Why are people so mean to me?

I am 17 and all my life I have had people bullying me or they don't beat me up but they verbally abuse me. In middle school everyone was mean to me and where just plain awful. I am really sensitive to what people say to me so I stay up all the time dwelling on it. I get people pitying me and I hate that. People would stand up for me and that would be one of my pet peeves when people did that. I have no friends because I am socially akward and a introvert and I am a nice person and all but other people are just so mean to me I don't know what to do. I get picked on my everyone and taken advantage of by people and I am constantly verbally abused. It is happening less in high school but people still call me names. I don't want to start fights with people because my step dad is super strict and would ground me if I get caught and so would my mom so I don't want people saying just beat them up when they do that. Is there a way that I could not be such a easy target? I am always told that I'm a easy target and people would just walk over me and then they feel sorry for me so they stop doing what they are doing to me. How do I get them to stop? The worse thing for me is the pitying.