Teen Ink

THE NEIGHBORHOOD BULLYNG

Moving forward to the 4th grade, I had eventually moved to where I still live in, Woodside, NY. In my current neighborhood, back when I was in the 4th grade, there were neighborhood kids which were mostly younger than me. The only two who were not younger than me were the people I use to live with in a rented private house at that time. One of them who went to 4th grade with me was 5 months older than me and her sister who is three years older than us. There was also a friend of the older sister who was also older than me and a sister to one of biggest rivals in the near future.
Nevertheless, when I came to this neighborhood, the neighborhood kids and I always played together. In the beginning for the first few years the neighborhood kids and I got along well and was playing together. However, as the years went by, the sisters who are my home girls now had moved from the neighborhood. The other kids found me easy-going and always were able to make jokes of me. Even though, I did not like it and I had told them that, they still went about with the continuous bullying. At that time, I did not know I was being bullied. I just felt they all hated me. Therefore, I kept telling them “you guys make fun of me because you hate me”. I did not take those jokes lightly like they always have. With nothing to do, I eventually had to suffer with the bullying and still consider them my so-called “friends”. Eventually, those neighborhood kids and I became frenemies.
I eventually had to face them face to face and “man up” to their bullying. Even though I was a pacifist, I was forced to be in multiple fights with some of the kids. Out of the first 4 fights of my life, I got beat up a little once in a fight. I remember, that I had to fight one of the kids twice which I had beat both times. However, our fights were not those kinds of fights where people got seriously injured. We just saw who had gained the advantage of the fight and was declared the winner. The first time I fought in my entire life, I had 3 surprise fights while I was only supposed to fight the kid I had beaten in two fights at separate times. After I had my first ever fight and had won it, there were others that came in front of me to fight me. In the second fight of my life, it turned out to be a draw. Then there was the son of my superintendent, who really did not want to physically fight me but he was told by the others. So, in the fight, he avoided and I kept missing shots when I tried to punch him since it was a fight. Since he avoided getting hurt, he was considered the winner of the fight. After that, came back the kid who I had a draw with. That fight was the only fight we went face to face and fist for fist. However, everyone’s intention was to hurt me and make me cry, so that is exactly what he had done. All this time, the other kids of the neighborhood was standing and watching all the fights and see me get beat up. These fights occurred all because I liked a girl in the neighborhood at that time and because of a rivalry with who I was originally supposed to fight. The three surprise fights I was in after my first initial fight, was because I had a major crush on a girl of the neighborhood at that time.