Wednesday, August 13, 2014

I didn't know there was a bridge nearby!

Once in high school, I dated a complete asshole.

...OK, more than once, but this one took the cake.

I was 16 years old, and my sister had just passed away. As in, a few days had gone by and I was back at school feeling like this whole death thing was really anticlimactic and school still sucked. There had been a guy I noticed, very pretty in an exotic way, with brown shaggy hair, big green eyes and skin the color of gold.

He turned out to be a Brazilian-Jew, and a couple grades younger.

Normally, this would have turned me off. But I was grieving, desperate, and in dire need of someone to hold me. So we dated for a couple weeks. We even made it "Myspace Official" . (Wow, do I feel old and pathetic).

One afternoon, I noticed he had changed his status on Myspace to "single". Understandably confused, I called and messaged him on AIM (JESUS I'M OLD). No response. Finally, hours later he told me he "texted" me and that his mom said we couldn't date because I wasn't Jewish. I was flabbergasted, ashamed.

And mad as hell.

Another few days pass. We are now closer to a month away from my sister's passing. He sends me a message on AIM, asking for forgiveness and for me to check out this webpage he made.  I acquiesced, because at 16 I was a fucking idiot. I clicked on the link, not knowing it was a bogus Myspace log-in page, in which he used to delete EVERYTHING and write:

"I'M A NAZI HORE". Over and over again.

Everything was gone. My poetry, my journal entries. Pictures of my sister that are now obsolete.  I have never actually wanted to murder someone, but now I knew what that felt like.  I could imagine his parents crying over his lifeless body and it made me feel GREAT. I decided to go to the school about this, since it was considered cyber bullying.

If you don't want to lose faith in Francis Lewis High School, read no further. Turn away now, or maybe transfer your kid to another school who actually gives a shit about its students.

Not only did they blame ME, for choosing to date him, all they did was call him in and "lecture" him on how wrong it is to bully people online. This piece of shit, who had openly told me he was looking into selling a fucking GUN at some point, got a slap on the wrist. I later found out it was on his birthday, so that made me feel better.

A year later, as I was graduating, I found out he got put in the hospital after being pistol whipped 10 or so times. Karma's a bitch, ladies and gentlemen.

Anyway, the twist comes last summer: Out of the blue, this kid (now an adult) messages me out of nowhere, saying he's now part of the Israeli Army and has been looking for me for a couple of years in order to apologize.  And you wanna know his reasoning for doing what he did to me?

He didn't know how to break up with me.

I mean, the apology was more for his sake, because at this point I no longer cared. The only thing that upsets me to this day is how the school handled it, because that is why so many people kill themselves. They're told they have to deal with it, and that the people that hurt them will never be brought to justice for it because they're too fucking lazy.  There will always be trolls, but we can change the way we deal with them.

After Robin William's passing, his daughter posted a very touching tribute to Social Media. She then received taunts about her father's self-induced death. Because you know, maybe they don't know how to break up with their girlfriends either.

It will never end. I had a guy in college claim he almost raped me on formspring. I've been told to kiss myself various times. I've lost track how many times I've been called a whore, stemming from before I even lost my virginity. (Not that that makes you more whore-ish, just showing how ridiculous it is)

If someone trolls you, don't engage, block. If someone sends you death threats, call the police. If anything, it will maybe be connected to something else they were notified of.  No one likes a vigilante, but there's a special place in hell for those that watch atrocities happen without doing whatever small thing they can. That's how 6 millions Jews died.

Not on my watch.

-Grace #Adulting

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