Have you ever bumped into a school bully later in life?

[IcyWinterWonderland]

Has anyone bumped into a school bully later in life? like years after leaving school? How did they react when they saw you? Did they look guilty? I recently saw one of my many school bullies and as I walked past her I said "You are a vile nasty bully". She replied "I don't think so" and scuttled off quickly.

I had 2 bullies. One in primary school and one in High school.

I haven’t seen my primary school bully since I left the school but my mother did. She (mum) was at work & allocated the bully as a patient. She didn’t realise… went into the room… small talk… woman recognised our really distinctive surname and put 2 & 2 together & my mum clicked too & said ‘ohhhh you were my daughters bully!’ She said it was totally instinctive - it just came out. Bet that was a long shift.

My high school bully I saw over a decade after leaving school. She was working in a shop and was super nice to me. I asked her why she was being so nice to me. She seemed genuinely flummoxed. People are weird aren’t they.

I’ve been around them, but I don’t think they recognised me. One of them looked drugged up, apparently she was still snorting with her partner. One of them had a baby that sadly died, and I’ve let go of any bad feelings for her. No one should go through that. Another was just a pathetic looking excuse of a person who always had a potty hanging from her pushchair and made the child shit/piss in public on the potty. She also had the same hairstyle she had aged 13. So can’t hold bad feelings against someone like that.

A lot of times, we really don't know how others perceived or remember the same things.

I knew a girl who I thought was really popular and everyone seemed to like her. She told me recently that she had felt excluded and sometimes bullied by them, and taunted for not having money. I believe her, but if she hadn't told me, I would never have known.

Me! She smiled at me and said hi in a shop and I replied with “sorry, do I know you?” with a very confused face and walked away.

It was SO satisfying

Yup

My bully apologised to me. Admitted all the things I knew she’d done. But wasn’t 100%. Like stole off me.

She’s very happily married but I feel I won the war as such. She screwed me over later in life though by selling me a fucked up car

Again. I don’t really care. I refuse to be taken down by her now.

She was horrified at what she did. But it’s too late for sorry. What she did traumatised me for life and I won’t let her get away with it now.

It wasn't years later, but there was a girl at my secondary school who was petite and cunning and used her enormous not very bright friend to do her dirty work like some kind of sadistic double act. They ruled the roost and would goad others to join in the bullying, I was one of a few preferred targets.
When I was 18 I was on my way back from a job interview so looking pretty smart and it had gone well, so a spring in my step, when I walked past her in the shopping mall, she was looking scruffy, hair greasy and pushing a pram, we clocked each other and she put her head down and walked past avoiding eye contact. I didn't say or do anything.
I was kinda l pleased that my tormentor had lost her power. Felt sorry for her child though unless her emotional sensitivity has massively improved in the intervening 3 years since we'd last seen each other.

One of my school bullies (always boys, never girls) used to taunt me for being fat. I bumped into him 15 years later with his girlfriend and wondered if he ever thought back to the awful things he said to me and thought them about his current girlfriend.

I think, however, that there was something else going on when he was horrendously bullying me and his issues are more complex than mine.

I haven't been bullied before but my mum bumped into a girl I went to school with who a bit of cow because I have a disability and it turns out the girl now also has a similar condition, not that I believe in Karma!

I was bullied by a girl who just didn't like me and would always try to 'fight' me. I'm really not a fighter. We had one awkward fight in the school yard where she came running at me but people managed to pull us apart. I just tried to stay out of her way. Anyway, I met her years later at an event and she tried to act like my best friend? It was really bizarre. Asking me how life is and that I looked great etc I was so confused but kept it polite and quickly moved on. Think since school she had a lot going on in her life and it mellowed her out perhaps. But regardless, I feel like I got over it and it didn't affect me too much seeing her again. I've barely given it second thought until reading this thread.

Mine was in a car crash and sustained brain damage. I was quite pleased to hear this, but apparently he is nastier than ever. The plus side is that his life expectancy is short. I’ll crack open a bottle of fizz when he dies.

Yes. My encounter was very satisfying. I came out of my friends house and she happened to live in the flat downstairs. My old flat. At the point of saying goodbye to my friend she came out. Her usual disgusting self and started to bully me again. Right at that moment my dog came out of my friends house. A rottweiler. He was very protective and she ran a mile.

@MadameFantabulosa

Mine was in a car crash and sustained brain damage. I was quite pleased to hear this, but apparently he is nastier than ever. The plus side is that his life expectancy is short. I’ll crack open a bottle of fizz when he dies.

😂😂😂😂 High five to you!

When I was at secondary school I was badly bullied by two boys. I was always overweight and they called me names, physically pushed me etc. Mum was a teacher at the school but inclined to think I exaggerated so wouldn’t do anything (and her being a teacher there made it worse). Years later when I was at university I was on the committee organising our end of year formal dance/ball (small subject cohort, similar to medicine). At the end of the evening we were clearing up and having a last drink or two when he walked in with other thuggish looking friends. He didn’t acknowledge me but I was clearly having fun with a group of good friends and wearing a pretty nice dress if I say so myself. He left very fast. But my blood ran cold when I saw him and I made myself very busy. I’ve no idea what happened to him later in life. The other bully ended up in prison…

@Nocutenamesleft

Yup

My bully apologised to me. Admitted all the things I knew she’d done. But wasn’t 100%. Like stole off me.

She’s very happily married but I feel I won the war as such. She screwed me over later in life though by selling me a fucked up car

Again. I don’t really care. I refuse to be taken down by her now.

She was horrified at what she did. But it’s too late for sorry. What she did traumatised me for life and I won’t let her get away with it now.

Why are you still in contact with her?

If I did, I wouldn’t give them the time of day. Some people are just evil, they don’t change. I don’t believe teenagers don’t know what they’re doing is wrong. Once evil, always evil.

Yes! She worked for me briefly! She pretended she didn’t know me.

Another one of her gang served about 15 of us from school when we went back to a local hotel for a Christmas dinner. She also pretended she didn’t remember any of us.

She tried to befriend me on Facebook. Nope.

She was a real nasty piece of shit back in highschool. Vaguely posh, good grades, had her little gang following her everywhere, would randomly pick on a victim to systematically torment through sophisticated verbal abuse. Typically these would be kids with a difficult life history (domestic violence, child abuse, etc.), who didn't quite fit in. Not that she would really have known, she didn't know any of her victims, they just existed for her owm entertainment.
A bit if a Draco Malfoy, in a way. No interest in what kind of adult she might have grown into. To me she'll remain a vile rotten piece of trash. Just sorry I never listened to my guts and punched her smirk off.

I teach one of her children...

Yes I have. I saw her on the bus when I was about 25. I was going out somewhere and looked amazing - her, not so much.

I did say something but can't repeat it on here as MN wouldn't approve. She looked crushed which was some sort of karma for the hell she'd caused.

Some local high school girls actually used to wait and they would egg me as I got off my school bus (I travelled to a different high school 1hr a way) My blazer was v.expensive and I used to feel guilty when my mother would struggle to clean it. I see them now daily as our children go to the same school.
They can barely look at me (still very 'chavvy') it's definitely with shame.

I attended an all girls school and in about year 9 my 'friend' said she had shown her cousin my MySpace or Bebo and he wanted my number to date, I had never spoken to boys, I text him for weeks fell madly in love and one day a kinder girl of the group told me it was a couple of girls. I was heartbroken and humiliated. I still remember that feeling.

However there is a girl local to me, I am friends with her sister and I always remember getting on so well with her in primary school. I have so many pictures of us at birthday parties and playing out together even sleepovers but about 10 years ago she messaged me on Facebook and she accused me of bullying her in primary school, even went as far as saying I made her life hell. I left when I was 9 and I honestly thought we were friends.
I've not been deliberately unkind I'm sure of it so
Her sister doesn't recall this ever being an issue in primary school either and we're still friends she laughs and rolls her eyes if it's brought up (hardly ever) I wonder if she genuinely felt this way or it was just something that was said after a drink and it can't be took back.
I don't see her very often at all but I feel so confused about it all.

I sometimes wonder if our experiences, feelings and recollections change as we age but I can definitely remember times I've felt bullied and shamed.

I was picked on by a group of 4 girls. I've seen three of them post school.

I've put an epidural in one. She recognised me. I didn't recognise her. Once her pain was under control she told me who she was and we had a nice chat. She apologised and if I saw her around now I would stop to catch up.

The other encounters were more affirmative for me that karma is a bitch - first one was when i was still at University and I was sorting out a tax issue from my holiday job in the tax advice centre and became aware of shouting and screaming in the booth next door. It was one of my bullies arguing about how she had "no money to feed her weans". She had at least two small children with her and I realised then how diverse our life experiences were going to be.

Second encounter was at work when i cared for one of the bullies dying relative. Didn't know though that it was her relative until she came in to visit one evening. I actually gave my bully a clinical update about her relative but I don't think she knew who I was and I didn't say anything. The social story was pretty awful for their family and made me understand that things must have been very difficult for her as a teenager and may have contributed to what happened at school.

I bumped into his father's partner on a train. My family know her a bit. She talked about how well his step sisters and half brother were getting on with their careers. I asked how he was and he was doing really well because he was ' not in prison at the moment'. Saw him in the street a few weeks later with his friend. Went up to him when I saw him in the street and told him I bumped into his stepmother and she wanted him to stay out of prison. His friend went ' Yeah x, stay out of prison' and they fell about laughing. Googling his name suggests burglary is his chosen career. He has been known to anounce his convictions on facebook.

@Thehouseofmarvels

I bumped into his father's partner on a train. My family know her a bit. She talked about how well his step sisters and half brother were getting on with their careers. I asked how he was and he was doing really well because he was ' not in prison at the moment'. Saw him in the street a few weeks later with his friend. Went up to him when I saw him in the street and told him I bumped into his stepmother and she wanted him to stay out of prison. His friend went ' Yeah x, stay out of prison' and they fell about laughing. Googling his name suggests burglary is his chosen career. He has been known to anounce his convictions on facebook.

Why would you do that? Very odd to approach a known criminal in the street and warn him to stay out of prison?

I would have crossed the road.

Yes, she was still a pathetically small cretin who seemed to feel - and behave - as if we were back in school. I found, miraculously, as an adult, I just didn't give a shit about her. I just made polite, non-committal responses to all her jibes and totally ignored her rude behaviour - a total stranger at the same event overheard the way she was talking to me and went to get the organiser because she was so horrified at the way the bully was behaving. Haven't given her a second thought since.

Yes. It was a group meeting (not saying what as many IRL know) and the leader said “you know “bully “ and i said yes and told everyone how we knew each other.

So the wheel does indeed keep turning……took 20 years and well worth it to see her up and leave. Such a cunt.