School Boy Intimidation Turns Into Respect

Throughout my primrary school days, I was small for my age and being skinny left me very vulnerable to the bigger boys who enjoyed picking on the smaller boys like myself. And so I like most boys in my position felt vulnerable and dreaded going to school.

At break time I would hang out with my friends but mostly with my one friend Bryce, who was the complete opposite of me as he was big for his age, and whenever I was with Bryce I had no problems with the bigger boys trying to intimidate me, but as soon as Bryce wasn't around I was picked on and laughed at for my size and my physique.

These boys intimidated me so much that i lost all my self confidence and I was scared to do anything, such as answer or ask questions in class, as I was scared of being laughed at and mocked which has made me a very shy person, until it got so bad that I just wanted to cry sometimes, but I knew that if I did that would just give them more reason to mock me and lower my self confidence even more. No matter how hard i tried to not let them get to me, I was just to vulnerable and cried myself to sleep some nights.

Until the day I was one of the stars in my schools cricket team, which included most of the boys who were intimidating me, they tried many things to try knock my confidence I had while playing cricket, but when they realised that there was nothing that could stop me from enjoying and loving cricket so much, as I was playing with such confidence, all of a sudden all of the intimidating, mocking and jeering stopped because they respected me as a star sportsman and they treated me like a normal person.

It really amazes me that people can't treat others with respect and as equals until they succeed in something.

Althouth all the mocking and jeering stopped i am still shy as they really dented my self confidence so much, and it makes me wonder wheather the intimidation and mocking would have ever stopped if it wasn't for me doing well at sport!