I grew up in conservative Orange County and didn’t leave my home town of La Habra until I went to college in 1977. I grew up in a middle-class family with a Mormon upbringing. I encountered the typical tribulations that kids and adolescents endured— nothing out of the ordinary for that generation and time.
I thoroughly enjoyed my high school years. I was popular with my teachers and classmates. I was awkward in sports but great at dancing. I was a typical class clown. I loved to sing and dance and enjoyed being on stage, but I couldn’t catch a ball. There were many girls that flirted with me, but I wasn’t really interested. Are you getting the picture?
It was after graduation that I figured out I was gay. If there was any bullying going on, it was isolated and low-key.
Over the years, we’ve seen young teens on talk shows who discuss their encounters with bullies at school. They may have been bullied about their sexuality, or the way they have altered their appearance, or the fact that they were denied the opportunity to attend their senior prom with their same-sex date. Well, call me old-fashioned, but in my opinion that type of expression should be saved for the college years.
But what this is really about is one of the negative side effects of the Internet— high-speed bullying. The results have been devastating, deadly and so sad that texting and other social network tools are used for such negative communications.
Last month several friends and I went to Palm Springs to attend the gay festival and parade. The parade included marching bands, floats and various gay support groups. Somewhere in the middle of the parade, a 14-year-old boy carrying a sign brought a hush to all of us as he walked by. One side of the sign had a list of teens who have ended their lives as a result of cyber-bullying. The opposite side of the sign read: “I’m 14— I’m trusting you that it will get better.”
Many tears appeared.
