Okay, so I'm enrolled in my high school's automotive program. I'm the ONLY girl out of 17 kids. We're all either juniors or seniors. I've been in this program for almost a year and to say the least I take A LOT of crap from these boys. I'm always the butt of their joke, always getting picked on and messed with. I know that they're just kidding most of the time but it gets annoying and hurtful when all of them are on me everyday. Some of the things they joke about, they take too far sometimes, like they'll make fun of my race. Anyway, I got into a huge argument with one of the boys a couple months ago. It was a lot of drama. He said something that hurt me and I immaturely reacted to what he said and it turned into a HUGE fight. My teacher even got involved and ended up taking the other kid's side and ever since then me and the kid haven't really talked. He hasn't said a word to me but the other day, one of my closes friends came up to me and told me that the boy I got into a fight with was talking crap about me with two other guys. My friend told me that they were saying stuff like how ugly I was and what not. The thing is, I'm really bad at taking things to heart and it hurt me so much when I heard. I wasn't sure if this was true until another one of my classmates came up to me and confirmed that he also heard the three guys talking about me behind my back. I know that being called ugly isn't that big of a deal, but for some reason it was for me. It really hurt me. Right now I'm just trying not to react like I did last time and I'm trying to act like nothing's bothering me in class. My question for you guys is, how do I not take things these boys say about me or to me seriously? How do I brush it off? And how do I deal with them talking about me behind my back? I really just don't want them to get a reaction out of me because I know that's what they want so, how do I control myself from getting angry at them?

Firstly, from what I can see in your avi, you're very pretty, so forget those comments. Second, I'd maybe talk to a counselor (not necessarily a school one) or a therapist about how to deal with these sorts of situations.

What some women do is imagine something embarrassing happening to the other person and they laugh about it. It's their little joke. I heard about this one woman who was continuoulsy sexually harassed in her workplace. She could not quit because she had to support a child, so her only other option was to learn to handle it differently until she COULD leave. So whenever a man said something rude or degrading to her, she would imagine that insane bunny from Monty Python Attacking them somewhere OTHER then the face (if you know what I mean) She did this once after and actually started laughing histerically and completely forgot what they were talking about because the image was so funny to her. Needless to say that they didn't like that very much, but they laid off. :)

Um, well I hate to say this miss, however you are in a male oriented class. They are going to pick on you the hardest because they are all guys and there is one girl, they can gang up and guys feel more brave in groups as do all people. But you're in the position where they pit them against you, only you. Its like you are the lone gazell circled by lions.

The best way out of that situation is simply to out number the lions. Since you cannot do this with more gazells, you have to convert some of the lions to your side. Basically meaning you need to catch some attention from a couple of the guys and once they get on board with the digging you train then the rest will follow. And those that do not follow can't say crap to you cause they will catch it from the other guys.

Or if you really just want to learn not to take the stuff personally I can't help you with that. I take enough stuff personally myself for an entire city. If someone was making fun of my race I'd get even. If they were seriously picking on me I'd fight them. But you are much stronger than me, you have already proven that. If I was say, in home economics and all of my classmates were female. They all decided to be mean to me, I would drop the class and I would probably have gone home crying more times then I would have liked to remember. Reason, I'm sensitive to what all women say, its not just people in general, its girls. I can take endless crap from guys, and I don't care because I am not trying to impress them, but when it comes from a girl it makes me feel .5 inches tall. :(

So yeah I commend you for your strength and determination. And I suggest playing dirty at their own game.