Personal Post. Throw Rocks at Owen. 10.14.2026. (Patreon)

No game, geek, or game industry content here. Just a personal post. If you want to see these, join this Patreon as at least a free member. This stuff isn't going on social media anymore, it's going here. Eventually, I'll make an index.

I used to claim I was never bullied at school.

Then one day, I casually told my therapist about my year at Irving Middle School, when a popular game called "Throw Rocks at Owen" went around during recess. There were big drainage ditches behind the school, and to prevent erosion, they had been covered in piles of small rocks. Forbidden to students, kids played all over them, as teachers watched. Whenever I'd walk by, in a huge padded parka (regardless of the weather), toting my enormous backpack (I never kept anything in my locker), some kid would scream, "Throw rocks at Owen!" and several of them would. Keeping the hood of my parka up meant mostly even headshots didn't hurt much.

No, I did not like it. Yes, several teachers knew. No, they did not care. Usually a few watched.

So, after hearing that, my therapist wanted to know how I felt about being bullied like that.

I tried to explain why that wasn't 'bullying.'

I failed.

(Public domain image)

Then I spent a lot of time reassessing a lot of public-school interactions.

There were absolutely episodes when I avoided bullying... except of course that knowing the entire football team wants to beat you up, or that a teacher is (in her own words) "looking for any excuse to expel you, justified or not," and having a formal club tell me they'd disband if I joined them, are all their own forms of bullying.

The most serious bullying I suffered definitely came from other sources. The Boy Scouts who dug a hole in the ground far from camp, had me lured out to it, forced me to the bottom, stood on me, and began shoving dirt on top of me saying they'd bury me alive was definitely the worst. The ladies at the science fiction convention that thought getting a 15-year-old drunk was funny. Heck, the college-age gamers who thought getting a 16-year-old drunk and having him walk home was funny.

(I never got into drinking until I lived in Seattle, and weirdly the habit ended when I left. Both times.)

But the more I thought about things I dreaded at school, the more I realized that, yeah, a lot of it was bullying. It just didn't rise to the level of trying to bury me alive. But that "game" at Irving Middle School taught me that having people throw rocks at me was allowed. Not worthy of any official action, mitigation, or reprimand.

It was acceptable, so it can't have been bullying.

And, I admit, I still often just suck it up when people throw rocks at me.

Because that's normal.