Yup, I know I didn't do the right thing that day. Like I said, I got "cocky." I stepped overboard. I didn't have my "filter" on and the words just slipped out of my mouth before I could think about what I was going to say. I realized that very soon after I said it. However, I don't regret having said it. There is no gain in regret, only heartache. I learned a lesson. Do my devotions every morning without fail, no matter how tired I am. If I had done them that morning, as I usually do, this probably would not have happened.
However, there is no real reason for this person to have done all the things that has done to me over the 6 months or so, since he moved here into my building. At first it was teasing. Never when I was alone with him, only when he and I were on the bus or at the Senior Center, around other people. As time went on, the teasing got nastier and nastier. I would try to deflect it with some kind of jovial comment in return, or finally by just ignoring it. None the less, it continued and escalated. I asked for advice here and got plenty of it. But nothing worked, the teasing and bullying continued.
Finally, one day I simply said, "I am not in the mood to be teased today." This I said to another person, not even him. However, he had been teasing me only minutes before she had teased me too, and I had had enough!
Well, the Senior Center Director gave us all a lecture about how a person had the right to attend the Center or ride its bus WITHOUT BEING TEASED OR PICKED ON. She also said that folks could be banned for doing the above.
Well! I had said nothing to anyone in authority, this was all from the bus driver who had overheard me to her, so really, no one could blame me for having the "right" to bully others taken away from them. However, the bully did not see it that way. He told me the next morning that he would no longer be speaking to me, "... because of what you said on the bus." And since then he has been giving me "The Silent Treatment." I read up on this "Silent Treatment" and found out that it is actually another tactic that bullies use to try to control their victims. I read a lot of articles on it, so I forget which one this info was in, but if you Google "Silent Treatment" you might find similar info, maybe even from another source.
Now it has been said that this bully might be trying to protect himself, because he knows that if he opens his mouth toward me, he might let some teasing or bullying slip out without realizing it until it is too late. (Just like that "Grouch" comment slipped out of my mouth). This could be the case, Yes, it could. Or it could just be that he is mad at me, because what I said resulted in his favorite passtime being taken away from him. Bullies get "high" from bullying others. This has been said by others here and is also some info I got from the book I am reading called BULLYING AMONG OLDER ADULTS. Either way, the result is that I have to wait for the bus every morning with this man, and it is uncomfortable. And no, there is no other place to wait for the bus, so I have to sit next to him and listen to the rather "pregnant" silence, because I know that he "hates" me, I have been told this by another person that lives in our building who he has said this to.
I know that two wrongs don't make a right. Even though his bullying of me far outweighs my one comment I made to someone about him, it was not right for me to have said that. I realized it pretty much right after I said it. But, like the tube of toothpaste, I cannot take it back, swallow it and have it not exist. So he knows I think he is a "grouch." I could have called him something far worse.
In fact, another friend of mine, and a co-worker, said to me yesterday, that "No one likes to be teased." I heartily agreed and I said it loud enough so that the bully could hear me agreeing with this man, in fact I repeated his words and went on to say that we have a few folks here at the Center that like to tease others, and that it is not OK.
Furthermore, the Center Director has called in someone from Social Services to give us all a lecture on the 23rd about BULLYING. This might help to solve the problem, because this bully is now bullying a 90 year old very frail man, calling him a "home wrecker" and even going so far as to "warn" the grocery store clerk about him! This has to stop. Someone had to do something. And yes, that someone was and is ME.
@The Albatross
