"No One Likes You" - Four Horrible Things Bullies Have Said to Me

"Your face doesn't fit in."

At around age fifteen/sixteen, our school had pupils take part in two weeks of work experience. We were encouraged to choose a placement based on what we might like to pursue as a career path or to choose a placement based around a subject at school that we enjoyed. Still unsure of what future job I had in mind, I chose a placement based around one of my favourite subjects at the time - Design Technology: Graphics. Looking back now, I only really enjoyed Graphics because we once got to design movie posters and choosing which film I was going to do was probably one of the most fun lessons ever. My finished design certainly wasn't anything to write home about. Anyway, based on that and little else, I was assigned a work experience placement at a local graphic design company.

The placement was based in a very small workplace consisting of two other employees and the company director. The office was actually part of the company director's house and it felt very strange arriving at a deeply suburban house in my newly acquired work attire.

In spite of my nerves, I made sure to be polite, hardworking and attentive, setting myself to any tasks asked of me. I was mostly ignored by the two other employees, two guys in their mid twenties and left to my own devices. As the first week went on, I was ignored more and more and after initially being told that I could do some interesting tasks such as design my own magazine, I was instead given tasks such as sorting out pencils and rubber bands. The atmosphere in the office felt strained and I felt deeply uncomfortable.

Eventually one afternoon, the company director approached me at my desk and leaned over me,

"I don't think it's working out here for you, do you?"

"I'm sorry?" I asked in confusion.

"I don't think this is right for you....your face doesn't fit in."

I was stunned when he said that. I couldn't understand what I had done wrong and I didn't understand what he meant about my face. Suffice to say, I was swiftly moved to another work experience placement.

At age fifteen/sixteen, being told your face doesn't fit was horrible and many years later - it still feels pretty bad.

"You smell."

Being told you smell sounds like the sort of insult one might hurl around aged five, a silly, offhand comment not to be taken seriously. But when the people saying it are old enough to drive, vote and gamble, what was once an immature slight now becomes an effective way to continuously humiliate someone.

Add in people holding their noses and sniggering every time you walk past and "you smell" suddenly becomes the reason that leaving the house every morning feels nigh on impossible.

In my last year of school, a group of other students decided that this was going to be a fun new game for them. Students gathered in the common room every day, it is where we sat, ate and worked and so there was no way to avoid it. Unfortunately, that meant that I had no choice but to have to walk past this group of students and be in close proximity to them every single day.

Whenever I walked past, the taunts would start. I was often called "the smelly lesbian" which would then be followed by raucous laughter. I thought ignoring it would make them get bored and stop, but my lack of reaction seemed to egg them on even more. This continued for a long time.

On my last day of school, as I left school for the very last time, I got on the bus and cried all the way home.

"Beast."

This was a one off incident but it stayed with me for a long time. In my early twenties, I was on a night out and we ended up at a club. On a side note, I have never been a fan of clubbing anyway and I think that this incident (and a few others) is probably why I cannot remember the last time I set foot in a nightclub and have no plans to either.

I was with a small group of other women and we set off on the usual nightclub routine - get a drink, stand on edge of dancefloor, edge onto dancefloor, start dancing etc. After a short while, myself and one of the other women decided to go and sit down. As I made my way towards a free table, we walked past a couple of guys and one of them said,

"Look, it's Beauty and the Beast."

I didn't think too much of the comment and just ignored them. Later I was on my way to the toilets and walked past the same guys again,

"Look, it's Beast again."

Now fully aware that they were talking about me, I again ignored them. But as the night wore on, they continued to position themselves where they could cough "Beast!" at me. I guess I should've just told the people I was with and asked if we could leave but I felt so stupid and embarrassed, so I didn't do anything.

Finally, the night ended and as we waited at the cloakroom for our coats, the guys walked out the club.

"Bye Beast!" they waved gaily at me.

Then they walked off into the night laughing to themselves.

"No one will ever want a physical relationship with you."

When I was seventeen, there was a girl in one of my classes who was just one of those silly, spiteful girls - you know the type, always whispering and giggling at someone or something. I didn't particularly dislike her and I didn't particularly like her, she was just another member of the class and we had never had any issues with each other.

Until one day, she turned around in her desk and randomly came out with,

"You do realise that no one will ever want a physical relationship with you don't you?"

I was dumbfounded, "what?"

"No one is ever going to want to kiss you or have sex with you, you're disgusting."

I felt like I had been kicked in the gut, it felt like such a cruel and unnecessary thing to say. Everyone was looking at me to see how I was going to respond, all I could choke out was,

"That's not true."

"Yes it is."

She smiled at me spitefully and turned back to her desk.

I think when you are seventeen, a large part of your life is dedicated to thinking about physical relationships and partners so to have someone say that was a massive dent to my self esteem and confidence. Even though I knew that this girl was stupid and her opinion certainly meant next to nothing, I felt so hurt by what she had said.

Many years later, I found out that this girl had gotten herself into some legal trouble, some pretty serious legal trouble actually. Is it bad to say that I didn't feel too sorry for her?

I know that there will be a percentage of people that will read the above comments and think that they are reasonably tame, or that perhaps I just needed to grow a thicker skin. However, I think that actually what the above demonstrates is that words have power. Even seemingly small words or offhand comments can stick with people and affect how they feel about themselves.

We all need to strive to be kinder to one another and realise that words and actions have consequences. Maybe if we were all a bit kinder then no one would sit at home worrying about what they look like, how they smell or if someone is going to make stupid comments at them as they mind their own business. Maybe if we were all a bit kinder then no one would have the material to write an article such as this.