Reply to S/O Why can’t moms just chill and be nice?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I’m always dubious when an adult claims they’ve been bullied by another adult. I’m sure it happens on rare occasions, but I tend to think the person claiming to have been bullied is just upset they haven’t been made to feel welcome by a social group. 
The meaning of the word bully has been totally watered down as well as become shorthand for “not included”.[/quote]

Let me help, because I think you just don't know what bullying is.

Bullying requires engagement. If someone just isn't inclusive of you or doesn't want to be your friend, that's not bullying. That's a person expressing a social preference. It can hurt, and it can even be done in a hurtful way, but it's not bullying. It's just rejection.

Bullies engage and use that engagement to harm. Usually bullies befriend (in order to learn about you and collect info) and THEN reject. This happened to me in a workplace once. When I started, these women were *so* friendly -- they'd invite me to lunch or to parties at their homes, they'd swing by my office to chat, etc. But then they started gossiping about me, using things I'd shared with them (not secrets but just details about my life that they only knew because they'd gone out of their way to befriend me) to talk a bunch of s**t about me. They continued to act friendly to my face and never said anything to indicate to me that they had an issue with me. So I heard about everything second hand from other colleagues. They stopped inviting me to things but then would discuss these events during work meetings or in the hallway outside my office so that I knew I hadn't been invited. They had this way of looking at me and then at each other -- they had clearly decided I wasn't good enough for them and were enjoying how their shared dislike of me made them more of a unit. I think they also liked the feeling of power that came from judging me and finding me wanting. It was affirming for them.

They could have just... not befriended me. I watched them do this with another woman who joined the office after me -- they'd come on really strong and adopt the new person and then turn on her. There was also someone else who joined and they befriended her but didn't turn on her. I guess they decided she was one of them. But this is not just social rejection. It is aggressive behavior and I don't know how to describe it other than to call it bullying. It's the adult version of Mean Girls, the same weird social aggression masked as friendship. It definitely happens.[/quote]

You sound paranoid. I don't think people are thinking about you as much as you think they are. You are weaving quite a story there in your own mind about the motivations and thoughts and invisible actions of others. Not PP[/quote]

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