Dear "Straight Pride" Jerk . . . .

[MRT144]

Easy for you to say. I was eating 5 meals a day just to keep my weight even. I caddied, so I was carrying 60 pounds for a 10 miles hike at least 150 times a year. Add on another 40 times a year with just 30 pounds when I was playing golf. So it's not like I wasn't doing any physical activity. I was still a skinny looking nerd. My interests were nerdy, and I wasn't going to deny those interests. That's like saying gays should ignore their feelings for other men.


And I'm not saying it was exactly the same, but there are many similarities and I don't know if one makes a person more special than the other. We all just wanted to be treated normal.

And have you never seen any nerd revenge type movies? The gay kids always teamed up with the nerds against the jocks like you, since they were targets also.

I played football and baseball in high school, was somewhat nerdy and had homophobic epithets thrown my way because I didn't follow the pack on being extroverted chauvinists. I think you get pigeon holed no matter what you do if it isn't congruent with prevailing attitudes.

[rah]

I think that might also be an age thing where they're mellow because they're older. One of my neighbors is gay but he's in his 50s and still does some of the fun things but hasn't be into activism since the the mid 90s. I think part of it is that he wanted to advance his career which took him out of opportunities to engage with people and politicians (he started working the graveyard shift in the ER). It's hard to stay energized for so long when there is only marginal improvement. At some point everyone of every generation passes the torch.

Yeah, you're probably right there. Most of my buddies are between 45-60. And they do mumble about passing the hard work onto the youngsters.

[Al B. Sure!]

Easy for you to say. I was eating 5 meals a day just to keep my weight even. I caddied, so I was carrying 60 pounds for a 10 miles hike at least 150 times a year. Add on another 40 times a year with just 30 pounds when I was playing golf. So it's not like I wasn't doing any physical activity. I was still a skinny looking nerd. My interests were nerdy, and I wasn't going to deny those interests. That's like saying gays should ignore their feelings for other men.


And I'm not saying it was exactly the same, but there are many similarities and I don't know if one makes a person more special than the other. We all just wanted to be treated normal.

And have you never seen any nerd revenge type movies? The gay kids always teamed up with the nerds against the jocks like you, since they were targets also.

I'm not buying the analogy. Your interest in Star Trek is not biological. And it's not like your interests alone makes you a nerd. A lot of really popular kids would have really dorky interests. A lot of 90lb weaklings also are cool as hell.

Really, the issue for nerdom is probably awkwardness, a lack of confidence, and social deficiency. Is that biological? It can be in the cases of social anxiety, depression, and the autism spectrum but most of the time, it's your personality quirks that can be changed with awareness. Now the issue becomes, should you change to what society expects of you? Well if you don't want to get bullied, growing a spine and behaving with some confidence is a very positive change.

And I wasn't a jock. I was regular. I sucked too much at sports to be a jock. I went to an elite magnet school (think what HC and Kuci went to but not all white/Asian), I would sit in class with the basketball team, be the kid who always turned the class into a debate between the teacher and I, was in the choir, played basketball at lunch, and played Starcraft with the Asian kids after school. Oh and freshmen erroneously thought I was the weedman or something because they would come to my locker asking me for weed. I wore hoodies too much, probably.

How would I fit in your archetypes? That's how I know that characterizations like 'nerd' are BS. There's nothing intrinsic about you that got you bullied. You chose to be bullied.

[rah]

You chose to be bullied

That's the mentality we were fighting when we were younger. That comment alone makes everything you said meaningless. Nothing justifies bullying.
I thought better of you.
And if interests in math and science made me a nerd, so be it.

[Ming]

So Albie...
you choose to get robbed
you choose to get in fights
you choose to not being able to get a job
you choose to not being able to get a girl friend
you choose to not being able to get into the Marines
you choose to not being successful

[Al B. Sure!]

I don't know. When I was scared to fight back, I would get bullied. But it wasn't really the jocks (whatever that is; seriously. Maybe it's a generational thing but playing sports didn't make you some kind of god of the hallways) doing the bullying. It was dorky dudes that probably could be considered nerds that would **** with me. Seriously. It was this tiny sniveling Mexican kid and his really fat friends who would just throw stuff at me in class. The school instilled in me that getting in a fight would mean I wouldn't be able to go to a good high school. Once I got to high school, though, I didn't take that **** and bullying ceased.

I found this picture of me from high school. I think I was a freshman. Yes, that late 90's fashion (). Do I look like a jock? I was just a regular dude, maybe even a nerd in my appearance (I was 5'10" 135lbs).

[Al B. Sure!]

So Albie...
you choose to get robbed
you choose to get in fights
you choose to not being able to get a job
you choose to not being able to get a girl friend
you choose to not being able to get into the Marines
you choose to not being successful

All that requires more changes than simply having confidence and standing up to a bully.

You can be nerdy as **** but if you either look like someone shouldn't **** with you or you show them not to **** with you, they won't bully you.

There was a guy in high school who played Magic all the time and freaking rode a unicycle. He was short, too. But one summer, he just worked out and came back jacked and he instantly became pretty cool, even with the unicycle and the Magic and him still hanging out with the same dorky crowd. But he could easily play both roles now just because he looked like a jock.

[rah]

Actually you don't look bad in that photo. I'd be embarrassed to post a picture of myself from my early HS days.
BUT I REPEAT, no one chooses to be bullied.

[MRT144]

Al probably believes women choose to get raped.

[Al B. Sure!]

Actually you don't look bad in that photo. I'd be embarrassed to post a picture of myself from my early HS days.
BUT I REPEAT, no one chooses to be bullied.

Did you ever stand up for yourself? Did you ever clock a bully?

[Al B. Sure!]

Al probably believes women choose to get raped.

I'm just saying EVERYBODY changes things about them, or at least portrays a different image of themselves, to gain in social interaction with others. We wear many masks.

I don't feel sorry for those who don't know how to switch masks. It's not even about changing who you are. It's just about portraying an image to certain people in certain social situations so you come out on top.

[MRT144]

Did you ever stand up for yourself? Did you ever clock a bully?

I did and I was suspended for it. And the bullying continued. But I was never bullied physically.

[rah]

I did once. Unfortunately he was an experienced bully and twice my size. After his initial surprise he doubled up his efforts on me.
Fighting is not the answer. The answer is to stop the bullying in the first place. Why should the victim have to carry the burden?
That really doesn't make much sense. I beat you up but it's up to you to stop me. That mentality is really wacked.

[MRT144]

I'm just saying EVERYBODY changes things about them, or at least portrays a different image of themselves, to gain in social interaction with others. We wear many masks.

I don't feel sorry for those who don't know how to switch masks. It's not even about changing who you are. It's just about portraying an image to certain people in certain social situations so you come out on top.

If you're a living example of this then clearly that is a bad theory put in action.

[rah]

If you're a living example of this then clearly that is a bad theory put in action.