@JLeslie – To clarify, what I meant by ”whenever someone shows a weakness.” I meant that when a peer or someone who I regard as stronger than I shows a chink in their armor; NOT that I picked on people who were generally weaker than I, as bullies are known to do.
For me it was an opportunity to one-up myself in comparison with those whom I looked up to, so it seems much like your experience. These were friends, relatives and romantic partners. The need to be heard and not just pushed aside was also huge for me back then.
The point I was trying to make was how as a child I learned the behavior of verbal abuse that had beaten me down and I reflexively did it to others; therefore, those who have been bullied may similarly learn and unconsciously adopt those same behaviors.
I do not consider my experience as having been bullied or having been a bully. My definition of bullying considers the victim as having a significant disadvantage compared to the bully – whether in physical ability, intellectual ability, or just being outnumbered by a group of bullies and singled out for being ‘different’ but not necessarily weaker.
As for the person you refer to and whether he is clueless or has knowledge of how he is upsetting someone else, there are many variables – such as whether he may indeed have weak abilities to empathize or read non-verbal cues (which I don’t consider a gender-specific ability, but maybe that’s because I am not a typical female and I do not have those innate social abilities, either. I am hoping that we will soon learn more about these skills from studying people with Autism and Aspergers, because I think that I have something missing in the social skills part of the brain, but I do not think I actually am on the autism spectrum). That may also be where nature and nurture overlap – people with these mental imbalances having offspring pass on their genes and also raise those kids in an imbalanced environment. I completely see that in my own life and others, like my alcoholic ex-husband’s family.