednesday because of the Addams family). Human beings, and that include kids and teenagers, can be mean – not tolerant of anything which is different from their own ways. But specially when one is young, that is very related to their own insecurities – everyone tries to find their own place where they fit, to make people admire them, and when you are just starting to experience the world, putting everyone who is different from yourself in lower regards is one way to put oneself higher – and a pretty bad way at that.

      But the important thing to realise is that it doesn’t really matter what other people think! Of course it is easier said than done, and I have spent many hours of my teenage years with my other “weird nerdy non popular” friends wondering why would people go out of their way to make us feel like crap, and being sad that the person I thought was cute would only look at the popular kids, and why would it be a bad thing to just like what I liked. But all of those who were different, and bullied, were the ones which ended up in interesting careers and doing amazing things with their life, travelling the world, getting to know what else *different* is out there. Different is good, and we should celebrate our differences, instead of trying to make everyone comply to the same standard (something which a lot of grown ups need to learn too!).

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