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

yup "Recollections may vary"

Do you think the ex-classmate was behaving badly by walking out?? To me it sounds like she had an unpleasant surprise, seeing the OP.

I think some of those who did the bullying don’t quite get the impact it has on people, and somehow want absolving for it. Bottom line, if you’re a teenager and you’re bullying someone, you know it’s wrong, you know (or should know) the impact, and fundamentally it’s because you’re a shit of a person.

I wouldn’t recognise the majority of them, truly. I’m only 33 so we’re talking 22 years since I was at primary, slightly less for secondary. People change a lot, don’t they? I just don’t think I’d even register many of them.

Having said that, I don’t live in my home town and haven’t for some time. A few years ago I was back there visiting family and I popped into a supermarket. A woman came rushing over to me very over enthusiastically greeting me and asking how I was doing. She seemed to know lots about me but I had absolutely ZERO clue who she was. I obviously had to nod along and play the part but still to this day don’t know who she was. People are more memorable than others I guess and you don’t know whether you still exist in other peoples minds or not which is a weird thought.

Yes. I didn't have an issue with bullies particularly in primary, but I still hate my y7 to y9 secondary school bullies with a visceral hatred. I am facebook "friends" with a couple of them, and it still makes me angry when they share something positive about their lives, when they made mine miserable for so many years. I developed anxiety, OCD, and disordered eating because of them. Even now I struggle to trust women, and have deep-seated self-esteem issues stemming from these particular people.

So yes, I would absolutely avoid them in a shop, and be thrown back into my anxious teenage self by the sight of them.

I've just realised I still hold a grudge from when I was 10! Wow, that was deeply buried 🤣

Its perfectly possible for people to behave badly and it not be something you've triggered.

A girl was very unkind to me at school. My mother much later on got friendly with her mother through a hobby (not initially realising who it was). They ended up discussing kids one day and the other mum openly said she knew we'd been at school together & hadn't got along, and told my mum her daughter had been rather jealous of a musical hobby I excelled at and my generally doing well in school, & hadnt been coping well at that age.

I had had no idea she was remotely interested in the hobby, it was something i did out of school but was in a lot if school concerts with.

I was pleased to hear that she "found her thing" later on and became a happy veterinary nurse.

Live beef
Hilarious !!!!!

I got bullied quite a lot at school.

I dont hold a grudge. Ive had a really success happy life, they were kids, I'd like to hope they've grown up and don't treat people like that now. I try to focus on inclusion and making sure my own kids don't treat others that way.

Yes, of course. I still can't stand some people from Primary School, and I left there in 1978.

This doesn’t ring true. If it were, why would she have such a strong reaction to you?

Are you downplaying your behaviour? You must have done something that had a big impact on her, even if you didn’t intend it to.

So did you do bad things to her in primary?

Like PPs, I wouldn't recognise someone from primary school if I tripped over them in the street. Mind you the chances are slim, most of them are probably dead now!

If I did recognise a bully from my childhood, I might be tempted to just ask "Are you still an arsehole?" and laugh.

Nobody from my school years but there must be at least four people from my adult life from work and my personal life that I detest and can never forgive for what they did. The anger has burnt out but I still marvel at the crurelty of the things these people did. I don't harbour grudges but were I ever to see any of them I would just walk away. I would not engage at all. I have heard that two of them are leading less than fulfilled lives these days and while I feel no satisfaction at this I do not feel any empathy which is unusual for me.

@CoffeeCantata that really is a worry on so many levels! Sometimes - and I'll don my tin hat for this - I wish teaching was done by AI. And doctoring. And interviewing.

One of the school bullies messaged a few of us prior to the reunion for our 65th.

Most of us were polite but distant. One girl sent her a message telling her that she hoped she’d had a miserable life.

Another bully heard that I was going and called off sick. (Unfortunately, we had a group of them. They targeted small, timid girls and the more academic girls - I was talk, but in the latter group.)

I’m a retired PTC/Scottish Faculty Head. She’s a Pupil Support Assistant in another high school. I’m guessing that she didn’t want her colleagues knowing that she’d surrounded me with a gang of her thugs and had broken my nose when we were 13/14.

I'm old enough now and have seen enough people die that I have vague feelings of well-wishing towards pretty much everyone I knew growing up, even the ones who weren't great to me and who I fell out with.

I do harbour resentment towards any adults who were shit to me because they were grown-ups and should have been better than that.

That happened in my friends younger son’s class. If you speak to my friend, then E was a sly, manipulative bully. Not the physical sort, but the moving stuff, telling lies sort. However, if you speak to E’s mum, then he was the one being bullied, and there was no mention of E ever being in trouble. Of course, both scenarios could be true, E could have been a bully, and been bullied.

There were some pretty horrible kids in my class at school but I don't think I'd recognise them now if I saw them. There were also a lot of nice kids.

Oh yes! The tiny blonde monsters! I knew a few.

I was horrified to hear a trainee teacher (male) say the following:

"It's really hard to tell them off, isn't it, especially the little blonde pretty ones!"

Concerning on so many levels.

Indeed. I would just pretend I hadn;t recognised them and had no idea who they were.

Inapplicable here as regards primary - however I do still hold a grudge against an utterly poisonous girl at my senior school - head of the ‘coven’ of bullies. Probably just as well that I’m never likely to encounter her.

I do. I moved to a new area and had just started a new school in yr5. My school experience up until that point had been lovely so I wasn’t worried. My first day no one spoke to me then a few days later I over heard this person telling everyone not to talk to me because I was weird and from x town. I asked to be her friend when I saw her at a party and she said no I was too ugly. I spent 2 years with few friends and no friends outside of school that would admit to calling on me.I have really struggled with friendships and social interaction since. What she did was so unnecessarily horrible it changed me. She is now a parent of a child in my son’s class and is as popular as ever so it stings but I don’t think she even remembers or cares. I think these things can seem trivial to the people that do them but to the victim it can have life long implications- even with therapy the scars are there.

Do teachers count? If yes, then even though it's been 40 years, I still absolutely hate my primary 7 teacher Mrs Crawford.

I find that very easy to believe. Bullies are usually made, not born.

There was a thread on here some time ago by a woman whose childhood bully had moved to her area and the OP was thinking about rubbing her face in the fact that OP now had a much better life, and even considering getting the woman's five year old child involved (she got a lot of pushback on that). She did mention, as part of how bad looking the bully had become, that the bully had some physical feature that had caused teasing and trouble at school. So the bully had been bullied, but the OP couldn't see that. Not an excuse to become a bully, of course, but yeah... people can be both victims and perpetrators and they very often are.