Yeah, that sounds like a situation where you needed someone else to stand up for you, and I think that's a lot more common. If you can get out of it on your ow

Yeah, that sounds like a situation where you needed someone else to stand up for you, and I think that's a lot more common. If you can get out of it on your own toughness alone, it probably wasn't bullying. It's part of the definition of bullying that it's one-sided, that the victim has no good ways to fight back. If they DO have a way to fight back, it's called conflict, not bullying. It's of course possible that one side in a conflict is a big jerk, a wannabe thug, etc. One of the big conclusions from bullying research is that treating bullying as if it was conflict (e.g. teaching kids "negotiation strategies") makes things actively worse.