I try not to hang onto memories of such people in my life, but well, sometimes impressions are made and they are hard to shake.
For me it was a kid I went to school with for a few years. We'll call him P.
P was your typical disturbed, "macho" male. He had issues with anyone being better than him, and anyone who was "different". He bullied teachers and students alike.
I never was in his sights until freshman year. That was the year we started lifting weights in gym. I was always the strongest girl in class, it came to me naturally, but I had no finesse. On the day we started doing bench press, I was the only female in class to start with the olympic bar (with weights on it to boot). My starting lift was around 75lbs, but by the end of the week I was benching 90lbs. After doing two presses at that weight I jokingly turned to my friend and said, look at that, I lifted 180lbs! P, overhearing that, proclaimed LOUDLY to the class, that I was full of crap and that the only time I've lifted 180lbs was when I stood up. Um, yeah. I've never been a light-weight by any stretch of the imagination, and at the time I did weigh close to 180lbs, but you couldn't tell by looking at me, I was a brick house (or brick outhouse as my mom called me) lol! His words stung, he was calling me fat in front of our entire class! It didn't stop there, from that day on, he made it his goal to single me out whenever possible during gym. When we'd play dodgeball he tried his darndest to hit me the hardest, and usually aimed for the head. Freshman year with him was brutal!
The next year we moved towns. I never fully shook the feelings created by P. For the first time in my life I was self-conscious. I felt fat, I felt uncomfortable being strong, and yet at the same time I was determined to bench 180lbs so I could prove I could really do it. I did, got 180 and much more, was invited to join the weight lifting team but could not muster up the self-esteem to wear the uniforms. (not a fan of unitards)
To this day I think some of his hate and venom have poisoned my own thinking about myself. I'm getting over it though. I can lose the weight, he'll be a jerk forever.
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I actually ended up having to get a restraining order on my ex-boyfriend when I was 17. (Why do so many of my stories revolve around ex-boyfriends?)
When we met, he was laying it on thick, telling me everything a girl wants to hear. I was too young and naive to see through it. We started dating, and it was great for a while. But after a while, he started acting different. We would be driving somewhere, and he would get mad at me for no apparent reason and refuse to talk to me. I would beg him to tell me what was wrong, and bend over backwards to apologize, but he would just say that I should know what I had done. After several minutes of this, he would suddenly decide to "forgive" me. I didn't see it then, but now I know that he just wanted the satisfaction of me begging him to love me.
When I finally wised up and broke it off, he grabbed me by the arm and told me I couldn't leave him. Thankfully, that's as far as it went, but that certainly confirmed my decision. After that, he would show up at my house and beg my dad to let him in. When that didn't work, he started sending me threats, telling me he had people at my school watching me (he went to a different school), and he knew who I was talking to, and if I started dating someone else, I'd regret it. He also vandalized our house. Thus, restraining order.
It still creeps me out to think about it.
Oh yeah, he also started a rumor around town that I had sex with my brother. Thankfully everyone knew me well enough *not* to believe that, but seriously, how low can you go?
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