[Z]

Do people believe it's possible for an adult to bully another adult? Bullying is widely associated with being at school; so teenagers and younger; it's often considered a thing that you 'grow out of' as you get older, because of that attachment to youth. But is it always so? Harassment in the work place is treated as a different subject entirely, it's somehow not classed as being the same as bullying, the 'b' word is never used.

I ask this because of a difficult situation that has arisen amongst my friends. A number of my friends perceive one of our other friends to have changed as a person. They think he can't take a joke, he's too full of himself, they don't like the person he has become - and they choose to express their views through making comments on his Facebook page. He started up his own business and has registered himself as a sole trader, and so puts a lot of time and effort into promoting his business and uses Facebook as a promotional tool. He posted a link to something he'd completed, and four of my friends immediately jumped in and started commenting on it, making fun of him, where all of his friends can see it. He responded, asking them if they all work together to gang up on him, and they all kept commenting further, liking each other's comments and making him look more and more ridiculous with what they were saying. He's asked me for advice and I'm still not sure what he can even do to put a stop to all of this. They all claim to be his friend, but they don't support him and actively enjoy making fun of him. But if anyone throws the bully word out there, they would all take offense and vehemently deny it, because nobody likes to hear that word. But I see it as bullying. They have every right to talk about the fact he's changed, because he has, but they don't have a leg to stand on when it comes to posting things publicly and ganging up on him. He doesn't want to hang out with any of them again because this has been going on for so long now, for almost 3 years he's been running his business and not one of them has ever congratulated him on any of his accomplishments, they just make fun of him. He understandably doesn't want to be friends with people like that. They don't seem to want to be friends with the person he is, yet they won't let go of the fact that he has changed and further drive him away.

The whole situation has made me think about bullying a lot. It's not nice to see and it's horrible that not one of them even feels bad about it, and now that I've made my views on it more apparent by very obviously taking pity on the one friend, I'd bet money that they're all talking about me behind my back now too. I think there needs to be more awareness on the fact that bullying is not just a thing that happens to little kids - it's often the people that know you the best who can bring you down the most.