Page 4 | Have you ever bumped into a school bully later in life?

IcyWinterWonderland · 2022-01-14T19:05:03+00:00

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.

KatherineJaneway · 15/01/2022 05:32

@TheRooom

Some proper mean people on here, and I'm not talking about the so-called bullies.

Bullies cause damage, some of it considerable. I am still affected 35 years later.

Luckily for them I've never seen my bullies since.

PinchOfVom · 15/01/2022 05:47

@TroysMammy

Not the school bully but someone in our group who wasn't that nice to me. Me "hello, how are you?" Other person "hello, you're still short then" Me "and you're still ginger" as I walked off.

@troysmammy

Do you realise how many children get bullied for having red hair?

Nasty.

Would you say:

You’re still black
You’re still gay
Etc
Etc?

Justilou1 · 15/01/2022 06:00

I ran into mine when I returned from living overseas for many years. I had literally run into one of my high school friends and she organised a dinner with two others from school. (We hadn’t seen each other since 1989!) Then - randomly the bully wandered in and recognised everyone and headed straight for the table. I honestly had no idea who she was. She was obviously underwhelmed about the lack of recognition, so she introduced herself like this… “You’ve obviously forgotten, but I’m XXX XXXXXXX, and I’m still an Alpha Woman.” Once I stopped laughing I realised she was serious. I said “That sounds fucking exhausting… I’m so sorry for you!” All my other friends pissed themselves too, and she flounced off saying “How rude!” (Still feel good about it!)

Tinacollada · 15/01/2022 06:06

I did, in the supermarket a few years ago.

She gave me absolute hell at secondary school, gave me racial abuse, stole things from my locker, ganged up on me, defaced photos of me used in a school display....

I was very polite to her and we had a friendly chat, she had her DC with her.

She then added me on Facebook but we we did not become friends otherwise.

It's via Facebook that I learned she passed away last year from cancer.

I still felt sad 😢

FrenchFancie · 15/01/2022 06:30

Only on Facebook - back in the days when FB was new and shiny I got friends requests from two of them and accepted out of morbid curiosity. Fast forward a few years and we all had kids, one’s life imploded in spectacular fashion (affairs, messy divorce and SS involved) I actually felt very sorry for her as none of it was of her making but her husbands - but it did feel a bit like karma in action.

The other continued to act exactly as she had in school, spoiled, rich and entitled. She even used my old and very hurtful nickname to me once and seemed surprised that I told her not too. Anyway she unfriended me when she and another friend of mine got into an argument about bottle feeding on my timeline that I wasn’t even involved in!

Both interactions left me feeling a bit odd - sorry for the one whose life went totally tits up, and just bemused that even in our 30s the other was still acting like a spoilt teenager…

Bogeyes · 15/01/2022 06:52

My own brother was a massive bully. Don't see him anymore...feels great

WhatNoRaisins · 15/01/2022 07:15

@WinterOfOurDiscoTent

No, but I stay well away from my home town, have changed my name and had a panic attack when someone I barely knew recognised me from school once.

I can easily imagine this. I now live 200 miles away and don't have any contact. I'm now grateful my parents are so introverted but I hope they'll relocate too in a couple of years.

Peterleee · 15/01/2022 07:17

This reply has been withdrawn

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OneOfTheGrundys · 15/01/2022 07:23

She’s a low price estate agent with a cheap haircut and flammable suits that probably give her thrush.

Faevern · 15/01/2022 07:51

Seems to be a lot of people claiming they are now superior or more successful than their bullies in looks, smartness, job, career, relationships et al. I wonder if it’s wishful thinking, if the thought of them failing or being unhappy feels like revenge. Many bullies go on to be successful people in their adult life.

DrSbaitso · 15/01/2022 08:08

@Faevern

Seems to be a lot of people claiming they are now superior or more successful than their bullies in looks, smartness, job, career, relationships et al. I wonder if it’s wishful thinking, if the thought of them failing or being unhappy feels like revenge. Many bullies go on to be successful people in their adult life.

Yes, the one about how the bullies all look old and the victims all look young seemed a bit implausible to me...maybe it's true in that poster's instance but I wouldn't rely on it being true across the board. As for "and you're still ginger"....

The one about the shop assistant refusing to serve the bully and the bully hurrying away in shame rather than speaking to another member of staff is straight up fantasy.

Booksandwine80 · 15/01/2022 08:12

@OneOfTheGrundys
🤣🤣🤣

ESGdance · 15/01/2022 08:18

@Faevern

Seems to be a lot of people claiming they are now superior or more successful than their bullies in looks, smartness, job, career, relationships et al. I wonder if it’s wishful thinking, if the thought of them failing or being unhappy feels like revenge. Many bullies go on to be successful people in their adult life.

I very much doubt it is “many” - bullying is due to an emotionally dysfunctional and deprived upbringing where the child has not emotionally developed and matured due to neglect, chaos and/or abuse. They are unable to negotiate interpersonal relationships and this continues beyond school with bigger consequences for them in the workplace with intimate relationships.

Hurt people, hurt people.

Explains it doesn’t excuse it.

This thread is very telling - many of these potentially abused and traumatised child bully’s carry on their dysfunctional chaotic lives.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/3928974-Just-found-out-my-school-bully-is-dead

Cissyandflora · 15/01/2022 08:22

My old bully has moved back into the area. Still glares at me and would love to attack me I’m sure. She’s still fighting in the street. She’s mid fifties now. She made my life, and that of my whole family, miserable for years. She was violent to me daily and would wait for me to leave my house and attack me.
She hasn’t changed but I don’t have the same fear thank goodness. I don’t think she would get physical but I don’t know for sure.

ufucoffee · 15/01/2022 08:26

An older girl at school was absolutely horrible to lots of pupils. She was really rough and we were very scared of her. Later on I discovered that she worked with a few of my friends and they all thought she was lovely. I'd never be able to be friendly with her knowing what she was really like.

Gargellen · 15/01/2022 08:34

One of my bullys became my parents postwoman. I didn't know this until I visited them one day and I was in the garden with a dog I had recently rescued.
The front garden where the postwoman went was fenced off but the dog ran up the fence, topped it and bit her square on the arse and jumped back over. I dropped and watched her through a crack in a slat as she didn't seem to know what bit her.
Neither the dog or I or my parents got the blame. She didn't see me and my parents didn't have a dog.

I kept the dog as after that display I knew I was never going to find a dog which such good intuition about people!

BitcherOfBlakiven · 15/01/2022 08:36

Yep. She would regularly corner me with her big group of mates and scream abuse at me, threaten me with violence.

She was the year above me so I have no idea wtf I did to her!

Saw her when I was 20, out in a pub. I was quite a different person by this point, so when she came over and got in my face, I didn’t stand there silently crying.

I called her a cunt and poured my red wine over her head.

No regrets.

However, she’s now a secondary school teacher and I really pity her students - she was doing her training the year I saw her.

interferingma · 15/01/2022 08:36

Not my own bullies (not even sure you'd have characterised it as bullying - just the cool scary girls!!). But my daughter's bullies. One in particular is working in the local butchers shop. I like to go on and ask how she's doing so she's forced to ask how DD is doing, and I'm forced to cheerfully tell her about her (much more exciting) life.
Small victories!

namechangeanonymous · 15/01/2022 08:38

Yes it was lovely, she apologised to me I accepted it but I'll never forgive. I like to see how rubbish my bullies (and sadly there were quite a few in that little posse) are doing now but truthfully almost 20 years later I couldn't give a shit about them. they've effected my entire life I'm forever doubtful forever second guessing myself and nervous and I put it down to them.

GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER · 15/01/2022 08:40

No, thank goodness. It was many decades ago, but the mere thought of bumping into the evil little* bitch who was head of the coven of bullies, still makes me shudder.

*she was little, too!

TweenWrangler · 15/01/2022 08:46

Not IRL but she is an actress on a long running TV drama. Can't watch it.

ESGdance · 15/01/2022 08:49

@TweenWrangler

Not IRL but she is an actress on a long running TV drama. Can't watch it.

You can’t leave that there…..!

stripeyflowers · 15/01/2022 08:54

Yes, she took me for a coffee and apologised and told me why she'd bullied me. That was in our 20s.

In our 40s we met up and she cupped my face in her hands and said 'lovely as ever' and was like a genuinely different person.

TopCatsTopHat · 15/01/2022 09:02

@Faevern

Seems to be a lot of people claiming they are now superior or more successful than their bullies in looks, smartness, job, career, relationships et al. I wonder if it’s wishful thinking, if the thought of them failing or being unhappy feels like revenge. Many bullies go on to be successful people in their adult life.

This thread is going to bring those stories out though isn't it as the bullies who did go on to success are less likely to still be haunting the same old high Street. Apart from school reunions like one of these anecdotes upthread you wouldn't be likely to bump into them again. Doesn't mean these stories aren't true, mine certainly was.

Fraternaltwin · 15/01/2022 09:05

@mrsbobbelcherakalinda

I am 48 and was bullied mercilessly by a boy in high school. He made my life hell by telling everyone I had scabies (would make run away and make gagging noises) whenever I went near him due to my eczema and he also found out I was adopted and kept calling me a bastard and no wonder my mum didn't want me. One night I meet him out with his pals when he was drunk and he screamed how much he hated me and kicked my hand so hard he broke a finger. I was in a queue a couple of weeks ago for my Covid booster and guess who was also there. He saw me as I thought fuck you as am not frightened any more and stared him down. He was obviously with his partner who looked perfectly nice and I wondered does she even know what he did to me.The sad part is he probably looks back and doesn't register at all how he acted.

He probably behaves like that with his partner. Good for you staring him down.