That makes a lot of sense, Sannah.

Daughter tells me that thrift store clothing is "in" now. When she was in elementary school, she got a few comments because we were poor, and by then I had figured out a comeback, which I taught her.

Bully: Where did you get that outfit? At the Goodwill?
Daughter: (cheerfully, conversationally, pretending to miss the disapproval in the voice) Why, did you see it there? It sounds like you shop at the Goodwill a lot.
Bully: (shuts up)

About the Forrest Gump treatment on the school bus, I finally did manage to stop that, my senior year in high school. I reasoned that girls don't have qualms about hitting other girls, while in my youth boys were often taught that they shouldn't hit girls. So I picked out a boy. Everyone had their legs spread across the seats to keep me from sitting with them, and I just jolly well sat on his legs. He immediately scrambled out of the seat and, rather than sit with me, he chose to sit three to a seat with two other boys. But hey, for a change, I didn't have to stand in the aisle all the way home from school. I had a seat. Furthermore, I had a seat to myself! Meanwhile his butt was hanging off the edge of his seat, and he was struggling to keep his balance so he wouldn't fall over into the aisle. Which was his choice, because he could have sat with me and been much more comfortable. And nobody ever did that to me again.

I also recall this exchange from about the eighth grade.

Bully: Personally, I think you stink.
Me: (same tone) Personally, I don't give a damn what you think.

Sometimes that technique worked, and sometimes it didn't. That time, it shocked him into silence because I usually just took that kind of treatment without answering at all, and he never said another word to me.

Much of this way of coping finally came into my mind when I was in a previous marriage, to a man whose sister couldn't stand me. Her reasons were not good ones. She was the one who was dysfunctional. And it occurred to me that I really didn't care what she thought of me, because I didn't have enough respect for her opinion that it made a difference. So here, at last, was a case of someone not liking me, and I couldn't care less. Whereas before that, any time someone didn't like me, it crushed me.

It's true, in the end it's all about the potential target's self-esteem. If the potential target is OK with him/herself, and does not feel inferior to others, then chances are the potential target will not become an actual target.