Ignoring people

I was a sensitive kid.  When I was in school, other kids often bothered me.  I knew I was expected to ignore them, but ignoring people just didn't make sense to me.  Does a grownup decide to do nothing about his biggest problem and call that a solution?

In the middle grades some children star pushing the behavioral envelope.  School is a bit like prison:  people feel that status is a zero-sum game, and you increase yours by decreasing somebody else's.  One thing they're likely to figure out is that if you bother everyone you'll get into trouble, but if you just bother the sensitive kid, they may just expect him to ignore you.

And grownups did say to me, "If you ignore them they'll leave you alone.  But if you answer them they'll just bother you worse." It's one thing out on the street, but this was school.  You know, it would have been different if we made a contract where I agreed to ignore them and they agreed not to bother me.  Instead, it was up to me to be unilaterally passive and do nothing and hope they'd stop bothering me.  I was expected to do nothing about my problem as if it were doing something, and I still resent it.  They'd bother me worse if they could see they'd hurt me, therefore I had to learn to ignore them.  Did they have to learn to change their behavior?  The answer is, they'd have to learn it from someone else.  Blaming the victim would have to do.

When kids get bothered by their peers because they're handicapped or in an ethnic minority, at least then they know it isn't their own fault.  But when they bother you because you're sensitive, your feelings are the weak link.  If you act like there's no problem the grownups can tell themselves  there's no problem.  But if you won't play ball, you're the problem.

Of course, the grownups tell themselves that this is all for your own good.  But the way I see it, that makes objecting to this twice as important!