Could you still hold a grudge against someone from primary school?

Yes, possibly. I have a grudge against an awful bully that unexpectedly slapped me in the face so hard I fell over; this was in Year 8.
I found out recently that she'd done that to someone else a year later; they had punched her back and knocked her out!
I celebrated 50 years later!

There are people I knew at primary school half a century ago that I would be very wary of but I wouldn’t ‘storm out’ of anywhere in order to avoid them.

Actually I bumped in to a not very nice boy from my form 12 years on. He liked name calling and was a general PITA.

He managed a shop I went in to - I didn’t even recognise him! In his late 20s he was bald and much larger than his good looking & curly haired blonde self at 16 (he’d lost his square jaw).
He spotted me straight away & was very friendly - I’d just been travelling and bought two photo albums from him so no grudge held.

Many people were unpleasant to me at school, I’m a really different person now and I’d quite relish seeing them and sticking it to the man (many friends, two DC, husband, own a business etc).

I don't but I am certainly capable of it.
Slightly older than primary but someone once applied for a job I was advertising and I realised they were one of the girls who bullied my DS at senior school so that was a hard no.

I wouldn't leave the room, but can certainly hold a grudge for several decades. In fact now that I'm in my sixties I find that I can hold a grudge for far longer than I can remember what it was actually for.

What about your school bully, how do you feel about them?

No I absolutely couldn't be arsed with this.

I fell out with my so-called best friend about 15 years ago (as did everyone else as surprise surprise, she was the problem).

I was visiting my hometown a couple of years back and spotted her in Boots and we made eye contact- I just smiled politely. She, however, stormed out- and I heard after from someone that still follows her on Twitter that she immediately posted about seeing "toxic people from her past" and how "triggering" it was for her. I personally didn't give it another thought, and felt sad that she hasn't been able to move on.

I'm not going to apologize for how I feel about her. She was a horrible person all through primary school, I obviously have no idea what she's like now and I don't want to know.
Yes it is absolutely lucky. I wonder how you would feel if your child came home and said someone had been mean to them? Would you just shrug it off? Tell them not to be so ridiculous?
I was bullied most of my life in school and that was the first time which is why it's stuck with me.
You are being ridiculous and rude suggesting it's the same thing if a 6 year old said something to me now. She was old enough to know what the word meant and to know it was spiteful. You may think it's fine for 6 year olds to be spiteful but it's not.

No, I couldn’t even tell you who was in my class in primary school! I wouldn’t even keep a grudge from high school.

A few of my friends fell out with each other in our third year of uni and they still talk about it / won’t see each other 10 years on. I find that weird too.

I couldn't hold a grudge for that long but as the saying goes "Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes".

You obviously remember and so does she.

Absolutely

Different because I was older, but my life was made absolute hell at university. The two ringleaders were - and still are - a couple. I ‘escaped’ the day I left university, but the nasty comments carried on seeping through from time to time. A few years later I had a very sick baby and the female bully said something nasty about my baby to a mutual friend, which got back to me. She’s a primary school teacher. Sometimes I wonder what her colleagues would think of her behaviour. I’ve had dreams where I’ve suddenly come face to face with the two of them and taken great pleasure in stating I have no idea who they are and no recollection of them at all. I actually think I’d find that quite satisfying if I saw them ever again. Bastards.

Same here! I'd be amazed if anyone remembered me from primary school at all as I definitely don't remember anyone except fairly vaguely. I did get a little bit bullied and left out for a while in primary school, as I recall, but it's been a long time since then and I obviously never think about it. Honestly, it seems utterly weird to me that anyone would bother to remember any of this at all.

Obviously if you were horrifically bullied, it's probably a bit different. I definitely remember things my family did when I was that age that it's been hard to let go of. Even so, it was all a long time ago now, and it does get to the point where it just doesn't matter anymore.

it depends on her perception of what happened in your primary years,she may have a very different recollection to you.
Clearly whatever happened between you deeply affected her for her her to avoid 30 yrs later.

I had to change hairdressers after I found out an ex boss went there. I couldn't deal with the thought of bumping into her even though I know we'd both make a point of ignoring each other.

I still haven't found a hairdresser as good. But just the possibility of running into her is worse than a bad haircut.

The thing is she probably doesn't see it as a big thing the same way as you do looking back. Just like the bullies who hurt me in school probably would minimise what they did whereas in my eyes it was horrendous and does leave scars even to this day.

I recently saw a girl I went to school with at a kids birthday party. She was truly horrible at school (once beat my friend up for talking to her boyfriend).

I have to admit that I wasn't initially thrilled to see her but it turns out she lovely now and actually said she dreads bumping into people from school because she's aware she was a bitch. According to a mutual friend her daughter is being bullied at school and she's eaten up by the idea that it's somehow karma for her actions.

So I guess yes, I'm more than capable of holding a grudge. But I'm grown up enough to be polite and happy to change my opinion of someone based on who they are now.

I had this happen to me several times through primary school. It never leaves you. It's affected me all the way into adulthood. I still have issues making friends even to this day.

Lol a boy in my primary school threw a block of ice at my knee
when we were ten
Years later he waa serving drinks at a bar and i was out with a friend who had also gone to school with him
When i told her about situation when we were ten she threw her ice cube from her drink at him
We were a bit inebriated his face was a picture 😂

Yes - and when the teachers egg on the kids. Why on earth would you do that?

I sincerely hope it doesn't happen now.

This is the issue in a nutshell.

It's not for bullies to minimise their behaviour and claim that their victim's grudge-bearing is silly.

I've read a few threads on MN on this topic and quite often the adult bullies are taken by surprise at the strong reaction their behaviour caused. But bullying isn't just a one-off thing - it's a cruel, cold-hearted long-term campaign to make another person's life a misery, and can cause life-long damage.

I didn't suffer real bullying but my ND daughter did and we're living with the consequences now she's in her 30s. Bullying is sadistic and despite the 'but people change' plea, it really does say something about the perpetrators. I kow I couldn't have done it at any time during my childhood and adolescence - it's not just a natural stage everyone passes through.

By the way those of you saying you wouldn't recognise anyone from primary school - I've got a couple of FB friends from that time who are friends with the whole crowd as they went to the same secondary school and they are all very recognisable on their profiles. Boys change more than girls I think.

ooooo yes.

I don't think I'd storm out in a huff but I wouldn't want to speak to certain people and would probably just pretend I hadn't recognised them.

But the person I hate more than anyone else in the world is an ex-boss from about 15 years ago, way more than anyone from primary school.