
Why I won't be at my high school reunion - saurabh
http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2009/07/very_off_topic_why_i_wont_be_a.php
======
sofal
He puts way too much faith in karate to help his kids learn how to fight back.
Karate does not teach you that.

I was in karate for years as a kid and got a black belt. I took karate for the
same reasons he's putting his kids through it. I was tired of being picked on
and I wanted to make myself more intimidating. It did not work. You do not
learn how to fight in karate. You learn how to perform choreographed moves and
routines (like katas and lots of shorter ones that we called 'techniques') and
you kick and punch a lot of pads. Sparring is more like a game than a real
fight, where you get points by making contact at the right places. Karate
gives you good exercise (which is why it can be great for some people), but I
did not get out of it what I wanted. I never learned how to fight simply
because we never did any real fighting. I had a black belt, yet when it came
down to it and someone was physically threatening me, the silly routines that
worked against invisible attackers in karate did not work in real life. If you
want your kids to learn how to fight and defend themselves, take them to a
place where they actually have the kids fight each other. There are no
shortcuts.

The self-esteem boost that I desperately wanted from karate I was finally able
to get in high school by becoming really good at percussion. People finally
started respecting me for what I could do. Drumline was where I belonged.

~~~
scott_s
Disciplines which place an emphasis on live sparring make an enormous
difference. See boxing, Muay-Thai, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and the emerging
amalgamation of various sparring disciplines, Mixed Martial Arts.

~~~
sofal
Absolutely agree. I would also add wrestling. Any kid who did wrestling easily
had me on the ground screaming before I could get any fancy blocks, punches,
or kicks out (it is always a bad idea to try to kick a good wrestler).
Basically, any discipline which involves you having to physically overpower
another human being will make a difference if you stick with it.

~~~
scott_s
You're right, I should have included wrestling. Some of the habits wrestling
instills don't work in a fight (like going to your stomach instead of your
back), but overall it's an enormous advantage. The speed at which a good
wrestler learns BJJ or MMA is startling.

~~~
Locke1689
Hint: if you're doing BJJ and you go against a wrestler (a number of guys here
are former wrestlers) start on the ground. You basically will not get the take
down. On the other hand, once both of you are on the ground, its a fair fight
;)

~~~
scott_s
I've rolled with many wrestlers - including Division I wrestlers and those who
were competitive at the state level. In my experience, their advantages are
mental toughness, grappling strength and a relentless top game.

~~~
Locke1689
Well, yeah. I wasn't really talking about that level. I'm just an amateur :)

------
strlen
I am appalled at some of the responses telling the author to "get over it". If
it were the case of the kids not inviting him to the prom or verbally mocking
him, it would be _one_ thing.

But having a swastika a swastika painted with _gasoline_ on his _lawn_ and
having their _fingers broken_?

I'd say in _vast majority_ of this country, if someone (particularly Jewish,
or as in the authors' case mixed-race) saw somebody lighting their property on
fire in shape of an unmistakable hate symbol and reached for the family
heirloom M1 Garand (that their grandfather used against other fans of this
particular "symbol"), that would the _very example_ of a "justifiable
homicide"/"castle doctrine".

If someone had their fingers broken by a stranger on the street, the
stranger-- if caught and identified-- would face assault charges.

Why is that what would be unambiguously a felony crime when done in the
street, treated as something that should be "forgiven" when it's done in a
high school environment?

Yes, many of the bullies came from abusive families and suffered many
psychological issues themselves. However, I doubt this excuse would work in
court on trial for an arson charge with a hate crime enhancement --or in an
assault case. These people should be in _prison_ , where they themselves may
themselves find out what it's like to be weaker/smaller/less "street smart"
than _somebody else_.

~~~
jacquesm
Every bully is in charge of their own body, they make choices every time they
go for someone that's weaker (or they will use a couple of buddies if they're
real cowards).

Abusive families do not come in to play as an excuse.

~~~
strlen
Right, as I've stated-- this is _not an excuse_. There may be explanations for
bullying, but when one commits a transgression that _has a victim_ there are
real consequence (e.g. the example I gave of those excuses not standing up in
court). I'm in full agreement.

~~~
jacquesm
What is really sad here is that your average not-so-strong kid doesn't stand a
chance in a regular school. There is hardly any oversight that will give all
the kids the feeling that they are safe in school.

My son is 15 and is going through a very hard time in school.

~~~
strlen
Where do you live? Have you considered a private school or (if you're in the
United States) home schooling?

Some public school districts also offer the ability to take the last two years
at a local community college: this option would also be _great_ in terms of
preparation for going on to a university.

Here's a program many of my friends attended (and have ended up earning their
Bachelors degrees at universities like Berkeley and UCLA):

<http://www.fuhsd.org/MIDDLEcollege>

Perhaps your high school district offers something like this, or could create
a similar ad-hoc arrangement?

------
wallflower
I went to my 10-yr high school reunion. I had conversations with former jocks,
geeks (the smartest guy IQ of 164 was now working for the government), some of
the prettiest girls, others. Talked about their life now. It didn't really
matter what we were in high school. The biggest surprise was a geeky girl I
had known was now beautiful and helping produce records. Some of the jocks
were very successful salesmen. Other than that, it was oddly reassuring to
revisit old paths once tread. It was nice to talk to people at the reunion who
I pretty much never talked to in high school.

It's not like we all became friends and traded numbers. In fact, we
sarcastically said 'See you at the next one'.

We all grow up and change. And sometimes we don't but high school as someone
wiser than me once said - high school is a geographic coincidence. Not because
you want to be there.

~~~
ilitirit
> The biggest surprise was a geeky girl I had known was now beautiful

Is ugliness a prerequisite for admission into geekhood?

~~~
Alex3917
I think so. It wasn't always, but geekiness has gotten ridiculously
commercialized. In the early 70s geekiness may have been more authentic, but
now it's more about companies convincing homely looking girls and guys with
BMIs below 20 or over 27 to buy Star Wars t-shirts and WoW subscriptions.
Basically geekiness today is about buying products designed to make you feel
smart, even if you're not.

~~~
troels
That's a disturbing idea.

~~~
jacquesm
That's just marketing, I believe Bill Hicks has some good advice for people in
that profession.

~~~
Alex3917
And Bill Hicks was wrong. Saying you hate people who make their living
marketing is like saying you hate people who make their living using
telephones.

Marketing is basically what separates humans from animals. It's the reason why
we have language. Think about it, why do we have a word 'fire' that represents
some underlying idea? It's to make that underlying idea possible to talk about
with others; in other words the reason we have language is so we can market
ideas.

Furthermore, all of the world's most intractable problems are basically
marketing problems. For global warming, world hunger, malaria, water
shortages, fisheries depletion, etc., we already have the solutions. It's just
a matter of getting really talented marketers to create buy-in from others.
Marketers are the heroes of the future, and without marketing we all die, just
like the Easter Islanders or the Mayans.

~~~
scott_s
Marketing is fundamentally different from the normal exchange of ideas. Using
language to explain to your fellow tribesmen where the herd you're tracking is
located is not "marketing."

~~~
Alex3917
Markets are conversations. Conversations are marketing.

How is trying to sell your friends on where to hunt different from trying to
sell them on a new pair of sneakers?

~~~
jacquesm
One of the more annoying traits of marketing is that it gives new meanings to
words that already have a perfectly good and accepted meaning.

Your example of the word 'sell' is one of those.

It takes the word and stretches it to a plausible but wrong new meaning.
You're putting it somewhere between 'convince' and 'argue' whereas to sell
means to exchange some item in return for some currency.

~~~
Alex3917
"One of the more annoying traits of marketing is that it gives new meanings to
words that already have a perfectly good and accepted meaning. Sell means to
exchange some item in return for some currency."

According to merriam-websters: "sell: to persuade or influence to a course of
action or to the acceptance of something <sell children on reading>"

~~~
scott_s
When I did the same thing with "marketing," it was clear to me you were
abusing the term. You tried to redefine all human communication as marketing,
which strips the word of its intended meaning.

------
mburney
Bullying seems to be the only form of cruel violence in which the victims are
told to "forgive and forget" and stop being "whiny." Would the same "get over
it" sentiment exist if this article was about having been sexually assaulted
by high school teachers?

Either way, the writer is committing the usual geek-fallacy in his plans for
his son -- the hacker notion that a person can just learn a few skills to
solve a problem.

The idea that learning karate in childhood will equip a person to beat up
bullies in high school is ridiculous. The only way his son could use martial
arts as legitimate self defense would be to train for hours a day in a tough
mixed martial arts or street fighting gym right up until (and past) his teens.
But then, wait a minute -- kids who do that are rarely considered geeks.
They're called jocks.

~~~
run4yourlives
Please don't compare standard bullying to sexual assault. The two experiences
are not comparable.

That being said, often the best thing for a person to do is to "forgive and
forget", since letting go of anger is the only way to properly conquer it.
Even families of murder victims move on after 25 years. As a human, you have
to.

Agreed about the Martial Arts though.

~~~
tjic
> Please don't compare standard bullying to sexual assault. The two
> experiences are not comparable.

They're not the same, but, yes, they're comparable.

~~~
run4yourlives
Only if you equate bullying to be only its most extreme forms.

~~~
jfarmer
Breaking someone's fingers for the hell of it sounds pretty extreme to me.

------
edw519
Wow, this was me. 5'1" in 9th grade, 5'10" in 11th grade, 120 lbs., total geek
into math, science, and I even published my own magazine. If I complained
about the bullying, I was called a whiner, even by my own family. (Either my
father didn't care, or he was smart enough to know that I better figure out
how to toughen up. I hope it was the latter.)

But that's where the similarities end. Even though I was socially ackward (and
still am a little), I got an after school job and made friends. Good enough
(and tough enough) friends that nobody fucked with me any more. I went to
college, learned to program, and built a career and life.

Now I go to _every_ reunion and have a ball. I've finally reached the point in
my life where I really don't care what others think (for the most part). If I
did, then I'd still be a victim of virtual bullying.

Last reunion, I was drinking and laughing and acting geeky when the captain of
the basketball team came over and told me to shut up. I told him that he may
have been hot shit 20 years ago, but he wasn't anymore and should just go
away. I was surprised how good that felt.

I sympathize with OP and understand his reasoning. I'm glad I ended up going
down a different path, although I don't really know why. I hope he finds a way
to release the hurt and anger and move on. I know that I have.

~~~
bootload
_"... I sympathize with OP and understand his reasoning. I'm glad I ended up
going down a different path, although I don't really know why. I hope he finds
a way to release the hurt and anger and move on. I know that I have. ..."_

Hey ed, I haven't been back to hackernews for a while but I want to chime in
on this topic.

Each person is going to respond in a different way. Also reading the article
Mark has had a pretty rough time. Physical injury is one thing, psychological
injury by people you know is worse. The dilemma is caused because the fact the
person being abused (bullied, call it what you like) knows the attacker and
has no control over the situation. There is no use trying to explain this to
people who have not been in a similar situation.

As for me I entered school at 5'8", okay at sports and took the math/sci
stream, same ineptness as most. I had a foot in 2 camps: sports & science. I
think I managed to slip under the radar till the last couple of years. But
unlike the experiences I've read here most have the crap for me didn't begin
till the last couple of years at HS. The last year especially. A year
bookmarked by tragic circumstances on top of all the crap in-between. I still
don't know why people I'd known for years gave me the crap they did? I brushed
it off at the time only wondering later why? But it wasn't all bad. I actually
had someone come up to me late in the year telling me they'd _under-rated_ me.
Gee I wasn't as if I was a different person before I organised the emvac. Then
there was the school leaders more worried about publicity and their hides than
students welfare. Yeah I learnt a lot more than I bargained for that year.

So while I've graduated, moved on and had a good run since, I sure as hell
make sure I pick my friends carefully and assert myself online. I don't take
any crap. And as for attending HS reunions, No.

Besides the school has been torn down ~
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/sets/72157620934091013...](http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/sets/72157620934091013/)

------
noonespecial
The best revenge, as always, is to live well.

All of his "friends" will gather at a fake party and try to convince each
other that their "careers" are huge successes. Kind of like what would really
happen if you were to say, get a PhD and a sweet job at Google.

The rise of nerd culture has brought us the delightful spectacle of a thousand
tiny Shawshank redemptions. See you in Mexico.

~~~
jonknee
Please. Many of the people he went to highschool have great careers and will
actually enjoy the reunion. They've moved on, he's still holding onto anger
from the 1980s. That's not revenge, it's just sad.

~~~
noonespecial
_They've moved on, he's still holding onto anger from the 1980s._

From my purely biased perspective to be sure: Of course they've moved on. They
had very little to more on from. The inflicted pain was purely asymmetrical.
Tormenting him was just part of their day, like riding the bus, at worst or
just the background noise of highschool at best.

It would be nice for them if he participated in their reunion to aid the
perception that they were all just kids being kids, each playing their part,
and now that we're all grown, no hard feelings, right?

King's to you, Fernand.

~~~
biohacker42
_Of course they've moved on. They had very little to more on from_

All of them? Do you think he was the only one bullied? Do you think only
bullied kids grow to succeed? Do you think all bullied kids hold on to their
anger as adults?

------
pegobry
I understand how this guy feels, and I've been there. Clearly, his emotions
are still very raw from this. But I can't say I agree with his reaction.

I was in his shoes in high school, and now, I've been to the top school in the
country, work at a cool web 2.0 startup and, most importantly, am engaged to
the most wonderful woman I could possibly imagine. I am, quite literally,
living my childhood dream, and I'm incredibly lucky.

So today, these f-ckers mean nothing to me. I don't feel the rawness that the
author evidently still feels.

A year ago I ran into one of the a-holes from my high school days. Not the
worst, but a bad one. And you know what? He apologized. It turns out he's a
decent guy now, and I had a lot of fun hanging out with him. Is he going to be
the best man at my wedding? Hell no. But am I glad I ran into him that day?
Yes.

So I would go. Partly to have some closure. Partly out of curiosity. But
mostly because I'm a relentless optimist. We've all done incredibly stupid
things as teenagers, and people can change. I'm sure there'd be at least one
person I'd be happy I'd met.

And if not, it'd still be fun to rub their faces in my success. ;)

~~~
joetrumpet
I don't quite understand what he has to gain from going, nor why your language
shows you have moved past it more than he has. If he wasn't friends with
anyone in high school, what's the difference between going there and going to
some other event and meeting people? Some of them might be nice, and so might
some other people he could meet--people nearby that he might actually stay in
contact with. It just sounds like a waste of money to me. I don't think he's
holding onto anything: I think his point is 25 years after being abused people
who didn't apologize are pretending nothing happened, and asking him to spend
a decent amount of time and money on reminiscing. What's the point?

------
run4yourlives
I find this, and comments in the thread here extremely depressing, for a few
reasons.

First, it's sad how evil kids can be. Clearly Lord of the Flies isn't a
apocalyptic fantasy but a realistic description of the social order of our
youth.

That said, what I find truly disturbing is seeing bright, intelligent, logical
adults wallow in disgust and outright anger over things that were perpetrated
on them by children.

Look at your average kid from highschool. They are unfinished. They think in
ridiculous patterns and do nonsensical things. You were them once. You thought
like they did. The point here is that you are likely nothing like that person
by the time you hit 25. Neither are they.

I was never a geek outcast so perhaps I just can't relate to some of the
extreme behaviour that others have experienced. That said, I was never a "cool
kid" either, and felt all the social stigma of being the outcast. I so wanted
to be one of the cool guys with the hot chicks smoking in the parking lot.
Alas, I wasn't well off and had peculiar interests coupled with less than
stellar social skills; a bit of a late bloomer you could say.

I look back now however, at 34, and realize that it was me that survived the
teenage years without incident. I realize the pretty girls weren't all that
hot then, and certainly aren't now. I realize that spending all day skipping
class translated into not getting a job worth much. I've got a wife and 2
kids, wonderful experiences of a 1/3 of a life. What am I supposed to be mad
about?

The author is mad because people from a school he admits he had no friends at
are contacting him 25 years later! They not only remember him, but want to see
him. They remember that they were children once, but they aren't the same kids
from 25 years ago any more.

The only one that is affected at all is the author. It's time to let go, move
on, and be proud of who you are and what you've achieved. Harbouring such
resentment isn't healthy, regardless of whether it's understandable.

~~~
philwelch
"That said, what I find truly disturbing is seeing bright, intelligent,
logical adults wallow in disgust and outright anger over things that were
perpetrated on them by children."

You should try talking to people who were abused by their parents, or rape
survivors. I think having your fingers broken is closer to that than "the
social stigma of being the outcast".

"The author is mad because people from a school he admits he had no friends at
are contacting him 25 years later! They not only remember him, but want to see
him. They remember that they were children once, but they aren't the same kids
from 25 years ago any more."

It's telling that not a single one of these invitations contained an apology.

"The only one that is affected at all is the author."

Victims of abuse are usually more affected by it than perpetrators.

~~~
run4yourlives
>You should try talking to people who were abused by their parents, or rape
survivors.

Don't compare bullying to rape. They are not in the same class. That's not to
say that bullying isn't bad, just that rape is on a different level entirely.

>It's telling that not a single one of these invitations contained an apology.

Is it? True apologies are usually given in person.

>Victims of abuse are usually more affected by it than perpetrators.

Ergo, the victim is best advised to take steps to cure themselves, regardless
of what happens to the perpetrators.

He's the angry one, not me. I'm only pointing out that it is better for him if
he isn't angry. I care little about the feelings of his bullies, to be honest.

~~~
JabavuAdams
There's a huge variance to both classes of crime, and there's overlap.

The central issue in torture is the complete and utter lack of control by the
victim. That's what's truly violating. Knowing (or believing sufficiently
strongly) that there's nothing you can do to stop this outrage. This can occur
in many contexts, of which sexual assault is only one.

I would classify someone breaking another person's fingers methodically while
telling the victim that he wants to "hear the sound" as torture. There's a
level of malice and pre-meditation that's not present in a quick breaking.

I sometimes think that part of what makes rape worse for the victim is all of
our societal hang-ups and power-mongering about sex.

In part they're a throw-back to the macho idea of protecting women's purity,
and that women who have been "taken" are somehow impure. Talk about screwing
the victim twice.

Yes, rape is very bad. But, society makes it worse by telling women that it's
the _worst_ thing that can happen to them (rather, than other torture or
death, say).

------
tjic
Sounds like my middle school.

...which had much in common with another government run institution: prison.

* Violent and angry inmates.

* Unionized, apathetic officials.

* A shocking level of brutality.

* An institution run almost solely for the economic benefit of the employees.

I won't say that government never taught me anything, though.

It did teach me how to kick the ass of someone who started a fight.

~~~
sjf
It's interesting that a lot of the things kids to do each other in high
school, would if they tried them as an adult land them in prison.

------
plesn
So the debate is: what's wrong with high-schools?

Is it the kids? is it the (lack of) discipline? is it because of social
reasons?

I went to public schools in different ditricts in France, and it changes a
lot... It's not surprising that a school in a more urban and "bourgeois" place
has more emphasis on scolar success which makes it a little easier for geeky
types, but there certainly are other kinds of bullying (sometimes more on
social aspects).

Of course kids at this age are very "mimetic": they want to be in the mass and
do like popular ones, they suffer to be different. But they are building their
personnalities: maybe they not only need better models, but also better
structures to make them more mature. We're hearing about current "let-it go"
public schools or about old-style strict schools, but what about making
schools really more participatively democratic places to live in (I'm thinking
of taking some good points from experiences like SummerHill
[<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summerhill_School>]: I wonder what good/bad
lessons we can get from that)?

I'm just thinking of this two simplistic things as I read people saying things
like "lookily i was in a private school...", but school is the manufacture of
future society: we should care!

~~~
Quarrelsome
I think the problem is due to age-segregation of years, we shouldn't do that.
It encourages Lord of the Flies-esqe social structures.

~~~
reduxredacted
That's a very good point. The kids I meet from homeschool co-ops learn in
groups with age ranges.

There are twenty or so kids per co-op, yet bullying is virtually non-existant.
The other thing that happens is the ten year olds talk to the older children
and adults as though they are peers. They don't connect age with wisdom or
authority.

------
Alex3917
I had my fingers broken in high school too, because someone wanted to see what
would happen if they jumped off the bleachers and landed on my hand while I
was stretching. The school nurse wouldn't even entertain the possibility that
they were broken, so she just sent me back to class even though my fingers
were twisted and I was throwing up everywhere. So as a result my fingers are
still kind of messed up to this day, because they never got properly set.

------
dugmartin
Wow. Its been 25 years, its time to let go of that anger.

~~~
TheSOB88
Have you ever had your fingers broken by someone? Unless you're a Buddhist
monk, I think you'd be hard pressed to forgive that _and_ multiple similar
transgressions.

~~~
mrtron
Not that it is important to this thread, but I had a few broken noses during
my childhood.

I used to be fairly angry. But there came a time in my life when I was about
16 where I was happy, and it didn't really matter. Let it go and live well.

As a small side note, it troubles me seeing him push his kid so hard into
Karate. It is still influencing his decisions and impacting his child's life
now too. (not that Karate is bad, but the reasons are)

~~~
jacquesm
Karate teaches a lot more than self defense, it also teaches self control and
a whole bunch of social skills.

Chances are that his son is _less_ likely to get into a fight because of going
to karate classes than he would have otherwise been.

~~~
sangaya
I'll second this. I studied karate as a child and it is one of my most
cherished memories. In addition to the concepts of self defense and self
control, it teaches respect. Respect for yourself and respect for others. I
believe respect to be one thing most people in our current society are
lacking.

------
oz
When I was in grade 4 (Jamaica) some kids picked on me. I remember going home
and making some concrete balls, about the size of a large grapefruit each. I
put four in my bag and went to school the next day. I don't remember why I
didn't harm anybody.

Similarly, in grade 10, a 'jock' slapped me across the face, sending my
glasses careening. It was after school, so I went home and made me a little
circuit: a transformer rigged to step up the voltage, connected to a small
battery, with two needles on the end, all assembled on a piece of board. I
fully intended to kill the motherfucker. But cooler heads prevailed, and I
didn't return to school with my little apparatus.

Unfortunately, I took all of that anger out on my little brother.

Reading this sure brought back a lot of memories. I remember the first time I
read PGs "Why Nerds are Unpopular Essay." To say it was like divine revelation
would be an understatement.

Now, at 22, 6'1" and getting built. I would happily beat the fuck out of
anyone who 'violated', as we say in Jamaica. Enough with that 'violence solves
nothing' bullshit. Violence is what stopped WWII.

It's easy for some to say he should get over it, but I understand where he's
coming from. And I didn't have it as half as bad as he did.

~~~
TheSOB88
"Violated," eh? What does that mean, exactly? If it's someone starting a
fight, sure, beat 'em up. But you seem a bit overenthusiastic to beat the shit
out of people. You may want to take a look at calming down; you might do the
exact same thing you did to your brother again, to someone else.

------
tdavis
I don't see why anybody would go to a high school reunion. I've only been out
of high school for six or seven years and I can't remember a single person
from those four years, unless I stayed friends with them afterwards. The
entire experience strikes me as an errand, and not even one that provides me
with groceries.

------
ChaitanyaSai
Ouch. Reading about such traumatic experiences makes me wonder if this is more
common in US schools (especially public schools; don't know if the author was
at one). Growing up geeky in India didn't have any such downsides, but that
might have been peculiar to the small school went to,but I don't think it
fully explains it. Developing nations with a favorable regard for the sciences
and engineering seem to inculcate a favorable outlook towards geekiness. How
is it for people who grew up elsewhere?

The early and constant negative emotional feedback definitely shape one's view
of people and nature, skewing it because of sampling (Most kids do grow up
into reasonable adults, eventually, one hopes).

I also wonder if the massive popularity of organized school sports is a
factor. Providing developing adolescents with a single hierarchy to place
everyone on seems misguided. The world is more multi-faceted with a place for
everyone, but that sort of a thing may be hard to impart in the limited
aquarium that is school.

------
jacquesm
Wow, that could be me... I've also not gone to my highschool reunion, and my
answer to the request was pretty much the same.

Funny thing though, I did help the people setting it up in tracking down all
the other kids from the class, I still remembered each and every one of them,
and where they had lived.

But I didn't feel like going there myself, too many (very) bad memories about
that period.

~~~
abstractbill
Is this kind of recall common? I ask because I also had a not-fun time at high
school, but I remember _very_ little about it. Names get mentioned -
especially on Facebook - of people who I apparently went to school with (and
it was a small school), but I remember pretty much nothing about the people. I
also have only vague memories of the school itself.

Sorry for veering off-topic, but I've been wondering about my memory lately,
and just how much worse it is than the average.

~~~
jacquesm
I find that memory is strange, not 'bad' or 'good'. In general it will
remember stuff for a while unless you concentrate hard. Bad stuff might get
'forgotten' a little quicker than good stuff, or the reverse.

Stuff that you _really_ want to remember sometimes gets lost for no apparent
reason.

I used to be able to remember just about everything that I wanted but lately
(now almost 45) that is getting noticeably harder.

Traumatic stuff is in a class of its own. Some people will never be able to
get away from it, others have it suppressed to the point where it might as
well not have happened.

~~~
anonthistime
Have to be anonymous for this as it is a little too personal for comfort.

My earliest memories are from probably extremely traumatic situations: Finding
my mother's boyfriend dead from a heroin overdose in his bed (both were
addicts) and watching an ambulance crew carry him out. Eating raw pasta when
our mother had left us alone in the house for days. Being taken from our house
by social workers (I remember parts of the drive from there in vivid detail).
I was four or five at that time.

The funny thing is I don't remember how I felt at the time, but the scenes are
etched in my memory.

Oh well, make of it what you want, it just came back to me when reading your
post :)

~~~
run4yourlives
My only response to you would be that you should take immense pride in the
fact that you beat the odds. (Just by posting here I'm sure you have)

You've faced a challenge in life that would destroy most people, and you
overcame it. I can only wish that I have the same determination as you.

~~~
anonthistime
Thanks, seriously. I don't know that I am extraordinarily resilient or if the
circumstances just sound worse to an outsider than they really were. In either
case I don't have to think too hard to come up with somebody who has it worse
than me, which is always a sobering thought.

------
9oliYQjP
I was a fat geek when I started high school. It was an all male school at
that. I wouldn't say I was terribly pushed around, but at the start, I was
easy prey for bullying. Towards the end of grade 10, I'd had enough. I used
some of my savings to buy a $200 weight bench. I worked out 5 times a week. I
started eating healthy.

Nobody really noticed my transformation toward the end of grade 10. They
probably should have as I usually had to walk the whole damn warm-up run in
gym class, and now I was actually finishing it in the middle of the pack.

But between June and August during summer break I made huge progress. I timed
my transformation with a growth spurt and now I was a lean, well built geek. I
distinctly remember the first week of grade 11 because it was the most
peculiar experience of my life. Guys who were literally in gangs and who
bullied the shit out of me came up to me with looks of shock and started being
my friend. It was as if I _was_ a friend to them before, at least in hindsight
in their eyes. Teachers even stopped me in the hall and congratulated me.

And girls... I hadn't caught the eye of any girl until I was 17 and then boom,
I had girls coming up to me and asking for my phone number. Since I had no
experience with girls, I didn't know how the hell to respond. A part of me
felt they were playing a practical joke on me. So I'd let them give me their
number and I'd never call. This would drive them nuts but they seemed to enjoy
the chase. I was still a geek, but any girl that dated me didn't have to know
that at first because they wouldn't be able to attend my school.

I ended up dating my high school sweetheart who was a really popular and
gorgeous girl in another school. She was really mischievous and always getting
into trouble. When her principal found out that she had a boyfriend, he
decided to investigate to see if this boyfriend was causing her behaviour
problems (let's just say she was an artist in a math/science oriented school).
He tracked down who I was, phoned my principal who never heard of me and had
to get out my file. I would have loved to hear how that conversation went but
basically my girlfriend was called into the principal's office the next day
and told that maybe I'd have a positive influence on her.

In university I started gaining weight back from poor lifestyle choices. I was
no longer treated like crap, but rather with indifference. I was clinically
obese through my 20s and only now have I gone back to lifting weights and
whipped my butt into shape. Again, I'm being treated a lot differently
(better).

I'm not sure what the point of this was. But I suppose one take-away from this
article and my story is that humans can be treated like crap for the most
idiotic reasons one second. The people treating them like crap can change
their ways all of a sudden and think nothing of it. This is a total mindfuck
to the people being treated harshly. It's enough of a mindfuck that a well-
adjusted father and husband can still be affected by experiences 25 years on.

~~~
jbrun
Very interesting experience. Though I have no real comparison, my question is:
Was getting in shape an easier solution than cracking down on the bullies?

I ask because of the original post, personal experiences and general thoughts.
While bullying should not be tolerated by school administrations, does the
individual not have a role to play in developing social skills and physical
health to avoid being ostracized? You know, become the change you want to see.

The school administration could offer a 'self-improvement' class to students -
targeting bullies with education on why it is bad and offering social and
physical development tips to socially inept kids (who are often the
brightest).

Perhaps courses such as these would help avoid disasters like school
shootings, long term trauma and the jock culture that is so prevalent in the
states.

~~~
9oliYQjP
I'm in a verbose state of mind right now so bear with me. You're right in some
twisted way, I owe these people for making me who I am. But let me explain.

I've looked at pictures of me when I was a toddler and while I wasn't a
scrawny kid, I wasn't fat. Somewhere along the line I started getting labelled
the fat kid and teased. Each school photo shows me progressively heavier than
the last. Somewhere along the line, I internalized the idea that I was a fat
kid and lived up to it by, well, being fat. I've never confused the teasing
for being fat as a cause. But it certainly didn't help me get into better
shape. The teasing sucked, but it was tolerable. Instead, a couple of
incidents that actually had me feeling worried for my physical well-being
really sparked the change.

The bullying in high school hit a low point when I was doing a science
presentation in a class the teacher could not even control. Two of the guys in
the gang I referred to in my first post started tagging my freaking
presentation board with gang symbols. It's a hilariously stupid scenario in
hindsight. Honestly, I laugh about it now. But at the time I was freaked out,
and angry because this meant I couldn't use it for the science fair later. It
wasn't them teasing me about my weight that prompted me to lose weight, but
rather fear of physical harm from them. I had to sit beside these guys in
class and I'd see them come to school with knives and pull them out and
pretend to stab people with them. In hindsight, they wouldn't have been dumb
enough to hurt me so long as I didn't give them a reason. But not giving them
a reason to hurt me felt like such a cowardly thing. It was letting them frame
the "debate" and to hell if I would let them do that. It was never about me,
it was about them and their issues with their father beating them or
something.

So quite honestly, I was partly motivated to start losing weight out of
survival instinct. I wanted to be able to defend myself if it ever got to that
point, so I started pumping iron so I would be stronger than them should
things ever get to that point.

The thing is, I wasn't even really the primary target of these bullies. So as
ridiculous as my account above is, other guys had it worse. They really did
get beaten up. There's a fine line between being pushed to the brink and being
broken. I wasn't France in WWII, I was Britain. I had options available and I
responded accordingly.

To your point however, my gym teacher also had a part in motivating me to lose
weight. He would never cut me any slack. Jocks would get remedial attention in
math courses they were having problems with. There is no special education for
gym. In gym, when we had to say do gymnastics on hanging rings or flips on
mats, I never got any slack. My teacher would make me get up there and fail,
very publicly, and in a humiliating way. He gave me a C for effort.

Bullying issues aside, I think my school did exactly what it needed to help me
out. The gym classes included lots of talks by our gym teacher about how we
would all gain weight as we got older, got office jobs, and became immobile.
And some humility is good. I couldn't even hang off of the gymnastic rings let
alone do what was required to get an A. If this were an Algebra course, I
wouldn't have been able to count. If anything, they were a bit indifferent
about my situation. It's one thing to point out to a kid that he has problems.
It's another to give him options about how to solve them. I stumbled upon
weight lifting as an option only because my older brother was a wrestler and
I'd seen him do it.

As far as the worst bullies go, that's a whole other kettle of fish. The
solution to treating those sort of bullies these days is to shuffle them
around the school system until they either play out the clock and graduate or
drop out. My school was considered a "good school" which had the effect of
encouraging principals at troubled schools of sending their worst offenders to
our school to discipline them. So 99% of the students were good but had to
face 1% of the school population which were probably psychopaths. I don't
think schools can treat these bullies. They simply don't have the
jurisdiction. For a lot of those kids, you'd have to remove them from broken
homes.

For your casual bullying, I'd say the best approach is to play both sides of
the coin. Tell the bullies to get over themselves and tell the victims to do
the same. If you're that hung up over getting bullied for being 120 lbs at
6'0" tall, maybe it is _you_ that has an issue with your weight. At that
point, the bullies are merely amplifying your discontent. You can either learn
to accept it and let the comments slide off of you because they no longer
hurt, or you can do something about it and gain weight.

One of these days I need to learn how to be more concise :-)

~~~
occam
_I wasn't France in WWII, I was Britain._

Off topic: actually France and Britain attacked and declared war on Germany.
So probably neither works as a metaphor for a victim of bullying.

~~~
potatolicious
To be technically correct, France and Britain had a well-publicized mutual-
defense treaty with Poland (among others), and when Germany attacked Poland
(knowing full well of the alliance) the signatories had no choice but to
declare war. In fact, Britain and France gave Germany an ultimatum to pull out
of Poland before initiating hostilities.

Furthermore, Germany actually didn't even bother declaring war on Poland first
before launching their first attacks.

In other words, this was not a Pearl Harbor, Germany knew full well what they
were getting into. Yeah, Britain and France were not iconic examples of bully
victims, but if you're suggesting Germany is, you'd be mistaken.

~~~
occam
_but if you're suggesting_

I'm not.

------
reduxredacted
I just sent that link to a group of parents that I am going to be
homeschooling with (and to my parents who think it's "a horrible idea"). I
didn't get anywhere near the abuse this individual received, but I had my
share, too. I have met so many people in IT and science that are still colored
in some way by the "socialization" they received in school.

I worked for one of the most miserable human beings I have ever met.
Brilliantly smart, but now that he was on the other side, he bullied everyone
around him (including his boss, who eventually fired him). I have had many
coworkers who had been beat up so often, knocked down so often, that when they
have an "out of the box" idea, they simply don't share it.

I want my kids to be brought up in an environment that encourages learning,
and peer learning via our co-op. I went to my High School reunion for almost
the same reasons MarkCC didn't. I was amazed to learn of the fate of the
individuals who gave me so much crap. A few were dead because of their
behavior.

------
w1ntermute
From a comment on the post:

" _For those who missed John Katz' essay on why high school is designed to
suck the first time around:

<http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99/04/25/1438249> _"

~~~
shizcakes
Bad link, get rid of the * at the end.

------
dilanj
He lost. He failed to take action when it mattered, which could've been
bulking up or learning social skills or whatever.

Then he won. Earned a great life, does great work; different day, different
game. Should've moved on.

But then he lost again, by leaving the final laugh to any ex-bully who can
google.

------
ilitirit
To everyone else, I was a geek for the first few years of high school. I was
also bullied for a while. Till the day I fought back. Busted the fucker's lip.
Nobody bothered me after that, and fewer people thought of me as a geek. I
hadn't changed a bit though.

~~~
tjic
Amen.

I was picked on, and I learned to fight.

Everything in life is a cost/benefit trade off.

If it's fun to push you around, and the cost is low, people will push your
around.

If it's fun to push you around, and you land a few dozen punches before the
fight is over, the cost is too high, and the abuse stops.

------
Arun2009
I don't think I'll ever understand the psyche of the typical American school-
goer. From outside at least and from what we see on films, they seem to be
leading quite colorful lives!

My own school-life in India was fairly monochromatic. Being a studious type
was actually considered a plus, both by your family and your peers. Entering
into anything like a romance was blasphemous and took place only in the movies
where they had all the time in the world to run around trees in pairs. The
overwhelming mad rush was to ace the board exams, state engineering exams, and
the JEE and land myself into a decent university. And get the hell out of
India if possible.

------
jrockway
I am glad I went to a math and science high school. I learned a ton, I was
never bullied, and I have lots of friends that I am in regular contact with.

(I went to a regular high school for my first year. While nobody broke my
fingers, it was not particularly enjoyable. I also went to a regular high
school in Tokyo for a year. Not quite as nice as the math and science school,
but for a "normal" school it was pretty nice. I am not sure why the US has
such poor schools.)

------
yason
To exaggerate: How about forgiveness instead of raising a new karate kid
generation?

Note that forgiving does NOT mean "it's all right that you beat me up".

Forgiveness means recognizing that "yes, they beat me; it all truly did happen
back then but well, I lived" and then letting go of that old ugly shit. Almost
anything in life is a better thing to do compared to keeping that stuff in
your head.

If he's lucky he learned something from school. Setting his boundaries
properly, discarding false beliefs that he's a wimp, or whatever it is for
him. I assume that he doesn't get beaten up regularly anymore? If so then he
has learned.

His classmates have hopefully learned something too. It's not an easy thing to
forget, breaking someone's fingers. The bullies have all had wounded hearts
already at the time. There's a lot to go through in that.

There's a saying that we're all victims of victims. I assume it fully applies.
It's not so much what happens to you but how you think of and act on it.

------
DavidSJ
The horrible times children are routinely given are seen by many as just a
fact of life -- growing pains, as it were. It's high time that we stop
accepting it; I'm glad something like this was written which doesn't just
accept the events for the sake of "moving on". Others need to see and
understand this trauma.

------
tybris
That's an honest and emotional piece.

I don't really have bad high-school memories, mostly indifferent memories.
Fortunately our high school system separates the potential construction
workers from the potential scientists. I did find it hard to socialize with
people whose primary interest in life seemed to be the irrational idolization
of musicians, with a surprising lack of musical taste. There I was with my
interests in physics, economics, politics, philosophy, classical history, etc.

Isolation is what made me play with computers, become really good at inventing
and engineering new systems, and brought me to an incredibly fortunate life.

I didn't go to my first reunion, but as the stories got out I felt sad for how
poorly most of them had done. I grew up thinking the world was our playground,
and for me it still is. Maybe I'll go to the next one, hoping they did a
little better.

------
weirdwes
I find it kind of naive and disturbing to read some of these responses. To the
people who are telling him to "let it go", "get over it" and "move on", I ask
can you really be serious? None of the experiences I've read really come close
to what he went through all those years ago. It really angers me to no end
when people just brush this type of treatment off as "kids being kids" and
expect people to just accept it and move on.

To the people who are saying "it's been 25 years, they're not the same people
anymore", how can you be so sure? Did you go to his high school? Do you know
the people he went to high school with? Why is it that you assume that 25
years has made all the jerks in his high school regretful and apologetic "do-
gooders"? If that's the case, where are all of today's criminals coming from?
That's a bold statement, I realize and I'm not suggestive that all of today's
criminals were high school bullies or that all high school bullies grow up to
commit crimes, but they have to come from somewhere right? How do you know
that the kid who used to steal your lunch money isn't doing a nickel for a
B&E? How do you know that the jock who picked on all the small kids didn't
grown up to abuse his own kids? You don't. So please stop pretending like
everyone grows out of who they are in high school, because many people don't.

Let's assume tomorrow you're walking down the street and a complete stranger
comes up to you, swipes your leg out from under you and stomps on your knee,
breaking your leg. You've never done anything to this person, you don't even
really know him. Sure you've seen him on your way to work from time to time,
but that's it. He's just someone who happens to be in the same areas as you
from time to time. But today, he decides to assault you - for no reason than
just to satisfy some sick urge he has. He doesn't continue to beat you, he
doesn't rape you, he doesn't steal your money or shoot you - he just breaks
your leg, laughs it off and goes on his way. The following week he interviews
and gets a job where you work. Do you just "get over it?" No? Okay, maybe it
wasn't a week later - it's been a month? A year? 5 years? 10? - It doesn't
matter, some things are not excusable or forgivable no matter how much time
has passed. Some things you just don't get over.

~~~
gruseom
_Some things you just don't get over._

You do when you figure out how much pain you're causing yourself by holding on
to them. In fact, the moment you see that, it's impossible _not_ to let go -
the same way you'd drop a red hot poker when you figured out you were holding
one.

I can see why this idea makes you angry if you interpret it as expecting
people to "just accept" violence, abuse and so on. And I can see why it would
sound like blaming the victim.

Respectfully, though, it's not about accepting such things, it's about the
effective way to _reject_ them. The trouble with many of the obvious
strategies for rejecting abuse is that they are deceptive: they cause one to
unwittingly perpetuate it. You can easily end up inflicting more pain on
yourself by reconducting the abuse in your imagination than the original
experience entailed. You can also easily end up inflicting pain on people you
love.

The cycle of violence is a strange game, the rules of which don't work the way
you (I mean anyone) would think they ought to. Just the fact that so many
victims turn into victimizers is a pretty big indicator of that. The important
question is, when one finds oneself in a game like that, what's the way out?

------
michael_dorfman
Setting aside the whole issue of geek abuse, and Mark's story in particular,
for a moment:

I have to say that I find the whole Facebook experience very creepy in
general. Anyone who can't figure out how to get in touch with me outside of
Facebook is definitely not a "friend", so what's the point of pretending that
they are?

~~~
Goladus
Don't pretend anything. It's not a matter of figuring out how to get in touch
with you otherwise. Someone just decided that would be the most polite and
convenient way to contact you. If you find that creepy, that's your loss.

~~~
michael_dorfman
I'm not sure it's a loss, really. Someone "friending" me, who is clearly not
my friend seems more like an imposition. My real friends are happy to call me
on the telephone, or send me an email. Facebook "friends" are faux friends,
and a site dedicated to quasi-communication by faux friends seems, well,
creepy.

~~~
Goladus
How is it an imposition?

What does creepy actually mean?

Why are they faux friends and not simply weak social connections that may have
potential to grow stronger?

~~~
michael_dorfman
It's an imposition, because it puts me in a position of either having to
respond, or having to refuse to respond.

Creepy, according to Webster's, mean "annoyingly unpleasant". That works for
me.

In terms of the last question, I think Mark Chu-Carroll, in the original post,
explains nicely. He doesn't feel any particular connection to the folks from
his school-- even the ones who didn't torture him. If he had, he surely would
have been in touch with them in the past 25 years in some other way. If the
weak social connection really had potential, why did it take Facebook as a
catalyst?

~~~
Goladus
I don't think a facebook-friend request from someone I haven't seen in 15
years annoyingly unpleasant, or an imposition. At the absolute worst, it's a
minor distraction to deal with, and frequently they are a welcome diversion.
Sometimes those weak connections share interesting articles or crack me up
with status updates.

Consider ex-classmates who spent 25 years living on different coasts and
working in different fields, and now they both have a similar hobby and find
they have a lot to share. The point of socializing is to discover that sort of
thing, and the point of Facebook is to connect people, to re-open those social
possibilities and leave them open. Even if they go dormant quickly(which
doesn't hurt anybody), they're still there.

Suppose I am living in NY City and looking for something to do this summer.
Suppose one of my former classmates is looking for a few more people for his
softball team. Pre-facebook, I probably don't even realize he lives nearby.
Post-facebook, I might join the team and re-establish the lost connection.
Maybe it'll work great, and we'll start doing other things together, or maybe
it won't work out and we'll go back to doing our own thing. Facebook will have
been the catalyst.

~~~
jacquesm
You could have that same interest in just about anybody, the fact that they
are former classmates means absolutely nothing.

Every random stranger has a story, and some of those are quite interesting.

~~~
Goladus
I disagree. Former classmates often share quite a bit. There's likely a
slightly greater level of trust and accountability than with a total stranger,
and there's a good chance it'll be easy to find a topic of conversation to
start with. I also know that I, personally, would be more likely to do a small
favor for a former classmate than a complete stranger. For example, if I knew
via facebook that one of my former classmates was an Erlang programmer, and
one of my other friends was looking to hire one, I might try and hook them up.
I wouldn't bother to go looking for random stranger Erlang programmers.

Being former classmates isn't like being close family, but it doesn't mean
absolutely nothing either. It's a minor but significant reason why you might
want to connect with someone using facebook. A similar minor but significant
reason might be that you just met at a party last week and seemed to get along
really well.

And again, the point is that there's usually nothing to get creeped out about.
If you'd rather focus on new friends and forget old ones that's fine, but an
old connection isn't absolutely nothing.

Incidentally, I consider the word "creepy" to have more of a threatening
connotation than simply annoying and unpleasant. An old, dark, abandoned house
is creepy, you don't know what's inside and it might be threatening. A guy is
creepy when he doesn't know a girl but stares at her for 20 minutes at the bar
then follows her home. Reconnecting with old classmates who have fallen out of
touch is not creepy, at least not by default.

------
ice_man
And yet, in a different blog post, he intellectually beats the sh*t out of an
80-year-old man:
[http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2007/04/george_shollenberge...](http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2007/04/george_shollenberger_returns_t_1.php)

42 comments.

To which the 80-year-old man responds (which by the way I think is incredible,
because the guy is 80): [http://georgeshollenberger.blogspot.com/2007/04/mark-
chu-car...](http://georgeshollenberger.blogspot.com/2007/04/mark-chu-carroll-
is-like-horse-feathers.html)

0 comments.

~~~
jongraehl
There's nothing wrong with telling someone that they're wrong.

------
trickjarrett
High school is definitely a love/hate experience. Some come out of it on top
while others get pulled down or tossed down. It's sad really.

I never had the bullying issue thanks to being a big guy and having played
football for high school, but I also tended to be fairly accepted socially. I
had friends who were jocks, preps, nerds, rockers, etc. I wasn't really in any
of the crowds, but I could wander over at lunch and strike up conversations
and chill, and then move on to another group.

------
yesimahuman
They really allowed violence like that? It reminds me of one of those 80's
movies where they kids are just a bunch of bad asses...I thought that was just
in the movies. I feel bad for him. The only ostracizing I had to deal with was
when I was very fat as a kid. I've filled out a bit now, but it sucked.

------
darkxanthos
Wow. Bitter? Party of one? My highschool experience sucked too but we were all
just kids. It's been 25 years so maybe it's time to forgve and forget?
(rhetorical)

~~~
jimbokun
"It doesn't explain the guy who broke my fingers, because he wanted to know
what it would sound like."

------
raffi
There are so many great threads here that I don't know where to dump this
comment. The original article inspired me to phone up the organizer of my
reunion and promptly drive to meet her to deliver the check.

------
davidw
Gets a rise out of one, but not particularly _interesting_. I do wonder where
this school is so that I can avoid the area (although it may well have changed
in the meantime).

------
lucifer
I think as children we occupy a much more primal social space than that which
we occupy as adults. As adults, the spaces of interactions we occupy are
highly regulated by internalized models of behavior. (We let loose when we
feel free of such bonds, thus extreme online behavior afforded by the mask of
anonymity.)

Beyond Karate, the most important tool that one can impart to one's precious
little child is that human groups are dynamic systems that require various
poles -- the group (I believe) seeks these poles to organize itself. The
underdog or gamma wolf is not an individual -- it is a required 'position' in
the pack.

[http://www.mnforsustain.org/wolf_mech_dominance_alpha_status...](http://www.mnforsustain.org/wolf_mech_dominance_alpha_status.htm)

------
korch
Fuck high school reunions. Instead of going, stay home and watch Grosse Point
Blanke.

I wasn't a geek, and instead hung out with the delinquent/stoner crowd, so I
can relate for entirely different reasons. Everything that's wrong with the
world, well, High School is a perfect microcosm of that.

~~~
bootload
_"... Everything that's wrong with the world, well, High School is a perfect
microcosm of that ..."_

Nice summary.

------
clistctrl
Maybe times have changed? I just got out of high school about 5 years ago. I
grew up in a small town in Wisconsin near Milwaukee which at one time was
built around a tractor factory, now it sort of lies in limbo trying to find an
identity. As an extreme computer geek I wasn't popular, but I never had
anything particularly 'Bad' happen to me. I would say the worst thing that
would happen on a regular basis is people would take advantage of my OCD like
nature and create an absolute mess near me (which would drive me nuts... only
encouraging them) The rest of the time I noticed people would try to get on my
good side for group projects etc. Classes at my school (and I think its pretty
common now) were centered around computers, so kids who normally wouldn't talk
to me suddenly wanted to be "partners" with me.

------
keltecp11
Part of growing up is understanding that people develop - People can change.

~~~
jerf
Yeah, but... so what?

My experiences weren't the same, because I was geeky, uncoordinated... and six
foot four, thank God. I've dealt with it and don't hold on to anger like it
sounds like Mark has... but I didn't bother going to my 10th, because,
frankly, why? I didn't like the majority of them, the ones I did like I'm
still in contact with (or for one particularly notable exception, married to),
and otherwise, they're just people, the majority of whom I still won't like,
just for different reasons, and even if I'm wrong I could just step out, walk
downtown, strike up a conversation at a coffee shop, and have odds just as
good for finding a friend, if not better.

I think a lot of posters here are losing the thread here. All arguing about
how wonderful people may be in theory after 25 years gets you back up to is
"neutral" on the reunion... gosh, it _might_ not suck as much as I expected?
Sign me right up! cracki in a sibling comment says that they get a chance to
show they've changed; I say no, not really. Who cares if they've changed or
not?

If you don't have happy memories, if you aren't nostalgic for a time period
where you had no rights and were stuck in a boring room seven hours a day,
five days a week, there's no reason to care about the coincidence of who you
lived near, so why bother?

(Every year of my life since I was about five or six has been better than the
last, and I can't go beyond that simply because I don't remember. Some through
circumstances, some because of health issues, some because I'm getting better
at living well, which is itself a skill. I'm not much for nostalgia.)

Incidentally, my wife, who isn't particularly a geek and didn't have a bad
time of it the way I did, pretty much feels the same. Her friends were mostly
in the grade above anyhow, and we've kept in touch. (We'll be seeing all those
again literally next week, at my son's first birthday party which has turned
into quite the shindig.) Facebook has really eaten into the positive reasons
for reunions, even for nongeeks.

~~~
keltecp11
You do NOT need to be best friends with your old classmates, but they might
actually now be real individuals who have real values and aren't all for that
petty HighSchool BS. From a business standpoint and a life standpoint and a
HACKER standpoint - the most important thing in my world is my network. Maybe
you never got along with your old High School Crew, but now that they are
older, they might be able to help you in numerous places in your personal and
professional life. But simply ignoring them all together seems to be immature.

~~~
jerf
Your high school crew may be worth networking with. Mine really wouldn't be.

"but they might actually now be real individuals who have real values"

I disagree... with the word "might". I'm sure they are. My real point is, so
what? Are real people so hard to find for you or something? I don't seem to
have so much trouble. They're just people and I can find much richer sources
of "people" for any given purpose than a high school reunion.

You're rationalizing an emotional belief. Love your high school all you want,
I don't care, but don't fool yourself into thinking this is some sort of
rational position. Mere coincidental colocation ten years ago is not even
remotely the best way to choose anything.

~~~
keltecp11
It's an Ice Breaker. It's social. It's Human Interaction at it's finest. It's
not what did u just say... a "Mere coincidental colocation ten years ago"???
Really?

~~~
jerf
You continue to speak as if "human interaction === high school reunion". No.
You're either rationalizing or thinking fuzzily, though I'm beginning to trend
towards the latter.

------
c00p3r
Oh, it is so common. Sublimation and suffering are _required_ for a success in
creative activities, like going-through-pain is required for success in a
professional sports.

~~~
reduxredacted
You go through pain in professional sports because your muscles must be broken
down in order to build up and your brain has to master the skill and precision
required to play the game. You are also typically coached or trained by
someone with more experience than you until you are more experienced than
them.

How does spending most of the important years of emotional development
experiencing only abuse assist in making one creative? Maybe by having extra
time on your hands, but other than that it doesn't seem like it would be
something valuable or even connected in any way, let alone _required_.

I think it's correlation vs. causation. People who are creative are non-
conformist. Non-conformists tend to get bullied in High School.

Some of the most creative and interesting people I have ever met were
homeschooled. They had _some_ negative social experiences growing up, but
nothing that would have amounted in their lifetimes what some kids at my
school experienced in a day.

------
hc
i flagged this post without comment when it was younger, expecting many people
to do the same. now i see it has been upvoted 100+ times and it is still here.
i am curious why many people seem to hold it to be within the scope of this
site. the connection to anything scientific or technical is tenuous, and the
post is wholly lacking in insight wrt the sociological phenomenon it rails
against.

------
kingkongrevenge
Apparently his social skills still haven't improved much. What a whiny nerd.

~~~
tjic
Yeah. Folks who are punched, have their fingers broken, and are mocked in the
hallways shouldn't harbor resentments.

~~~
biohacker42
99.99% of kids are mocked and punched. Broken finger are extreme, but still.
The fact is almost everybody is bullied and people grow up and things change.
And most people get over their bulling.

Harboring resentments all your life just messes with your mind. Stop messing
yourself up. You can blame that on the fact that you were abused, and that may
be true, but you should still try to get passed it.

~~~
randallsquared
Quite possibly he doesn't much think about it from day to day, but it isn't as
if you can't be reminded. I know that I hardly ever think about my teenage
years, which were fairly terrible, but when it comes up, as in this thread,
I'm filled with rage and it all comes rushing back. Doesn't mean I'm not past
it ordinarily.

~~~
biohacker42
I'm afraid this is turning into armchair psychoanalysis, so I better stop.

But suffice it to say, when I was still a kid and thought about the other kid
who almost broke my arm, I was filled with rage as well. I almost never
thought about, but when I was reminded I was very angry over it.

But as I got older I got past it. It doesn't make me at all emotional now. The
guy and I are not fiends, I still don't even like him, but we're civil and he
doesn't push any buttons for me, there are no buttons to be pushed.

That's what I think is growing up and dealing, not simply forgetting.

------
Ben65
It's true there's nothing funnier that the sound of a geek's finger breaking,
but the down side is that 25 years later they won't be at the class reunion,
and that hurts.

------
shizcakes
I don't fully identify with this dude - I had friends, although I was picked
on, and I still talk to a number of people from High School.

That said, I did like this read. Potentially it was the emotional reaction I
had on his behalf, but I like to think that it was the realism of his
scenario: "I don't think I had it particularly worse than a lot of others" and
"here are the things that are entirely my problem that accelerated this
treatment". While 'the system' is sometimes to blame, it's also the person.
And he understands that. But since he works for Google, it's clear that he got
it together in later life, and distancing himself from those who used to drag
him down is probably a good choice. School reunions are often just people
gloating about how awesome they think they are at life anyways, so why should
he put himself in a position to potentially arouse jealousy?

~~~
tjic
"Got it together" ?

What the !@#$%^ ?

He was a smart productive kid, and he got picked on by imbeciles.

Now he's a smart productive adult.

He hasn't gotten shit together - he had it together.

The difference is that now he's in a free market, with other competent adults,
instead of in a government-run Lord of the Flies style child warehousing make-
work program.

To say that he "got it together" is to blame the victim.

~~~
jonknee
He didn't have it together, he didn't know how to manage social contact. He
readily admits being awkward and unable to communicate. Being smart is not
exclusive to having it together. It doesn't excuse what happened to him, but
there are plenty of adults that get walked all over too.

~~~
randallsquared
He probably knew "how to manage social contact" just fine. I did, too, in high
school and before -- I had no problems at all communicating with adults. The
problem is that the situation in school _isn't_ social contact in the way that
it will occur in the real world, it's prison.

In real life, we don't shake our heads at people who've been assaulted or had
a swastika or cross burned in front of their house and say that they should
try to manage social contact with others better. Instead, we treat the
oppressors as the criminals they are.

~~~
biohacker42
Prison and school are in fact natural, it's civilized society that's takes
effort and breaks down under stress.

And I think coping in a Lord of the Flies like environment is part of being
human. We can not easily extend the adult civilized structure into childhood.
Only in extremely tightly controlled environments does that sort of work.

~~~
tjic
> Prison and school are in fact natural, it's civilized society that's takes
> effort

Civilized society is spontaneous, and pops into existence whenever two people
meet in the wilderness.

Both prisons and schools only come into existence when governments create
them.

~~~
biohacker42
_Civilized society is spontaneous, and pops into existence whenever two people
meet in the wilderness._

Are you sure? I am pretty sure there have been extensive studies on tribal
groups all over the world that would disagree with you.

Also I think part of the success of Lord of the Flies was because it struck
people as a realistic account of what would happen in that situation.

~~~
prodigal_erik
I'm reminded of a story Diamond(?) tells of two Polynesian(?) strangers
meeting in the road. They start talking about common family or friends they
might have. They are looking for an excuse not to kill each other.

~~~
randallsquared
I found Diamond's _Guns, Germs, and Steel_ very informative, but in light of
this year's lawsuit ( <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared_Diamond#Controversy>
), I'm not sure how much of it was just made up.

~~~
asdlfj2sd33
Diamond is far from the only one to write about tribal killings in Papua New
Guinea. That doesn't mean he didn't make it up, but if he did make something
up it probably wouldn't be something easily proven wrong.

------
biohacker42
This is a meta-comment about what belongs on HN, so if you don't like those
kinds of comments, just down vote it and stop reading now.

 _If you're not interested in completely off-topic personal rambling, stop
reading now._

While I know a lot of people have had similar experiences, I doubt group
therapy of this kind is healthy for anyone.

 _Even some of the people who used to beat the crap out of me on a regular
basis are getting in touch as if we're old friends.

My reaction to them... What the fuck is wrong with you people?_

They grew up. Everyone knows kids are evil. And a few of them grow up to be
evil adults and eventually go to jail.

But most people do grow up. They stop being what they were as kids, and most
nerdy kids grow up to be much more sociable.

Now I don't think this person is missing much by not going to the reunion, but
I do think it's a shame he still has not gotten over his childhood.

Obviously his childhood was worse then average, but that's life, life is not
fair, deal with it.

~~~
tc
Some people get over things by eliminating those things from their lives. He
probably spends the vast majority of the days of his life over that whole
experience. His rant was prompted by elements of that old world trying to
intrude on the world he lives in now, which dredged up that negative energy.

Also, adolescents turn into adults, but they don't forget what passed before.
So if you were evil to someone in high school, the adult thing to do would be
to apologize if you're going to contact that person.

~~~
biohacker42
_Also, adolescents turn into adults, but they don't forget what passed before.
So if you were evil to someone in high school, the adult thing to do would be
to apologize if you're going to contact that person._

Agreed. But I don't think that trying to forget something is dealing with it.
It may be a way of coping, but it's no resolution.

~~~
tc
Personally, I agree. I myself take a more inner-zen approach to this sort of
thing. I've developed a certain empathy though, as during my life I've been
intimate with some people for whom the inner-peace approach just doesn't seem
attainable. For those people, avoiding the negative stimuli goes a long way to
improving their lives.

------
jrnkntl
This guy totally missed the social bandwagon. Thinks that his kid is 'less of
a loser' when he knows karate and 'totally kicks the crap out' of people who
bully him. Dreaming the 'I will kick your ass' dream isolated from real
friends. I wouldn't call that geekery but just a social loss.

~~~
tjic
> Thinks that his kid is 'less of a loser' when he knows karate

What he said was that the kid was going to be able to physically defend
himself from assault.

Can you disagree with that assertion?

~~~
jrnkntl
I am a supporter of avoiding assault.

~~~
randallsquared
I spent much of my childhood avoiding assault (and never had it as bad from
other kids, at least, as the blogger), but I think it was a mistake to do so.
I think if I'd snapped just once or twice, it would have made others think
twice about the nonsense they pulled on me. I was more afraid of the external
consequences (police and other authority figures) than worried about getting
beat up, though, so I just sat and took it.

In any case, the blogger in question _didn't manage_ to avoid assault. I don't
imagine he went to the bullies and said, "Here, break my fingers".

