The first definition in that link. The ones that follow are bs.

Woah, this was a strange read this morning. Listen, Hunter, I believe you’re a 16-year-old boy who believes you did something great in 3rd-grade and can’t understand why people aren’t giving you the credit you think you deserve. I also believe that you were diagnosed with Autism when you were very young and I believe that that diagnosis is absolutely relevant to this whole situation and I hope you are continuing to get support. People with high functioning autism, which I am guessing is your diagnosis, tend to fixate and obsess on certain topics; they also often miss or misinterpret social cues, get bullied as children, and have trouble sort of understanding social context and their place within that context. I have a lot of compassion and empathy for you. I think this was probably the wrong forum to for you to seek whatever it was you were seeking, and I wonder how you even ended up here.

The thing is, you aren’t a hero for standing up for a pretty girl years ago when you were 8. But you aren’t an anti-hero either. You’re just a kid, trying to figure things out. One of the things I hope you figure out is that women and girls don’t need “saving” from men and boys. There’s no such thing as a knight in shining armor, and even if there were, I would hope he would help everyone he thinks needs support and not just girls and women he thinks are pretty.

I’m rooting for you and hope you find the appropriate outlet for your energy, your curiosity, and the gifts you are lucky to have!

For what it’s worth, Hunter, I wasn’t assuming you were diagnosed with anything. That’s why I asked you about it. I deal with a lot of people with spectrum disorders in my work, and I’ve noticed a lot of similarities in speech patterns and mannerisms that are often taught as methods to “blend in”, for lack of a better term. It’s relevant because, as Wendy put it:

People with high functioning autism, which I am guessing is your diagnosis, tend to fixate and obsess on certain topics; they also often miss or misinterpret social cues, get bullied as children, and have trouble sort of understanding social context and their place within that context

Now, I don’t know where on the spectrum you fall, and I agree with you that THAT isn’t relevant. But the fact that you are ON it does change the context of this considerably, because it explains why you’re having trouble understanding the issues presented here. You’ll also notice that the tone of the replies changed considerably once that information was given, not because of some pity for you or something but because criticizing someone with a spectrum disorder for misunderstanding social cues is like criticizing an English speaker for not understanding Portuguese; you can do it over time, but it takes practice and learning.

I agree with Sky’s last response. You sound like a good guy who made the choice to get involved and do what your moral compass told you was the right thing to do. What people are reacting to negatively now is the concept that you did it because she was pretty, because there are unfortunately a lot of guys out there who would only intervene BECAUSE she was pretty and because they hoped she would “owe” them; in other words, doing it for the wrong reasons. I don’t think that’s why you did it, but I think if you told the exact same story and avoided the adjectives — in other words, if the fact that she was a girl was just what it was and not the motivation for you getting involved — the criticisms would die down quite a bit. And for those that don’t, you need to just remember that nothing you do in life is going to be universally loved or hated, and you just have to decide whether the opinions of those who disagree with you matter to your day-to-day life. If they do, change; if they don’t, ignore them.

@Hunter- I got bullied in elementary. If someone had pelted one of those kids, I probably would have felt like you feel about it, especially if they continued to be a bully that was good at manipulating adults.

Some kids never grow up. They go on to be confident, domineering adults. But sometimes kids who were bullied can grow up and become bullies, themselves. Kids who are an easy target for bullies sometimes become insecure and learn to sometimes bully other kids. This is a good article to read about it:

https://www.parentingscience.com/bully-victims.html

It is good that you cared when you saw someone getting hurt and laughed at on the playground all of those years ago. Your family and the people who care about you probably wanted you to be able to defend yourself and others.

Because the kid who got hurt was smaller than you, when you got angry and lashed out at your bully, people who care about you wanted you to feel proud about having a value systems that encourages you to help other people even if it puts you at risk.
But while it may have felt personally satisfying to you, it didn’t stop that girl from landing on her ass nor did getting one over on the adults help fix the playground situation. It was a moment in time where you ended up feeling you got one up on that bully and didn’t get in any trouble for it.

That was a noble instinct for you when you were eight but now when you tell the story people want to make sure that you don’t think beating someone up is the best way to prevent bullying at your current grade and age.

Sometimes parents and communities teach boys that bullying is a normal part of their gender and getting into physical fights is somehow a rite of passage to becoming a man or demonstrating that they have courage to protect others.

One issue with this is that there are a lot of people in the world who don’t conform to strict gender roles. And even if they do, girls can be mean, too. They can be just as brave and courageous. They can outwit and outfight as well as the next person. Most of the time, people who have bigger builds or more testosterone or special skills DO need to be aware that there is a power difference between themselves and someone who differs in size or physical aptitude.

Sometimes parents will teach boys that girls are to be put on pedestals. But a lot of people find that paying too much attention to someone’s gender when deciding how to treat them ends up making it harder to really get to know a person for their character.

Because you’re in high school lots of kids are in the process of figuring out what they think about gender differences, especially because a lot of teenagers are in romantic relationships or maybe going out on dates people have a lot of feelings about what it means to treat other’s fairly and respectfully, especially when there may be a lot of hormones.

So when you write the story and embellish it, you will probably get a critical reaction from people who are sensitive about being treated as equals. When you write you defended “a little girl” that is going to make people wonder if you think of girls or women as so different from yourself or boys your age that you aren’t able to see them accurately.

When you tell your story you should assume nobody knows anything about you. They don’t know if you are a bully, or a misogynist (someone who doesn’t treat women as equals), or trying to impress others with exaggeration (because that makes people behave more skeptically towards you).

I’m sorry I assumed your story was fake. I hope my link to the Christmas story wasn’t hurtful to you. I think most people tend to think of themselves as the “good guy” in their memories. It’s normal, but as you get older, you’ll realize that not everyone is going to share your point of view.