When Fiction Becomes Reality

As I was flipping through the channels tonight, I stumbled on a scene from a police series: a whole classroom was pickin’ on 1 person until he was just desperate enough to do horrible stuff. In an instant, my mind blanked, I completely froze and had flashbacks of a school trip to Italy in my last year of high school. I got reminded of that horrible feeling I had every time I got on the bus and the whole bus started calling me names and chanting the same song over and over again. And everyone joined: people who didn’t know me, some hadn’t even ever engaged in a conversation with me, but even some of my friends. And I guess no one ever cared that bullying really hurts.

I wonder why people do this. Even today, I wonder why some people called me their friend back then, but never bothered to defend me. But I guess that in this dog-eat-dog world, it is safer to join the masses. What is everyone so afraid off? That someone might actually like for all that you are if you show yourself just the way you are?