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BEATS OF LOVE

52. That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore by The Smiths

BEING NON-CONFRONTATIONAL, nervously outspoken, and often isolated, has, at varying times in my life, subjected me to bullying. 

What should've been a lifelong friend, whose online persona gradually consumed them, created instead a cold and hyper-critical monster. Becoming someone that I had to disengage with. That's the problem with bullying. It dehumanizes everyone involved. Watching others being bullied turns my stomach. Unfortunately, disengaging in a workplace isn't an option. 

My latest perpetrator dehumanized me to raise their own levels of disgust,  which I've discovered, then facilitates a space to inflict real harm. Inevitably, the subtle psychological torment began after my complaint about their aggressive behaviour was lodged, which, as someone cleverer than I noted, is bullying by stealth. It isn't as easy to pick up on CCTV, either.  I'm now facing weeks of damaging investigation after declining mediation. 

I fell out completely with God and my parents through their inaction at being told I was being bullied and am still scarred by the countless times I handed over my bus fare in fear and instead walked home. Or, had my expensive clobber nicked from the changing rooms only to see it in the schoolyard on my perpetrators person.   

My parental advice was to run for the bus and be more careful. No wonder my perpetrator got away scot free and no wonder I have ambivalent memories of my adolescence as a consequence. I recall the great pride I had in my sister when she stormed into her son's school when he was being bullied and the look of guilt written across my mother's face when it happened. I bunked off school in part to escape my perpetrator and in part to memorise Morrissey and Marr's melodies and lyrics. Especially this masterpiece, which still brilliantly evades any definitive meaning, despite me knowing every syllable and hook, and a bit about poetry. 

Sounding both achingly haunting whilst also mesmerisingly beautiful, it still speaks to my own intense ambivalent feelings of self-obsessed alienation. It's still a survival kit of sorts. Sadly, I still over identify with that confused, depressed teen, who, curled up in a ball, relieved to get home from school, played this song constantly. And I still feel sad realizing that I've never been able to break this fucking cycle.

The only good to come out of being bullied is the escapism from it often involves playing loads of records. Music to blot out pain. Music to heal. Always music.