Poll of the Day > Why don't most 'nerds' lift so they stop being bullied?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I want to high School in the late 90's when geek and nerd culture was much less accepted than today... both sides of my family have been in bodybuilding for decades and since I always enjoyed anime, games, sci fi, comics and all that stuff I used to hang out whit the nerds more.
I felt like a Shepard dog all the time having to beat up the bullies who messed up whit my friends.

I just watcher a documentary about bullied kids who became shooters...but wy don't they simpli lift so they don't get bullied anymore
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Because you touch yourself at night
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Can't tell if all those typos are intended or not...
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It always seemed to me like kids got bullied more for being weird than being physically weak. All the lifting in the world isn't gonna make someone's weird personality quirks go away. Sure maybe they would be stronger but usually people who get bullied aren't the fighting type

OhhhJa posted...

Sure maybe they would be stronger but usually people who get bullied aren't the fighting type

That's what the steroids are for.
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Unfortunately such approach isn't gonna stop the bullying, it'll simply encourage the bully to find another weaker person. It is a bandage treatment at most.

OhhhJa posted...

t always seemed to me like kids got bullied more for being weird than being physically weak.

And then there's this. I was teased a little bit for my stuttering. Having muscles will only act as a deterrent.
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Because you can't play video games and lift at the same time
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Why don't you learn to spell so you don't look like an r tard

Muffinz0rz posted...

Because you can't play video games and lift at the same time

But I can play video games while pedaling on my exercise bike.

Biking and running don't exactly get you jacked though...
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OhhhJa posted...

It always seemed to me like kids got bullied more for being weird than being physically weak. All the lifting in the world isn't gonna make someone's weird personality quirks go away. Sure maybe they would be stronger but usually people who get bullied aren't the fighting type

I agree with this. Its going to change the nature of who and why they target someone. Add that relations between friends can be playfully antagonistic. Some people just can't handle that and think someone is always out to get them.

Why don't most 'bullies' just stop being bullies?
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Lifting is hard
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rexcrk posted...

Can't tell if all those typos are intended or not...

He just remakes the same topics with the same typos over and over. The dedication is almost admirable if it didn't make me worry he might be handicapped.

Metal_Gear_Link posted...

I want to high School in the late 90's when geek and nerd culture was much less accepted than today... both sides of my family have been in bodybuilding for decades and since I always enjoyed anime, games, sci fi, comics and all that stuff I used to hang out whit the nerds more.
I felt like a Shepard dog all the time having to beat up the bullies who messed up whit my friends.

I just watcher a documentary about bullied kids who became shooters...but wy don't they simpli lift so they don't get bullied anymore

sometimes you can't fight back, what if you have practically no friends but the bully has lots of friends, you're gonna beat him up and fight all his friends too? Can you show your face at that school again? It's not always as simple as beating the guy up

We were required to take a Physical Education course in my High School so I would always do the top tier Strength and Conditioning right after my IT classes lol, nobody messed with me.

It's weird to when the average nerd gets beat up really bad he doesn't start lifting like one should..... he does like years of karate for a belt....I'd rather have sick muscles with half the work required.

Metal_Gear_Link posted...

Why don't most 'nerds' lift so they stop being bullied?

Being bulked up doesn't stop you being bullied or victimised.

jsb0714 posted...

Why don't most 'bullies' just stop being bullies?

Indeed. I notice a lot of these bullies are unhappy with their own life so must make others feel miserable. I don't feel sympathy for them though as rather than bully other people they could make friends with these people and that way both peoples lives are more enjoyable.
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- Being buff won't help when the "bully" is a group of "bullies" plural. Bullies are inherently cowards, in my experience most of them were in some sort of clique together, and even against someone clearly physically weaker, they'll always try to maintain strength in numbers. Because they're cowards.

- It takes years to really get strong from lifting and it's a lot of dedication and work. Arguably, changing your behavior and diverting your free time so much just to deal with the bully is "letting the terrorists win."

- Being strong is completely separate from knowing how to fight. Even if you are noticeably stronger than a bully enough to overpower him, if he's been in fights and you haven't, you're at a disadvantage.

- The best edge a bullying victim has is surprise. You look weak and easy pickings, the bully doesn't expect you to be able to lay him out cold. Learning how to throw a good punch and maintaining a thin frame probably gives you a better edge than bulking up ever would.

When I was fed up w/ being bullied, I worked out to gain enough muscle for a strike to hurt, but did not want to gain visually obvious muscle mass to maintain the edge of surprise. And also because my image of myself was never to be muscle-y, and I wasn't going to let a bunch of assholes redefine who I am.
When a bully did pick a fight with me after this, he didn't even react to me swinging at him, it happened so fast and was so unexpected. It throttled him back, then I grabbed him and threw him into a locker and was about to beat the shit out of him but a teacher broke it up. Afterwards, he seemed to be quite afraid of me. :)
I'll take surprise over showing off any day.

I can think of a couple of reasons.

1) Physical size has nothing to do with whether or not you will be bullied. The most vicious bullies I can think of throughout my youth were all either fat or shrimpy little guys; I can only think of one who was taller than me (and I'm only slightly taller than average) and I can't think of any who were both big and fit. Hell, I think that was probably part of why they were bullies - they were insecure about their body type.

2) Depending on how kind puberty is to you, lifting may not help you that much in your early teenage years. Until your body starts releasing growth hormones in sufficient levels to actually get you to start putting on muscle mass, you are going to have a tough time building up much in the way of bulk and strength. Everyone gets there eventually, but if that doesn't happen until you're 16 or 17, you're going to be 90% of the way through school before you see any difference.

3) Being strong is not the same as being able to fight and neither will afford you guaranteed protection from bullies. I'm a martial artist, have been since I was six years old, and I was training four times a week for most of my school years. I am 100% certain that if push came to shove I could have handily handed any of my schoolyard bullies their ass on a platter. But push never did come to shove - they never started anything physical with me and I didn't with them, which leads me nicely to...

4) Fighting will be much more of a problem for you than them, even if you win. In my experience, most bullies are shitty students who get bad grades. These are not university-bound future doctors and engineers; high school is probably as much education as they're going to get, if they even manage to get that far. So any risk of disciplinary problems doesn't really faze them. If they get suspended for fighting, who cares? To them, it's a three day vacation. But if you're someone who actually does have aspirations for a decent career post-high school, even a single suspension on your record can be hugely damaging to your post-secondary prospects. And if you do get into a fight, you better hope they threw the first punch (and even that might not be enough to get you out of a suspension) because if you're the one who made things physical, the hammer's falling on you.
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Good post.
darkknight109 posted...

4) Fighting will be much more of a problem for you than them, even if you win. In my experience, most bullies are shitty students who get bad grades. These are not university-bound future doctors and engineers; high school is probably as much education as they're going to get, if they even manage to get that far. So any risk of disciplinary problems doesn't really faze them. If they get suspended for fighting, who cares? To them, it's a three day vacation. But if you're someone who actually does have aspirations for a decent career post-high school, even a single suspension on your record can be hugely damaging to your post-secondary prospects. And if you do get into a fight, you better hope they threw the first punch (and even that might not be enough to get you out of a suspension) because if you're the one who made things physical, the hammer's falling on you.

Only part I have some issues with. I agree you shouldn't *try* to get into a fight. And the risk of discipline is not fair at all when you're a high achiever and they're a future drug dealer. When I fought back against the bully that asaulted me, I was terrified immediately after that I had adversely affected my graduation (luckily my school was rational and filed it as self-defense on my part). However...

If they are attacking you, you need to be able to defend yourself. It's the only thing I've ever found that makes them stop bullying someone; you don't want nor should you have to endure physical injury just to "work within the system"; and I've known multiple cases where merely being involved in a fight has gotten kids suspended. Even one poor guy who did nothing but cover up while the bully beat him up. Still got suspended for "fighting"! If it's gotten physical, you may as well just go for it and defend yourself, the admin system is not going to help you.

Really, if you were defending yourself and have a clean record, it's very unlikely the school is going to "drop the hammer on you" in any way that has long-term impact. If they do anyway, they're so unreasonable that you were probably screwed the moment the bully attacked you anyway and you have nothing to lose.
Never throw the first punch, but don't be afraid to fight back. (and don't think you have to "tank" that first punch just to have the legal clearance to fight back; by all means block or avoid it if you can)

streamofthesky posted...

If they are attacking you, you need to be able to defend yourself. It's the only thing I've ever found that makes them stop bullying someone; you don't want nor should you have to endure physical injury just to "work within the system"; and I've known multiple cases where merely being involved in a fight has gotten kids suspended. Even one poor guy who did nothing but cover up while the bully beat him up. Still got suspended for "fighting"! If it's gotten physical, you may as well just go for it and defend yourself, the admin system is not going to help you.

Really, if you were defending yourself and have a clean record, it's very unlikely the school is going to "drop the hammer on you" in any way that has long-term impact. If they do anyway, they're so unreasonable that you were probably screwed the moment the bully attacked you anyway and you have nothing to lose.
Never throw the first punch, but don't be afraid to fight back. (and don't think you have to "tank" that first punch just to have the legal clearance to fight back; by all means block or avoid it if you can)

I don't disagree that you "should" have the right to defend yourself, but as soon as you fight back you're basically trusting that the school has a sensible administration, which is something of a crapshoot. You might find yourself in front of a levelheaded principal who recognizes that you're not the problem, or you might find yourself in front of a bookkeeper who is strung up by a poorly worded "Zero Tolerance Policy" and doesn't feel like putting in the effort to fight for one student who got in a scrap.

If you have no way out, yes, fight back. But if you can, run - and your next stop should be a teacher.
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Now I see why yourDaddie/MetalGear keeps making these topics.

Nerds are "smart", and there's a lot of deluded and deeply arrogant "smart" kids who resent, and want to deny that their big ole' brains aren't enough sometimes. If you start thinking of nerds (or many people in our victim culture) as having the Scrub mentality, it all makes more sense: nerds don't want to play the metagame.

And that's why they don't lift (among many other solutions). They don't think they should have to, and at a very superficial level they're right, and because they're smart, they'll come up with (superficially) convincing arguments why they shouldn't have to. You're seeing some of them in this thread.
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darkknight109 posted...

I don't disagree that you "should" have the right to defend yourself, but as soon as you fight back you're basically trusting that the school has a sensible administration, which is something of a crapshoot. You might find yourself in front of a levelheaded principal who recognizes that you're not the problem, or you might find yourself in front of a bookkeeper who is strung up by a poorly worded "Zero Tolerance Policy" and doesn't feel like putting in the effort to fight for one student who got in a scrap.

If you have no way out, yes, fight back. But if you can, run - and your next stop should be a teacher.

Here's the thing, though. If your reaction to the bully trying to fight you / beat you up is to run away, you just made the rest of your time in school much MUCH worse. Now you look even more afraid and weak than before, and bullies love to prey on apparent weakness. Heck, you may have just attracted some more bullies to you.
And that same worthless school administration that would punish you for defending yourself? I really hope you don't expect them to help you with your newfound "popularity."

If you don't think you can win the fight (or you "can't win" b/c the bullies friends are around and will jump in if you do get the upper hand), try to run away. That should be the only judgement that matters for fight or flight. It took me nearly all of my pre-college school years to learn to stop giving a shit about getting in trouble for fighting back, and when I finally rid myself of that delusion, it was like a great weight had been lifted off of my shoulders.

Topic title does not work. You still get bullied. Your physical strength doesnt matter. A bully bullies because he know you wont fight back. So you have to change your personality to not get bulled
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streamofthesky posted...

Here's the thing, though. If your reaction to the bully trying to fight you / beat you up is to run away, you just made the rest of your time in school much MUCH worse.

Well, again, a lot of this depends on circumstance. That said, if you're really involved in a serious fist fight and your options are "fight" or "run", I'd still advocate run. Both are shitty options that will probably lead to shitty outcomes, but "run" has less of a chance of screwing you over for the long run.

And if you take it to the school administration and they do nothing, fight the next time it happens and point out that the previous time you attempted a peaceful resolution they failed to support you.

streamofthesky posted...

It took me nearly all of my pre-college school years to learn to stop giving a shit about getting in trouble for fighting back, and when I finally rid myself of that delusion, it was like a great weight had been lifted off of my shoulders.

You had a very different school admin than I did, then.
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You can't make a lion out of a lamb. All that'd happen is a false sense of confidence followed by a beating.
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