How do you deal with bullies?

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Personally, I fantasize about myself as an action hero beating up the bad guys who harass or shun me.

I take the long view -- eventually, the bullies got their comeuppance, either through their own risky behavior, or because an even bigger bully taught them what it is like to be a victim.

Also, Charles J. Sykes once said, "Be nice to nerds.  Chances are you’ll end up working for one".  Over the years, a few former bullies came to be employed under my authority.  I made sure to let them know (1) they could expect no favors from me, and (2) that I would be aware of their activities while on the job.

Of course, this is how I treated everyone under my authority, but the former bullies were the only ones I actually told.

Eventually, every one of them got themselves fired, and I had nothing to do with any of it.

It depends on context. I don't really care about dealing with bullying behaviour online, it's pretty trivial most of the time.

When I was in elementary school I mostly sucked it up. Sometimes I'd steal from kids who bullied me, or destroy their property behind their backs. I jumped a few bullies; it didn't matter if they could beat me in a fist fight, I'd knock 'em down, pin them and pummel them until my hands split open.

Often I'd try to avoid fights imposed upon me but I was mean if I was cornered. I knocked a kid out in Grade 2 after he insisted on chasing me up a snowbank. I threw him off and he hit his head on the pavement and twitched. I thought I killed him and told a teacher. He started a fight with me the next year and I knocked him out again by making him hit his head. He tried again in Grade 7 but I reminded him I'd already given him two concussions, he backed away. Every single one of those involves a group of people cornering me with Leif being the first one to actually step-up.

I also got beat-up a lot, being mean isn't the same as being tough, especially when the aggression is strongly demoralizing. You don't want to have to deal with it, you just want to have friends like everyone else. Towards the end of elementary school I played more sports at lunch with classmates and it was noticed that I was practically impossible to tackle and rocked people with checks. Some of the bullies in my grade had moved away, so things got easier.

There were a handful of times where a fist fight (imposed upon me) would turn into me (slowly) running away and then becoming absolutely hysterical when cornered because it wasn't a fight anymore, it was confronting a terrified and enraged ape. I believe this amounts to a meltdown in response to aggression.

In high school things got worse and I got beat-up a lot the first two years. I was verbally bullied a lot as well. People would yell things regularly, or throw pennies or garbage. There was someone a few grades older who would body check me in the halls some days. I started giving it back and then bought a leather jacket, a piece of rawhide and some spikes. I used the rawhide as a stiff backing layer, added the spikes and let 'im have it. Eventually it grew into a +1 spiked punk jacket.

Bu Grade 11 I had started fighting back a lot more, especially during a period where I stopped smoking weed. I also started doing a lot better at fighting back as the fight was imposed upon me; combined with noticing the school didn't seem to care about bullying or violence I started to do the same thing every time, close, get them tangled up and off balance, or on the ground and then start going to work with knees and elbows or just strangle people. I still wasn't tough but I had gotten so used to it that I started to understand how it worked.

I was also pretty mean and tended to view things as over when one person had stopped actively defending, meaning when someone thought they were getting a fist fight that ended with a bloody nose they discovered I was down for breaking fingers and not letting things end until someone wasn't able to fight back anymore.

I also learned how to easily break chair legs off at the weld, no one wants to fight when you go from sitting and vulnerable to standing with a busted metal chair leg.

I didn't know how to deal with social bullying at all.

That enraged ape thing? Yeah, that didn't go away either. It took awhile before I was actually brave enough to seriously fight, but before that there were a few instances of grabbing someone by whatever clump of flesh I laid hands on and just flailing. Again, complete hysterics so either I got whooped or they got mauled. It took a coworker (who's friends bullied me) commenting on how badly shaken his friend was after catching the bad end of the red mist for me to realize hey, I should fight back before I'm that unhinged. I'd still retaliate against some bullies by jumping them, especially if I was close to that red mist state. A tap on the shoulder when someone's in the bathroom alone followed by a rough visit to the floor. I'm not sure it was fair in hindsight, it was one person who had bullied me getting the consequences of a different person getting me wound up.

Fighting back effectively doesn't make you look like an action hero, it makes you look like a villainous thug. Even if physical bullying is reduced, social bullying increases. Also, if you hit a girl who physically bullies you, you better be prepared to destroy the first guy who wants to lay hands on you over it.

"You beat up girls."
I beat up boys pretty well too.

As an adult I don't really encounter physical bullying, at least not since my early 20s. With workplace bullies I'd try to outflank them socially. I'd undermine bosses to their bosses, if they were the bullies. At one job there was a guy who'd yell at me regularly. I mentioned to people how much he looked like Bert from Sesame Street and did the ughhhh Ernie line. Within a few weeks anytime he raised his voice you'd hear several people say ugghhh Ernie!! and if he yelled at me I'd say uhh, hey Bert. He ended up moving zones because once the meme started it didn't relent.

I don't deal with bullies very well. Being a sensitive wimp I actually end up scared of them and unsure how to stand up for myself. I mean, I've stood up for myself on this site when I felt picked on and I failed miserably, so I'm afraid of the same results happening in real life.

I mostly dodged them at school, and simply haven't met many since. I don't know how I dodged them. I guess I had a "not particularly vulnerable" persona or something. Maybe it helped that I used to swear a lot. After leaving school, it's likely that I just gravitated towards benign people and avoided nasty ones.