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Original poster

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

261 replies

IcyWinterWonderland · 14/01/2022 19:05

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.

OP posts:
THisbackwithavengeance · 15/01/2022 11:11

I think it's a popular MN theory that school bullies/Queen Bees don't do well in life and end up fat, fat smoking, benefit claiming losers.

The Queen Bee bully at my school married a surgeon and lives on a country estate, doesn't work, kids at private school etc etc.

Oh well...

UserBot314159 · 15/01/2022 11:15

@notthemum

Have seen a few out and about. I was working in a shop one of them came through the till she said 'oh hello, I remember you from school I'm X." I said "I know exactly who you are". She asked how I was. I told her that the day I left school and the likes of her was one of the happiest of my life as she had made life hell. She said she was sorry, things had been crap for her at home. I said yeah me too, but didn't make me vile bully. She said if it was any consolation her DD was going through hell at school. I wanted to say good because I even now still hate her. But I said that it wasn't I wouldn't wish that on any child. She said Thank you and left. The next time I saw her in town she asked me to go to a school reunion. I told her straight, it was bad enough when I was forced to see her every day . There wasn't a hope in hell that I would voluntarily do it. She said she'd like to chat. I smirked, shook my head and walked away.
nobody should have to forgive obviously! but this woman, your former bully is no longer a bully and had the self-awareness to acknowledge that she had been a bully. I think it's possible to hold off on the forgiveness as is your prerogative, but still relax the psycho-rigidity that prevents you from acknowledging that people change.
thekaratekid · 15/01/2022 11:17

One of mine tried to add me on facebook. I obviously declined as I thought she was only doing it to have a snoop. She then repeatedly kept trying to add me over and over! I eventually blocked her. I could almost sense her frustration through the airwaves.

Haven't seen the others in person. However a facebook stalk tells me the worst one recently qualified to be a nurse. Which I find most baffling as she didn't appear to have a single caring bone in her body whilst we were at school. Hmm

SnoopyLights · 15/01/2022 11:41

The girl who bullied me at school (including attacking me once) is now the mother of a girl at my child's school.

We did recognise each other, and the first time we spoke I think she was waiting for me to confront her, but enough time has passed and other things have happened in both our lives that I felt able to just say hello to her and share a bit of small talk, and I'm glad about that. We'll probably never be friends, but at least the bad feeling is gone.

The boy who bullied me in high school though, I saw his name in the court report of the local paper and he was in prison for burglary, and I've never been so pleased to know someone got their comeuppance.

hulahoopqueen · 15/01/2022 11:43

My high school bully is now a health and fitness coach. I am appalled at the idea that someone who was mercilessly unkind about others' body image as a teen is now doing so for a living. I fantasise about bumping into her (unlikely, given we live quite far apart now) and throwing a drink in her face.

UserBot314159 · 15/01/2022 11:47

I think it fits though @hulahoopqueen for some people the worst thing in the world you could do with your life is waste it being ten pounds overweight. I think people who view life through this lens often haven't really looked at their psychological health. And a lot of their customers would be similar! This isn't to know fitness! Or the fitness industry! Far from it. But I would see health as more holistic. I walk I do yoga, occasionally I run. But that MISSION to transform your body at the gym it's rarely in tandem with a similar mission to find emotional health and self-awareness. JMO, but I trained to be a fitness instructor (YMCA) many years ago. I enjoyed it at the time.

amusedbush · 15/01/2022 11:47

@ESGdance

However I feel sorry for your DB marrying into this family where his MIL is an apologist for bullies and victim blames. It will be interesting for you to watch from the sidelines as it seems there will be plenty of fireworks in that family system.

I did post about it before the wedding, thank you for your reply Smile

At first, I was so angry and hurt that my brother would spend any time with my bully, it felt like a betrayal. I was furious to hear about his MIL’s comments that I should be over it by now - how fucking dare she! I spent months churning myself up with anxiety and rage and stress until I realised that I was the only person still thinking about it.

My brother was too young to really know what went on. My bully obviously has her own perspective about what happened and she didn’t see the self-harming and panic attacks back then so she doesn’t know how badly I’ve been affected. His MIL clearly sees something good in Bully because she has been welcomed into their family, so from her point of view Bully has grown into a nice adult and I should let bygones be bygones.

I’m sure it looks very different from the outside and ‘opinions are like arseholes’, and all that! I’ve worked through it and I’m letting go of the anger.

x2boys · 15/01/2022 11:49

I think people need to move on and forget , life's to short to hold on to bitterness and hate from twenty, thirty Years ago ,I didn't have a great time at school either ,but people do grow up and change ,you don't have the be best friends with former bullies ,but if one was polite to me I would be polite back ,the best revenge is a life well lived .

diamondpony80 · 15/01/2022 11:50

I ended up getting a haircut from mine. I needed a last minute cut and blow dry and my own hairdresser didn’t have any appointments so I booked at another salon in the same town. As I didn’t know any of the stylists I just asked for whoever was available. It ended up being HER. Neither of us said anything other than acknowledging we knew each other. She was extremely fake pleasant and actually did a good job. I was frozen to the seat though wishing I could be a bitch to her but not having the courage to so.

UserBot314159 · 15/01/2022 11:52

no tip though!

TabithaTittlemouse · 15/01/2022 11:56

Yes, in a pub but we are both adults so I just said hello and moved on. Life is too short.

UserBot314159 · 15/01/2022 12:00

What would you all say to an adult bully who just continually year after year gives you the silent treatment in the group? A group I've every right to be in.

I find it a difficult thing to confront because nobody owes it to you to talk to you but she's a very dominant character and drives the conversations so if she is love bombing all of the others and giving me the cold shoulder it makes it hard to join in.

Any advice? If I confront her she'll make me look emotionally needy. Which I'm not. Even my daughter said to me, being excluded must be her worst fear, that's why she's doing it to you.

ItsDisneyBitch · 15/01/2022 12:00

Yes at a funeral. I posted on here about it.

I was frozen in fear. He was awful to me. Called me terrible names, Started a petition at the school and listed all the names of people that hated me. He literally wrote out 200 names. I took an overdose over it.

He was all how are you? I could honestly have wet myself out of fright. It was hideous.

When I got home he had added me on Facebook. I blocked him.

Later in a friend said oh I bumped into xx he said he saw you. Even that scared me.

I saw on Facebook he has a daughter who must by now be the same I was when he made me want to die. I doubt for one second he even knows what effect it had on me. I fucking despise him.

EmmaPaella · 15/01/2022 12:03

Not a bully, but there was someone at school with whom I did not click. There was always an awkwardness between us, and she often used to take over in situations I was involved in. I had a feeling that she sort of dismissed me.

Years later I was sat next to her at a wedding, where neither of us had brought partners, but she had brought a friend, who was from her work. The friend was lovely and we all had a few hours of really nice conversation. And I thought, how nice to put the weird ridiculousness of being 14 behind us.

I got up to go to the loo and when I came out they were coming in, and I heard the friend say, "so were you close at school?" And this person from my school pulled a face and said "No!".

After that the new friend clearly felt awkward and I made my excuses and left (to see some actual friends).

Bbq1 · 15/01/2022 12:29

Maybe not warm and fuzzy but a pp upthread was celebrating the fact that her previous bully had been in a car crash and sustained brain. damage. That's a deeply horrible thing to be happy about.

KatherineJaneway · 15/01/2022 12:31

I think people need to move on and forget , life's to short to hold on to bitterness and hate from twenty, thirty Years ago

But their bullying still affects my life to this day. So easy to breezily say 'forget it'. I bet there are things in your life you do not 'forget' so easily.

tillytoodles1 · 15/01/2022 12:33

My daughter saw her previous boss in a nightclub one New Year's Eve, she'd been a horrible woman and my daughter left her job in the end. She passed my daughter on the stairs, but being drunk she missed a step and went flying down to the bottom. She wasn't hurt, but she wasn't wearing knickers and her dress had ridden up, showing her fat, naked arse. My daughter thought it was hilarious.

TheGoldenWolfFleece · 15/01/2022 12:47

It really is horrible that so many people think your bully getting old, and being fat and ugly is karma. As if having the audacity to be fat and/or ugly or even worse, GINGER is a failing and therefore they're as ripe for ridicule as your bully thought you were at school.

Being bullied doesn't give you the right to be a twat yourself and throwing out fat and ugly as insults says a lot about the person you grew up to be.

I was horribly bullied by at school but i got therapy and moved on. I couldn't care any less about the bullies. Don't care if they're fat or thin, happy or sad. If i saw them on the street i would say hi and walk on. I wouldn't take to social media saying I'm glad they had a serious car accident and had brain damage ffs. If you're glad about that there's something wrong with you.

Speakingmymind · 15/01/2022 12:51

I was horribly bullied by at school but i got therapy and moved on. I couldn't care any less about the bullies.

Wow, let's all just move on then, those of us that were bullied. It is clearly SO easy Hmm

FFS

TheGoldenWolfFleece · 15/01/2022 12:59

It's pretty easy not to lower yourself to the bullies level. It's also pretty easy to not use fat and ugly as insults yourself.

ashorterday · 15/01/2022 13:08

One of mine became a taxi driver and picked us up once. I didn't give him a tip.

ItsDisneyBitch · 15/01/2022 13:13

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QueenKong101 · 15/01/2022 13:15

Yes! Satisfyingly enough, she ended up working at my inlaws' takeaway while I left the area, moved overseas and had a great career. Always gave me a petty but comforting feeling to know she was hard at work securing my children's inheritance!

interferingma · 15/01/2022 13:21

jeez someone made a ginger comment? Really?!

ItsDisneyBitch · 15/01/2022 13:24

@amusedbush I remember your thread quite distinctly. Wine

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