Was this just playful teasing or bullying?

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Up to this day, it's very hard for me to distinguish between playful teasing and genuine bullying and/or hostility. In fact, I'm still wondering whether this situation (which I found myself in a couple of years ago) was a manifestation of bullying/hostility or just playful teasing:

I was in my school's locker room, changing my clothes before the PE class and everything, when someone kicked over a trashcan, with the intention of it hitting the wall in front of the said person. However, the trashcan happened to bounce off the wall and hit me. As it hit me, everybody started laughing for some reason.

Were these people demonstrating hostility towards me, or did they simply laugh because normal people find it funny when various projectiles which don't happen to fly in the intended direction hit random people?

If the intent was for it to just hit the wall & make a noise to startle someone, or it was just being kicked to let out some anger, or it was just being kicked for the sake of kicking it with no real intent behind it - then definitely the latter. If it was never intended to hit you, and no one else around knew it was going to happen, then they were laughing simply because they found it funny. Pretty much end of story. Their laughter could only really be construed as being mean if they knew what was going to happen and it was an intentional act for the kicker to have bounced the can off the wall into you, then they'd be a**holes. Chances are they just laughed because, as you said, "normal people find it funny when various projectiles which don't happen to fly in the intended direction hit random people."

How did you react, or not react, to this? They may have also found your response, or lack of, to be humourous, too. Ie if someone overreacted and blew up and had a meltdown over something relatively trivial like this, they might find it funny. Or if you stood completely motionless, expressionless, and did nothing for a moment before carrying on getting changed, they might find that funny simply for being an unexpected reaction.

Seeing as this was a couple of years ago & has no bearing on your current or future life, I don't think it's too valuable to spend much time trying to figure it out completely. Just accept it for what it is, forgive anyone that misbehaved, forgive yourself for not being able to definitively interpret the scenario, and just move on and live your life in the present.

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No for supporting trump. Because doing so is deplorable.

It sounds like that person was being silly. Kids did stupid things in my high school and middle school. Also kids don't even apologize for their accidents like this one girl in choir decided to jump on my feet and she looked at me and smiled and didn't even apologize for hurting me. It was very strange I saw it because I don't know why she did it. She was smiling and she jumped on my feet and it hurt. To this day I still don't know why she did it. It was very weird.

Also I wouldn't even worry if they were being mean or not. I prefer to always think positive and assume people are having bad intentions when they do things. If they say something was an accident, take their word for it.

It does not sound like he intentionally kicked the can at you and that it landing where it did was accidental. Ergo they were most likely just amused by this such as like the occasion when a bus queue full of people laughed because I accidentally had a head on collision with a nearby lamp post and which seemed to amuse everybody as a result (including myself). My mind was elsewhere (busy thinking) and I was not watching where I was going at the time.

It happens with me sometimes and they meant no harm lol

Thank you all for your replies. I have another question:

I was once late for my PE class, and as I entered the locker room, about 5-6 people said "Oh no, it's him", "Oh no, not him again" and such. Was this teasing/joking? Or were these people acting mean and hostile?

Depends on the tone of voice, body language, facial expressions, and whether these people are your friends or not.. but there's a much greater probability that they were in fact being rude a**holes led to tease & pick on you for being different led by one ringleader alpha male type jerk.

..which also leads me to believe, if it's the same group of classmates, that they may have been being dicks when they laughed about the garbage can kick, too, if they have a habit of being rude or insulting to you. It may not have been a premeditated and planned thing, but when it happened others may have found it funny because it happened to you, the guy they like to make fun of. (possibly, not certainly.)

Unfortunately high school gym class is going to be prime for that, especially if you're uncoordinated and not exactly a top pick athlete. Combine all that with teenaged boys being jerks to each other non-stop and it's the perfect storm of an environment for you to be picked on.

Perhaps try to pay closer attention to see if you can pick up on any cues that would better determine whether they're joking around or being mean. Tone of voice, body language, facial expressions etc. I know these aren't things you'll intuitively pick up on, but there could be value in the process of trying to remember to pay closer attention to these things, as even if it turns out these guys are being typical teenaged pricks and picking on you, you'll have at least taken advantage of the opportunity to learn to pay attention to these things better and realize what's going on - which will be far more valuable for the rest of your life than stressing much about classmates being idiots. Don't worry too much about their behaviour & try not to let it bother you, try to focus on the good you can get out of it in terms of learning to navigate the social world better.

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No for supporting trump. Because doing so is deplorable.

So it's that group that are idiots then.

Ignore them as best you can, in a few short years they'll likely be out of your life forever after graduation.

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No for supporting trump. Because doing so is deplorable.

Despite of why these kids were laughing at it, just the fact they WERE laughing at it alone makes them punch-worthy anyway.

I hate kids, it's a lost generation.