Anyone else bullied by the opp gender in school?
And how did it affect you long term?
I came from an all boys' secondary school and tbh it was quite wholesome there, most of my schoolmates were quite nice people. But after sec sch I went to JC which was mixed, and that's where I encountered bullying.
I remember in the first week of school, in orientation, we played these truth or dare-esque games led by OGLs. I'm not sure if it was agreed upon before or them piling on the opportunity, but when it was each girl's turn to answer she'd turn to me and say "<Name>, you're the ugliest guy here". Or some variation of that, and to the cheers of the other girls.
And as orientation went on they'd find more and more offensive ways to insult me, mostly involving my looks. I remember particularly one girl sitting beside me who gleefully turned to me and scathingly insulted my looks. And tbh I was shocked at the moment, like I'd never even done anything to you, why would you do this to me? And she was super chopped herself, so surely you'd know why you shouldn't insult someone on their looks...
To make matters worse, my female OGL joined in as well, although she added a sorry before diving into insults (as if that made things better). I remember each and every time I just laughed it off cuz I didn't know what to say, but I was thinking "how cruel can you be?". And when I had enough and insulted one of them back? Suddenly it's all "how could you say this to a girl", and they all made me out to be some asshole.
It got to the point where even my male OGL looked visibly uncomfortable at what they were doing and tried to put an end to it whenever it happened. And credit to him, he did privately have a chat with me to cheer me up, told me not to take it to heart etc. But it was a complete shock, as I'd never done anything to deserve this, but somehow I became the target anyway.
Obviously I skipped all the OG group meetups post orientation. I remember one of the girls even had the gall to ask me why I didn't show up. Sorry your punching bag didn't appear?
In the long term I guess that did affect my self esteem negatively, and it took quite long to get over it. For others who've encountered something similar, I'd like to hear your story too! Hopefully you ended up ok as well after bullying.