Why do people pick on me for no reason?

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I am male and 17 with ASD/AS and I would like to know why does everyone bully me for no reason? I have some self esteem and cofidince issues and I have like no friends but only 2 people to talk to but everyone else acts all mean to me and I think that they are just playing but really they are just being mean to me for some reason. People tell me that I am way to easy to pick on or that when they do bully me to much they say that I am not worth it to be picked on. Onetime I got so picked on that other people started acting like my bodyguard and they felt sorry for me and I feel really emberresed because of this. They would protect me like a handicapped person and come up to the bullies and go "Dont pick on him" or something like that but situations like this always makes me feel weak and pitied upon and I hate it when poeple treat me like im a baby or something. I am also hated by most people in the school for some reason like none likes me at all and none knows I exsist and I feel really bumbed out about that and I wonder how can I get people to be nice to me and not take advantage of me or something like that. Sorry if I have bad spelling or spellcheck but I would like to know what can I do about my social problems and is anyone in the same problem as me? Sorry if this is so long.

Your story is a LOT like mine when I was 17, and believe me, there is always a reason why you are bullied, even if it is only because you let them. I am now in my forties and I still get bullied sometimes, except that it is in the workplace. First of all, though, realize that it is never your fault.

Bullies pick on others because bullies feel insecure and need to feel that they can exert power over others in order to build up their own confidence. In order for the bullying to be successful, they need to find people who have even less self-esteem and self-confidence than themselves. The victim also needs to have some trait that makes he/her different, so that the bully has a point to actually ridicule.

Aspergians are ideal targets for bullies because we find it difficult to respond appropriately to the teasing. We sometimes have difficulty, recognizing that we are being bullied at first. We are often loners who don't have a group of friends with whom we can feel secure. We also often have a poor, or at least inaccurate, self-image. Finally, we usually do things that others find odd, like stimming, talking to ourselves, dressing in unusual clothing, or having unusual interests. These things are all part of you and there is nothing wrong with it.

There are various ways to handle bullying, but I won't go into all of that. I am hoping another helpful WP member will provide some tips on that topic. But just remember that we are lucky to be different and when you get older, you will see just how special you are. Take pride in yourself and focus on what a wonderful life you can make for yourself.

Last edited by dyingofpoetry on 28 Feb 2011, 9:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

well put dying of poetry. Social climbers find it easier to put others down than to be decent and go up. Or they could be self conscious as well. It's easier to feel good about your self if their is someone below you. Lucky life does get lightly better after highschool. Stick in there mate.

As for making friends i suggest being around those people who defended you. Their probably decent folk so start there. you might have to swallow your pride and be uncomfortable but its better in the long run.

I did that once. I was picked on by one guy during the 8th grade and this girl who was in the same grade stood up for me and I thought that she was the prettiest girl so then I had a crush on her because she was nice to me. Next year when I was in 9th grade I wanted to be her boyfriend I followed her a lot at school and she got really annoyed with me and now she was being mean to me. I thought she was nice to me but she ignored me later on and was hating me agian. I don't know why I am so annoying. I was stalking her a lot like every time I would see her I would want to walk up to her and she would be hiding her face from me and trying to avoid me. I now feel depressed for that because she helped me before and now she doesnt want to talk to me. She goes to a diffeent school now and I don't hang out with people who defend me becasue I feel that they will be like her and get annoyed with me really fast.

I am also really lonely socaily and have no friends and have no life at all only on the Internet which is where my life is mostly now adays.

I know you're grown up and long gone Seagull - but you answered your own question of why this girl behaved the way she did after she defended you and you started to show romantic interest in her. You kept following her even when you knew it annoyed her and she would hide her face from you. She sensed you didn't want to be friends because you were crushing on her and she wasn't into it. You didn't take the hint to back off the crush vibes.

I've been that girl stalked by a guy I didn't like at school, more than once. Usually it's a nice guy that I have zero interest in romantically, but whom I would be willing to hang out with socially (even though I know he's geeky or a dork). The guy would develop interest in me and not take the hint that I wasn't interested, so I'd avoid him rather than directly say, "I'm not into you like that". It's hard to be that direct at that age. A few years later in college, a guy was that direct with me and I actually appreciated it. It stopped me from wasting my time chasing him because I didn't actually want to be his friend if it wasn't going to go anywhere. I think he was gay (not sure if he thought saying that would embarrass me more, or less...).

My current husband did stalk me a little in college, and it was also embarrassing how he stared and smiled at me - but we got friend-time in before he started following me, trying to run into me to hang out more. Maybe that's why it ended up working out. He's a little...like me.

So hang out with people who protect you - maybe. Stalk them as a crush when they aren't interested - no. It embarrasses them.

Sometimes people act like jerks. Especially when they are teenagers and have not emotionally matured yet. In what ways are they picking on you? Sometimes there are so.e tactics you can use to shut the bullies down depending on how hostile they are.

There was a boy in my class in middle school who was picked on by the other boys, one in particular. The kid being bullied was a mature, intellegent, nice, but naive kid and this made it easy for others to toy with him, and the bully, while not actually ill intended, found the opportunity too easy and entertaining to pass up. The nature of the bullying usually consisted of the bully trying to trick the kid in to falling for something or saying something that made him look like a fool, or generally giving him a hard time. The bully actually did this to everyone, but most kids ignored him, or just wouldn't play his game. The kid who got bullied always responded to him but didn't seem to realize the goal of the bully was to have some fun toying with him. The kid would try to have an intelligent, honest discussion but the more he said, the more fuel he gave the bully to use against him. This bully was not a malicious bully though, and backed down easily.

Some bullies are malicious and they will aggressively pursue their target. These are the bullies who will resort to physical bullying and will make it difficult for the victim to flee. But guess what? They also violate the law when they do this and you do have the option of going to the police in such a situation.

Generally the way I would deal with bullies is...

1. Don't engage with them and don't try to reason with them.
2. Report the bullying to the school if it is happening there or you are both students there.
3. Let your parents know what is going on.
4. If the bullying violates any laws, know the law is on your side and don't be afraid to report the bullying to tge authorities.

Often the deep desire for something makes people want it to give you less.

I watched my older sister get bullied. It was because she was trying so desperately to be their friends. She never got it, you have to manipulate these people into not doing it, not be their pawn.

Bullies tried it with me but generally stopped pretty quickly when they relised I didn’t give a crap about being their friend. I was completely ignored by everyone at high school, which was still better than what you got.

Innocence and desperation are two things that get people into a sticky mess.

Learn a martial art and shut them up with your fist. That’s what I’ll be telling my neice when she’s old enough to talk.

It’s because...

* You have some self esteem and confidence issues.
* You feel have like you have no friends (except only 2 whom you talk to)
* You feel weak and pitied when people try to protect you.
* You feel like no one knows you exist.
* You obsess about how to get people to be nice to you and not take advantage of you.

... and all of those shows in your actions, attitude, and posture; in other words, they pick on you because you look weak and “pick-able” to them.

Been there. When I stopped caring about what other people thought of me, when I stopped being concerned about having no friends, and when I stopped obsessing over how to be noticed, everything started looking up for me.

It also helped that one time that I “exploded” and beat the snot out of one of the bullies who had always been beating up on me that I no longer felt pitied and in need of protection. People also stopped trying to take advantage of me (most of the time, anyway).

It all came down to expressing myself to those bullies in the only language they understood — violence.

You gotta stand up for yourself and literally fight back. Until then, you can expect the bullies to use and abuse you for their own amusement, and then blame you for being “weak” and a “crybaby”.

I've seen otherwise happy, nice people be bullied for one reason or another. Sometimes a person is targeted just because they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and they continue to be so because of pack mentalities, stigma, rumors and so on.

As for violence, if someone is being assaulted then they have the right to defend themselves but violence in response to verbal bullying often only gets the person being bullied in trouble and serves to futher alienate them.

I think it's important for the OP to know that this situation will likely eventually resolve on it's own after high school. Everyone will go their own ways and move on. I have a friend who was bullied so badly in high school for being effeminate that his parents pulled him out and home schooled him. He became very popular in college and is well liked.