I was on a military base until I was 12. There were a couple bullies, but nothing major becuase people moved around a lot- pretty much every new school year meant making new friends becuase most/all of them moved away during the year prior. New kids always got mobbed for a couple weeks while everyone figured out if they'd make a good friend.
Moving was jarring- it hadn't occurred to me until I started my new school that these kids had grown up with each other. They didn't need to talk to me. I think I made one friend during the half of 6th grade I had at that school- who quit talking to me by the beginning of 7th grade. Good LORD, was the first day of 7th grade hard- I won't get into everything, but no one in my class even went to the elementary school I'd done the half-year of 6th grade in. So I was starting from new kid square one, only nobody knew it. I made NO friends for months. I sat alone at lunch. I walked to the corner market my mom worked at, bought a magazine about horses with a pen pal section, and started writing a LOT of letters. Oddly enough, this is also when I got into gaming- a magazine my mom had won a subscription for & didn't update before we moved found us & finished the subscription. Mail was kinda my lifeline then, so the magazine worked its way into that. We couldn't afford new games, but I sure read about them every month!
Eventually things worked out- a girl I'd never seen before suddenly sat across from me at lunch. She had a horse backpack. I told her I liked it. We proceeded to eat lunch together everyday, without speaking, for weeks- until one multi-class PE session saw us sorted next to each other right before we were told to pick partners for something-or-other. We ended up proper friends after that. She got me into Star Wars & introduced me to the internet. Come high school we got put in different classes- but now I had the guts to try & talk to some people, and a gaming magazine I hauled around which helped start conversations. There were attempts at bullying, but nothing ever stuck- I don't think they knew what to do with someone who'd developed a completely different value system than they did. Popularity? Sports? Who cares about that- games & anime are better, and the people are nicer. Hard to bully someone who treats you like the 'nerd'.
You've got me thinking about that magazine again- I actually attribute a lot of how my life is today to that subscription. Those issues helped me make friends, which provided me new interests, which eventually put me in the right place to meet my fiancé. I don't know what any of those editors are doing nowadays, but if some retro con ever does a Game Players reunion and brings the 90s group together again, I NEED to be there. I have a lot to thank them for!
