People Explain Their Best 'If You Go Low, I'll Go Lower' Experiences

Speaking of the lessons she gave her daughters about dealing with bullies, First Lady Michelle Obama famously said at the 2016 Democratic National Convention:

"...our motto is, when they go low, we go high."

In 2022, Obama revisited her words and shared:

"...for me, even when it’s hard, even when we don’t feel like we want to, going high will always be the answer."

But for the rest of us, sometimes we want to not take the high road.

Reddit user nirvanna1 asked:

"What's your 'if you go low, I'll go lower' moment?"

Don't Mess With Gamers

"Me and a few friends were sitting around in study hall talking about some new Magic the Gathering cards we had purchased. Some random kid who was just generally a prick to everybody, picked up one of my friends' cards and started to walk away with it, taunting him."

"My friend ran at him, grabbed a chair, and swung it into his side and then his back. The kid kinda fell after the first hit; the 2nd was just gravy, I guess."

"My friend grabbed his card and walked back to the table."

~ Maybe_Not_The_Pope

Thanks, Mom

"This was actually my mother's doing, but it helped me see that she will ALWAYS have my back from a very young age. I went to a brand new school in 2nd grade, and the two popular girls were mean to me in the beginning."

"My mom booked my birthday party that year at the PREMIERE birthday party spot in my hometown—think laser tag, bowling, putt-putt, batting cages, etc..."

"She then sent me to school and had me give an invite to every single person except for those two girls, and coached me to say, 'why would I want to invite someone who doesn't like me?' when they asked."

"Guess who started being nice to me?"

"I *know* we could not afford that birthday party at the time, but my mom wanted to help me with my new school however she could. Forever grateful."

~ whiskeyandtacos

Biting The Hand

"On a new team, I had helped a fellow lead/manager out a lot, hoping he would spin up and pull his own weight."

"He had a part in getting me demoted, so I decided to stop doing his job and focus on my own. He didn't like that and complained to my manager and demanded a meeting to discuss my 'lack of cooperation'."

"So I spent a few hours compiling about a 35-page report complete with screenshots and other receipts detailing how much the team and I did his job in addition to our own. Got it to my manager in time for the meeting which the guy called off."

"The guy was fired the next week."

~ timg528

Enough Is Enough

"I was always a really small kid, like proper late bloomer. I didn't actively get bigger until I was about 15, no idea why, but there we go."

"In the before times when I was 'little', one lad always picked on me—it wasn't constant like bullying, but just like every now and again, he'd do something, knowing full well I had nothing to do in return. Kick my shins, punch me in the arm, generally act a dick etc..."

"Well, I had my growth spurt very literally over the summer holidays and came back to school twice my previous size. Sometime later, we were at something, and said nasty lad walks over and punches me in the side."

"To my suprise it didn't hurt as much as it normally did, and I thought 'f*ck it' and returned fire in the exact same place on him, to here an audible 'HNNNNN'. After that, he never picked on me again."

"I don't advocate for violence and to this day have never been in a fight in my life; however, I suppose sometimes just letting people know you're not taking their sh*t is enough."

~ DonKiddic

Personal Space

"If someone is standing too close to me when they talk, I'll step in a little closer."

"Makes it better if we're all uncomfortable."

~ shizblam

Swift Kick

"I distinctly remember being at a neighborhood kid’s house when I was younger. Him and another kid were making gay jokes at my expense. Why? Not sure."

"Anyways, after one of the jokes, I kicked the neighborhood’s kid’s knee. He asked why I kicked him. I told him because he was making gay jokes about me."

"Miraculously, no more gay jokes were said that day."

~ Darkmeathook

Like Swatting A Fly

"In like 10th grade, there was a day where my first-period class had a substitute teacher, and we wound up working on a pile of worksheets. Something like a dozen pages."

"The guy behind me kept jabbing me in the back of the neck with his pencil for some reason that I can't remember. I'm normally a super conflict-avoidant guy, so I asked him to stop nicely a couple of times. Then gave him a warning."

"Then, when the sub turned away from us, I rolled up my stack of worksheets like a newspaper and spun around to smack him upside the face. It made a very satisfying sound, and I was working on my worksheets again before the sub turned back around."

"The guy moved desks to the back of the class and avoided me for the rest of high school. I didn't even do it intending to humiliate him, but it definitely did exactly that."

~ RikuAotsuki

Caught

"Old boss treated me like sh*t for almost 10 years."

"When I got a new job in the same organization as an auditor, I ran an audit on her unit since I knew where the skeletons were buried."

"My new boss enjoyed the sh*tshow because they knew and hated my old supervisor."

~ gambitgrl

Back Off

"If I'm standing in a line that's moving slowly and someone keeps standing too close behind me, I'll move backwards like I'm stretching or doing something and purposely bump into them."

"I'll keep doing it as long as they do, until they get the point."

"Most has been 3 times before they finally backed off."

~ alphalegend91

Last Contact

"Decades ago had a job reading water meters. The boss frequently paid me late. Sometimes, I had to drive to his house in the suburbs in my sh*tty car and still wait a couple of hours until he was done swimming to get my paycheck."

"Then I told him I was leaving and he was surprised when I called him inquiring about my last paycheck, as if I had offered to work the last month for free. The f*cker played stupid with my check for a whole month, until he urgently needed me to take the readings again that month."

"He even paid me my previous and future check in advance. I went home and made up all the readings and when he started blowing up my phone, I blocked his a**."

~ Panchotevilla

Can You Hear Me Now?

"If someone is talking on their phone (at full volume) in an inappropriate setting, I'll do the same so they aren't able to hear their convo."

~ necessaryevil23

Red-Handed

"Boss that treated me like crap for years used the company's PPP loan—that they got by fudging the books by cutting hours—to buy a new car."

"They refused my demand to bring my pay up to match with other supervisors, so they got reported for PPP loan fraud."

~ Wild_Chef6597

Chewed Out

"I had a kid at school who constantly threw chewing gum into my hair, so I had to always go to the nurse's office to have it teased out. Absolutely disgusting whenever I felt it—he was literally chewing it and then attempting to spit it into my hair.

"When I finally had enough and felt it for the 12th time, and the teachers were ignoring it, I stood up and threw my chair at him."

"And to be fair, the teacher turned around, told me to go to the nurse's office, and carried on teaching."

~ Spoonful3

Pencil Flicker

"In middle school, this guy kept flicking pencils at me, so I turned around and threw a binder at him."

"I got a detention, but at least the guy never flicked pencils at me again."

~ MechanicalWindow

Deez...

"Was getting bullied in elementary school cause I was a scrawny kid. Called my Dad one night to tell him about it (parents were divorced), and he told me next I saw the kid to kick him in the nuts as hard as I could."

"My mom was pissed about his advice and told me not to."

"I did it anyways."

"Never bothered me again."

~ erryonestolemyname

Was there a time when you "stooped to their level" and then went even lower? Do you regret anything?