It happened to me last night while waiting for the band to start at an outdoor free concert. My husband was at the restroom at the time of the instigating incident. When Bob returned, he was puzzled to find our friend arguing with the bully (never argue with a bully—they don't listen and reason is not a trait they embrace).
What is it that makes grown people turn on anger like that? This guy was p^@*&%. He accused me of moving his camp chair from the spot where he placed it 90 minutes earlier. Really? First of all I did not touch his chair (if it truly was his chair). Second, why would he accuse me out of hand like that? Third, why wouldn't he just pick up his chair and move it back to where his group of friends were and not make a scene?
Instead he chose to bully me. Scream right in my face. It caught me quite by surprise. His friends were clearly uncomfortable with the situation, yet none of them encouraged their friend to calm down and let it go.
I chose to close up my camp chair and leave. My evening was ruined by a narcissistic, belligerent person who had a warped idea of the universe—the world revolved around him. He knows it all.
Here's a newsflash—he wore a t-shirt bearing the team mascot of the local high school. Want to bet his kids are bullies themselves?
I'm sure a few of you have experienced a similar episode. It certainly wasn't my first. We experienced an assault by a stranger one evening driving home from a formal event with friends many years ago. Catch up with me some time and I'll tell you that tragic story.
Watch out for the blindside bullying by family. They are damaging beyond imagination.
All in all the best thing to do is ignore the bully. Don't engage. Bob asked the bully, "Why would you yell at my wife?" The bully replied, "She moved my chair," sitting in a chair 25 feet from the precious chair he insisted was his. Ya see? No reasoning.
"You should treat people with more respect," I said to the bully before he left the scene. I'm sure he didn't hear that.
So when the children's writer in me pens a book for impressionable kids about bullies, you can believe there's a bit of non-fiction in the story. Drawing from the realities of a fallen world.
And just like in my book Ethan Blecher Braves a Bully, that man/bully needs saving—if nothing else certainly from himself.
