Why are some people mean? Why do some find pleasure (or some sick derivative of it) in making others miserable?

I try not to think about it too much, but everytime I see pictures of them on Facebook, it further reminds me of what assholes my boyfriend’s friends are. Note, I am NOT friends with the assholes on Facebook, but some of my friends are friends with them.

My boyfriend’s friends basically talk shit about me for no reason other than the fact that I’m not like their group of friends and because I’m “too nice”. So basically, the criteria for them to like me is if I am just a total bitch who then subsequently would not make my boyfriend happy. The “ringleader” of the group is a very unhappy person and seems to have to say something derogatory about anyone or anything who seems remotely happy. If he’s not happy, none of his friends deserve to be happy either. But he plays it off by teasing and bullying. It’s the MO of the group, ever since they were in middle school.

Let me just clarify that I’m not the only “girlfriend” of the guys in the group who has been hated on. Basically it’s a bunch of single guys who are total immature douchebags and anytime one of them has a girlfriend and she is not like everyone else in the group, she gets shat on. Also let me clarify that I am only calling them “total immature douchebags” because of the way they started to treat me when I was never anything but nice to them. I’m a pretty outgoing and friendly person so I tend to talk to everyone and be friendly. But as an “outsider” to their particular group of people, I was not accepted and therefore they give my boyfriend a hard time about me all the time.

To an extent he doesn’t listen to them because otherwise he would have been long gone; however, because he is such a non-confrontational person (some would call him a pushover, he’s kind of like me, just too nice), he will NEVER talk back to his friends about ANYTHING.

For the most part, I try to avoid contact with said group of friends because I just get irritated and angry when I think about how badly they treat me and other people, but sometimes it really bothers me that I can’t just hang out with my boyfriend when he’s with his friends just because his friends are assholes.

Anyway. Long story long, I started thinking about this because of the question about teasing vs. bullying that was posted earlier yesterday.

Why are some people mean? Why do some people just seem to find pleasure in others’ pain? As a person who is not a bully-er (bullier?), I just don’t get why people are like this. It’s kind of like the whole “nice guys/girls finish last” thing but it seems to apply in all relationships, including friendships, not just romantic relationships.

Why can’t we all just get along!?