Cyberbullying Research Paper
The story of the fall of my freshman year of high school, in my opinion, encompasses all of the innate tendencies male individuals possess. Furthermore, I believe this story delves deeper into our reality as human beings and the consequences we are destined to face as a result of our physical makeup. The consequences, for me, proved violent, physically painful, and eternally fulfilling. This is a strange statement because when these incidents occurred it was dark and scary time in my life, but, ironically, this was also the most rewarding happening of my young life. You see, this is the story of how I met the best friend I have, Bob McGrath. I truly believe I am blessed to be of member of the male sex. I believe this because I love my life
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and enjoy the benefits that come with being a male. This belief, though, stems mostly from the way this story played out and the fact that if I were born a female I surely never would have met my good friend and may have went on from this moment to lead an entirely different existence. It was September of 2002 and I was a 15 year old boy coming from a tiny catholic school nestled in the small town I had lived my entire life to that point. However, my family had just moved to the city, granted it was the city of Scranton, a far cry from big cities such as New York or Philadelphia, but it was a much larger and scarier atmosphere than I had ever been accustomed to. Not only had I moved away from the only town I had ever known but I was entering the largest co-ed Jesuit Prep school on the east coast, Scranton Prep. The great majority of my freshman class had all come from 1 of 3 schools in the immediate surrounding areas. As a result, all of them were already friends, they all talked the same, dressed the same, hung out with only each other, laughed at the same things, and the most binding attribute they all shared, judged outsiders with the same callous disregard. I happened to be an "outsider."
That was my first mistake. The next mistake I made was attempting to include myself in an already assembled and seasoned group. I did this merely by sitting down at the lunch table with a group of about 10 guys my age to eat my lunch. Instantly, I felt all eyes at the table turn to me. "What's up?" I said, answered with silence and snickers.
Finally, the one closest to me, sarcastically muttered:
"Sure, feel free to join us." followed by eruptions of laughter from the rest of the table. For the following two weeks or so every member of the group, each with their own clever jab, continually harassed me verbally. Every day I came to school I figured they would have to get bored with themselves and the same routine quirks and jokes they made to me and would eventually forget about me. However, I could not have been more wrong. It only got worse. The jokes and one-liners turned into 30 minute routines and the daily lunchtime entertainment at my expense, all because I dared to entitle myself as a member of the group without ever knowing them. I think what drove them to only increase the abuse was the way I handled it. I had always been brought up to laugh at myself and laugh off my enemies, "kill them with kindness" my mother always said. So every day I would laugh harder at their jokes and every day I would sit in the same seat, at their table. My thinking remained they had to let up eventually. One month passed and the only thing that changed was the verbal abuse turned to pranks and practical jokes, again at my expense. My lunch was taken right out of my locker, my food was constantly misplaced or tampered with whenever I looked away and they began calling girls over for an audience. This was the final blow. Girls are everything to me. When a girl laughs at me, a rage builds within me I cannot contain. Regrettably, I was not a big guy by any stretch, never was. I stood a modest 5 feet 8 inches tall weighing around 140 pounds. I did not stand much of a chance enacting violence. Nevertheless, I felt this was my only option. The one thing about this group of "bullies" was that I rarely saw them use violence as a bullying tactic in school, presumably because they outnumbered any other group of males and, frankly, these were some pretty big guys. Of the 9 of them, I believe 7 were football players. They always talked about the fights they got into over the weekends and how Bob, the biggest of the group (and wittiest when it came to my abuse), had pummeled yet another victim. These stories intimidated me and provided yet another factor for my reluctance to stand up for myself. However, the week they began to create a female audience to enhance their own egos was the day I put this abuse to rest. It was right after the bell had sounded marking the end of lunch and the start of the "15 minute break", an interval between lunch and the lat 2 periods of the day designed for study and free time. I found myself in the bathroom with Ryan Cummings, Pat McDonough, and Bob McGrath (the biggest of the 3), all members of my group of lunch table bullies. I was at the sink nearest to the door when McGrath said to me: "Hey, Moran, I think those girls like you" followed by laughter from the other two. I became so filled with rage I did not even have a plan I just slammed the door, closed the lock, and tore off the paper towel dispenser with all the strength I could muster and turned around and bashed McGrath right in the back of the head. Cummings came right after me and I met him with a punch in the mouth only to turn around into a punch in the face from McDonough. As I took the punch Cummings came at me and I just went right back at him running into him in a tackling position and taking him to the ground while repeatedly punching him in the face. This only lasted for about 10 seconds when McDonough and McGrath pulled me off and threw me to the wall. I kept throwing punches aimlessly but deliberately. Through all the poundings I was taking, I just kept swinging. I was so angered the pain was not even a deterrent it only made me swing harder. Finally, McGrath tossed McDonough and Cummings aside, picked me up and threw me in the bathroom stall and told me it was over and to come a minute behind them and this will all be forgotten about. I plopped down on the toilet, my jaw bruised and my lip busted open, and, at the moment, I knew the abuse would end. What I did not see coming was the call I had received later that night from Bob. He told me he was still in shock of my performance in the bathroom and that if he wasn't there he knows I probably would have killed the other two. We both shared a laugh at that and the next day I sat in the same seat. Bob spoke up immediately telling the whole table of the story and how scared McDonough and Cummings were and how he wouldn't dare anyone to mess with me. The jokes turned to McDonough and Cummings and to this day Bob McGrath and I remain best friends. I was never abused again in my four years of high school. To me, my reaction to these "bullies" was markedly different than the way a female would have responded to heckling and verbal harassment from her female counterparts.
In my opinion, if these on goings were happening on a daily basis to a girl, nightly tears would be shed, utter lack of self-confidence would result and unfortunately, the girl may never have stood up for herself. A natural female response would be sadness and overwhelming depression. If outnumbered so drastically, I believe females do not possess the physically abilities to adequately respond. A strong-willed girl may have ended the abuse from the start by merely ignoring the abusers and seeking out other friends. My situation was that I knew no one and I refused to be the new kid who backed down and sought new friends, because I feel I would have been looked at as a coward for my high school career. This is an innately different thought process than that of a female. Females do not fear or possess a disdain for being looked at as a coward. It is expected for females to be passive and soft in today's society and also our biological makeup dictates these facts. Barash explains that "Natural selection dictates that individuals will behave in ways that maximize their fitness, so clearly, different strategies will be appropriate for the two sexes, given their dramatically different biological characteristics." (Chapter1, page 4, paragraph 8) Therefore, it is natural for men to defend themselves in ways that maximize their fitness, just as for women. So when I was continually bullied I chose to respond with violence. I do not support violence and I believe, in most cases, violence only breeds more violence. Yet, there comes times in every human's life where they must behave and react in ways that maximize their fitness. I believe I did just that and I also feel that a woman would do the same. The difference is how the woman would maximize her fitness. A petite, 80 pound freshman girl being continually
harassed by other girls, who chooses to stand up, ignore the bullies, and walk away is simply maximizing her fitness. I believe are all commonly bound by the desire and necessity for survival. In the case of males, all too often we take it upon ourselves to enact a survival of the fittest mentality in our lives. Females exist in an equally harsh world where survival is a constant battle. We all must maximize every bit of who and what we are. I guess males and females aren't so different after all.
and enjoy the benefits that come with being a male. This belief, though, stems mostly from the way this story played out and the fact that if I were born a female I surely never would have met my good friend and may have went on from this moment to lead an entirely different existence. It was September of 2002 and I was a 15 year old boy coming from a tiny catholic school nestled in the small town I had lived my entire life to that point. However, my family had just moved to the city, granted it was the city of Scranton, a far cry from big cities such as New York or Philadelphia, but it was a much larger and scarier atmosphere than I had ever been accustomed to. Not only had I moved away from the only town I had ever known but I was entering the largest co-ed Jesuit Prep school on the east coast, Scranton Prep. The great majority of my freshman class had all come from 1 of 3 schools in the immediate surrounding areas. As a result, all of them were already friends, they all talked the same, dressed the same, hung out with only each other, laughed at the same things, and the most binding attribute they all shared, judged outsiders with the same callous disregard. I happened to be an "outsider."
That was my first mistake. The next mistake I made was attempting to include myself in an already assembled and seasoned group. I did this merely by sitting down at the lunch table with a group of about 10 guys my age to eat my lunch. Instantly, I felt all eyes at the table turn to me. "What's up?" I said, answered with silence and snickers.
Finally, the one closest to me, sarcastically muttered:
"Sure, feel free to join us." followed by eruptions of laughter from the rest of the table. For the following two weeks or so every member of the group, each with their own clever jab, continually harassed me verbally. Every day I came to school I figured they would have to get bored with themselves and the same routine quirks and jokes they made to me and would eventually forget about me. However, I could not have been more wrong. It only got worse. The jokes and one-liners turned into 30 minute routines and the daily lunchtime entertainment at my expense, all because I dared to entitle myself as a member of the group without ever knowing them. I think what drove them to only increase the abuse was the way I handled it. I had always been brought up to laugh at myself and laugh off my enemies, "kill them with kindness" my mother always said. So every day I would laugh harder at their jokes and every day I would sit in the same seat, at their table. My thinking remained they had to let up eventually. One month passed and the only thing that changed was the verbal abuse turned to pranks and practical jokes, again at my expense. My lunch was taken right out of my locker, my food was constantly misplaced or tampered with whenever I looked away and they began calling girls over for an audience. This was the final blow. Girls are everything to me. When a girl laughs at me, a rage builds within me I cannot contain. Regrettably, I was not a big guy by any stretch, never was. I stood a modest 5 feet 8 inches tall weighing around 140 pounds. I did not stand much of a chance enacting violence. Nevertheless, I felt this was my only option. The one thing about this group of "bullies" was that I rarely saw them use violence as a bullying tactic in school, presumably because they outnumbered any other group of males and, frankly, these were some pretty big guys. Of the 9 of them, I believe 7 were football players. They always talked about the fights they got into over the weekends and how Bob, the biggest of the group (and wittiest when it came to my abuse), had pummeled yet another victim. These stories intimidated me and provided yet another factor for my reluctance to stand up for myself. However, the week they began to create a female audience to enhance their own egos was the day I put this abuse to rest. It was right after the bell had sounded marking the end of lunch and the start of the "15 minute break", an interval between lunch and the lat 2 periods of the day designed for study and free time. I found myself in the bathroom with Ryan Cummings, Pat McDonough, and Bob McGrath (the biggest of the 3), all members of my group of lunch table bullies. I was at the sink nearest to the door when McGrath said to me: "Hey, Moran, I think those girls like you" followed by laughter from the other two. I became so filled with rage I did not even have a plan I just slammed the door, closed the lock, and tore off the paper towel dispenser with all the strength I could muster and turned around and bashed McGrath right in the back of the head. Cummings came right after me and I met him with a punch in the mouth only to turn around into a punch in the face from McDonough. As I took the punch Cummings came at me and I just went right back at him running into him in a tackling position and taking him to the ground while repeatedly punching him in the face. This only lasted for about 10 seconds when McDonough and McGrath pulled me off and threw me to the wall. I kept throwing punches aimlessly but deliberately. Through all the poundings I was taking, I just kept swinging. I was so angered the pain was not even a deterrent it only made me swing harder. Finally, McGrath tossed McDonough and Cummings aside, picked me up and threw me in the bathroom stall and told me it was over and to come a minute behind them and this will all be forgotten about. I plopped down on the toilet, my jaw bruised and my lip busted open, and, at the moment, I knew the abuse would end. What I did not see coming was the call I had received later that night from Bob. He told me he was still in shock of my performance in the bathroom and that if he wasn't there he knows I probably would have killed the other two. We both shared a laugh at that and the next day I sat in the same seat. Bob spoke up immediately telling the whole table of the story and how scared McDonough and Cummings were and how he wouldn't dare anyone to mess with me. The jokes turned to McDonough and Cummings and to this day Bob McGrath and I remain best friends. I was never abused again in my four years of high school. To me, my reaction to these "bullies" was markedly different than the way a female would have responded to heckling and verbal harassment from her female counterparts.
In my opinion, if these on goings were happening on a daily basis to a girl, nightly tears would be shed, utter lack of self-confidence would result and unfortunately, the girl may never have stood up for herself. A natural female response would be sadness and overwhelming depression. If outnumbered so drastically, I believe females do not possess the physically abilities to adequately respond. A strong-willed girl may have ended the abuse from the start by merely ignoring the abusers and seeking out other friends. My situation was that I knew no one and I refused to be the new kid who backed down and sought new friends, because I feel I would have been looked at as a coward for my high school career. This is an innately different thought process than that of a female. Females do not fear or possess a disdain for being looked at as a coward. It is expected for females to be passive and soft in today's society and also our biological makeup dictates these facts. Barash explains that "Natural selection dictates that individuals will behave in ways that maximize their fitness, so clearly, different strategies will be appropriate for the two sexes, given their dramatically different biological characteristics." (Chapter1, page 4, paragraph 8) Therefore, it is natural for men to defend themselves in ways that maximize their fitness, just as for women. So when I was continually bullied I chose to respond with violence. I do not support violence and I believe, in most cases, violence only breeds more violence. Yet, there comes times in every human's life where they must behave and react in ways that maximize their fitness. I believe I did just that and I also feel that a woman would do the same. The difference is how the woman would maximize her fitness. A petite, 80 pound freshman girl being continually
harassed by other girls, who chooses to stand up, ignore the bullies, and walk away is simply maximizing her fitness. I believe are all commonly bound by the desire and necessity for survival. In the case of males, all too often we take it upon ourselves to enact a survival of the fittest mentality in our lives. Females exist in an equally harsh world where survival is a constant battle. We all must maximize every bit of who and what we are. I guess males and females aren't so different after all.