Final Draft

Robert Hatfield

3:05-4:25

Final Draft

            A classic mantra parents give their children is “If you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say anything at all.” Of course many kids won’t internalize this and even carry it into adulthood. I happen to be one of those kids that did not internalize it. Over the years I’ve discovered I can be a very opinionated person and before I developed the skills to know when, where, and how to voice these opinions, I would just spew out what was on my mind. Unfortunately, I had quite a narrow mind to what I viewed as normal and anything that fell outside of that would hear how I felt about it. We typically read articles and hear about the victims of bullying and discrimination but rarely hear from the perspective of the bully. I was a pretty small kid so some might argue I had insecurity with my size, or in colloquial terms “little man syndrome”, but reflecting back on how I was I have determined two of the main reasons I was the way I was. The first reason was the reception I received from my peers. I always enjoy getting laughs out of people and when I was younger I would go through leaps and bounds to be as goofy as possible to achieve this. This eventually turned into doing anything for a laugh, including degrading kids that were a little more awkward than other kids. In the next paragraph I’ll go into detail on some of these encounters and also describe my second reason behind my verbal douchebaggery.

 I had gone to small schools most of my early years and was even homeschooled in 2^nd grade. From 3^rd to 5^th grade I went to a school that had a total of 75 people in the entirety of the grades. So you could imagine a small Lutheran school of kindergarten through 7^th grade with mainly kids related to each other was difficult to assimilate into. I was pretty outgoing and energetic though so I blended in with the rest of the kids quite well. A year after I came to the school, a new kid named Jacob arrived. He seemed a little snobby about his intellectual level but at the same time was socially awkward and had quite an odor surrounding him most of the time. He is the first kid I remember being excessively rude to but he reciprocated enough that it wasn’t completely one sided. The details have faded from my memory but I remember having quite the dislike for him. I teased one of the girls in my grade about liking him because that’s how smooth 4^th grade Robert would flirt with the ladies. There were only 7 kids in our grade, 4 guys 3 girls. Jacob was the odd man out while the 6 of us got along pretty well so when I teased this girl about liking Jacob it was meant as an insult seeing as he was a little odd. I learned one of my first lessons about the consequences of my actions as she decided to fling a pencil 20 feet across the hallway and land it square in my eye. That’s impressive aim if you ask me

                                                          It looked something like this*

                                                                                                                *Dramatization    

 Thankfully it only punctured my cornea so there was no permanent damage. It’s safe to say I didn’t tease her after that. I’m a firm believer in having to experience negative outcomes to truly internalize what to do and what not to do in situations. Unfortunately, it takes a lot of these negative outcomes for me to really soak it in. Drinking alcohol could be a more relatable situation that others would understand. I think everyone has a friend that has been over a toilet losing their dinner saying “I’m never drinking again” that end up doing the same thing two weekends later. Slowly but surely we learn from our mistakes. 

Another highlight of my “I was a mean child” was in the 6^th grade. This was the first time I was at a bigger school and it was quite a transition as I was a pretty reserved kid in larger crowds. There was one girl from my old school that I hung out with the first day of my new school but I ended up talking to these 4 kids that were considered the “bad kids” and they ended up being pretty cool. I sat with them at lunch and we would joke around as we talked about the new South Park that aired or whatever was happening during our day. I remember the first time I cursed was somewhat due to their free use of the English language. Back in my little private Lutheran school I thought saying crap and freaking was hardcore but these kids were dropping F-bombs and other profanities without being phased. There was a girl that was pretty obnoxious that had a crush on me and she did something I can’t really recall but it was enough to make me go off on a rant. That’s when I started dropping obscenities as I pointed out what bothered me about her and their response of laughter was reinforcing my newfound vocabulary. So my colorful descriptions of things that were irritating me and my bluntness towards people I didn’t like were quite a hit with my friends and I kept doing it. There was a new kid named Alex that would sit at our table and typically mind to himself while he ate. One day, my friend had a wadded up piece of paper for some reason and he said “Dude, Robert you should hit Alex with this!” So, as inconsiderate as I was, I winded up point blank at the side of this kid’s face with a wad of paper and hit him square in the head. They all thought it was hilarious but as I sat down next to him he turned to me and punched me. I was pretty thrown off by that as most people I picked on never retaliated. I feel pretty terrible as I’m writing this just thinking about how rude I was. But it was all about the laughs and my friends back then. We later became good friends and I still talk to him to this day so thankfully he’s not one to hold grudges. As I stated earlier, Alex’s retaliation towards me was a rare occurrence among people I would bully and that is what leads me to my second main reason I would be rude to some people.

There's different ways that people say you should counter someone being a bully and one suggestion I have heard is to not react. It prevents fuel from being added to the fire but only if you go about it the right away. Something that made me more prone to consistently bully someone was when they didn't defend themselves. It sounds vicious but I view it kind of like how animals treat another wounded animal. When you see the animal is wounded and can't fight back you pounce. I know, pretty ruthless. But I didn't really empathize because I would always come back with a rebuttal when someone said something to me. Their lack of a response or their dainty attempt of defending themselves made me want to get more of a reaction out of them. A prime example was a kid I was somewhat friends with that lived near me named Drew. We shared similar interests in video games but he was pretty inept in social skills and it would get bothersome at times. He would tend to interpret what people were saying in the wrong way and take it as an insult to himself a lot. When he would get upset he would react in an odd manner which was quite entertaining to watch when I was younger. Other people on our bus found it pretty funny as well so he was the brunt of a lot of our jokes just to see his reaction. 

The transition between middle school and high school was marked by being the top dog back down to the babies of the school. I was about 98 pounds and 13 when I entered freshman year compared to some seniors that had full grown beards and were 250+ pounds. That was a little intimidating in itself let alone the increase of people overall I was surrounded by. I stuck with my close friends though and we got through the first year or two just fine. There was a transformation between middle school and high school that made me a lot more friendly and outgoing to others regardless of how odd they were. I'm not sure what exactly caused it but I just became more friendly and used in humor in a non degrading way to get people to laugh. I was much more quiet in high school because I am more reserved in places that I am new to and when I'm in the younger crowd.

People talk about cliques being quite heavy in high school and our clique definitely would have taken the role of "trouble maker stoners."

                                                               A little less like this

                                                              A little more like this

Because of my deep set eyes and slightly spacey personality I was labeled a stoner since 5th grade so I fit right into that crowd. We did party earlier than most of the kids in our grade so there was a stigma that some uppity kids would like to point out about us. Sure enough, a couple of years later those kids were doing the same thing. I knew they would catch on eventually so when they would act uptight I wasn't too phased. Around Junior year in high school was when I got a lot more introverted and became a walking cliche of stoners. I had a black and red mohawk, pierced ears, and wore band shirts. And one of these bad boys.

This is when I felt the most secluded and got a feel for what it's like on the other side of the group. I had made a few mistakes with my close friends, one in particular caused a huge mess of things which I still wish did not play out how it did. It was a valuable lesson in how, given the right situation and events, people may do things that you did not expect they would ever do. It makes me think of the classic "I could never kill someone" but I bet if you were starving or your life depended on it you would! That's a pretty extreme example but I think you get where I'm going with it. I view our personalities and morals fairly malleable to our environment and situations we are subjected to. 

As I was trying to find a particular incident in my life that made me change the way I was I came to the conclusion that it was a long series of events and situations that helped me become much more understanding of how human nature works. I have taken an approach on our emotions and behaviors from an outside-looking-in perspective which helps me grasp situations and people logically rather than let my emotions dictate my decisions. For some it may seem like an empty way to look at life but it hasn't made me any less fascinated with the life experience. If anything it has expanded my interest in it and it definitely helps with the intense roller coaster that occurs when you let narrow mindedness and emotions take over. Playing devil's advocate with myself concerning things I hold an opinion on or when I'm trying to understand other's actions or opinions has really helped me develop a tolerance for difference. A powerful quote from Gilbert K. Chesterton grabbed my attention "Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions." So I guess what changed was my whole outlook on life. I used to dislike people that went against the norm and had weird quirks but now it's something that I seek. Everyone has them but some people are just too concerned with revealing themselves in fear of being judged by their peers. I feel like our current attitude in this culture and the rise of the internet and cell phone are playing a major role in our social disconnect and anxiety, but I digress.

      Deep down inside I know I can still be a critical individual (and quite argumentative) so when I say I've changed I mean it has become more of a shift of what I'm critical about and how I go about the whole endeavor. Using humor and light tones have really helped ease off the intensity of my insults when they come up and I typically give people grief for things that would benefit them to work on. But I'm not the final judge on how they can improve their life. I just like to impose on what I think would be best from time to time, but that's just human nature so there's my scapegoat. While I have developed much more socially acceptable means to deal with my personality, I still have two arch enemies that can bring it out from time to time, hunger and alcohol.

                                          Nothing better than choking down some gasolin                                                           I forget who quoted this but it was some famous guy saying "There's a point where liquid courage becomes liquid stupid." I can comfortably say I have crossed that threshold more times than I care to count. The large amount of people you meet on this campus coupled with their BAC and yours can be quite the volatile mix. Especially being a guy. I have been witness to some ridiculous fights and name calling that was completely unnecessary. But I go into my drunk escapades with a little voice in the back of my head making sure if I do get too drunk, I'll be more passive if a guy decides to insult my mother and question my sexual 

orientation. As I said before though, I'm a firm believer in experience shaping me and all those struggles and
uncertainties will help me become a wise old man. I would like to end on this quote that sums up what I'm aiming for, "Acceptance and tolerance and forgiveness, those are life-altering lessons."

 Citations

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/jessica_lange.html, 2001-2012

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/g/gilbert_k_chesterton.html 2001-2012