Opportunity to confront my school bully

[ManCubsMama]

I never considered myself bullied as I just thought certain scenarios where just part of growing up/I happened to encounter some unpleasant kids. But when I look back on it I can see I was targeted, taunted and treated very nastily ie I was spat on, once I was slapped round the face. This was all by a group of girls, sometimes boys, older than me.

I might soon have the opportunity to confront on of them group that bullied me, around 15 years later. We’re all grown up now, her parents have moved down the road to my parents and they Mix socially ie drink in the same pub (before lockdown), attend BBQs/garden drinks together. My parents have no knowledge of how this girl acted when we were at school and on meeting her a few times think she’s nice enough and that her 5yo daughter is very sweet.

Eventually I’ll cross paths with this girl when I’m with my parents in the pub or I see her on their road or something. Question is.. how do I play it? I am envisioning calling her out point blank in front of her own family with a simple “you werent very nice to me in school” and seeing her reaction. I’m half tempted to go one further and say to her daughter “your mummy was a bully at school, you won’t be a bully will you”

My other approach is to embarrass her by calling her the unfortunate nickname she had at school (on reflection, despite being popular she got a fair bit of stick at school and I wonder if that’s why she became a bully herself). This would put me in a position of power of her by mortifying her and giving her a taste of how it feels. As an aside, she is not the most fortunate looking person, whereas I consider myself good looking, slim and unlike her I am successful - good job, nice house, nice car, attractive husband etc. So I really feel like I should bloody go in there and hold my head high and how her that I made something of myself whereas she hasn’t.

The main thing is that we both now have children, and the thought of anyone treating my child how I was at school gives me the worst anxiety. I also do bloody think she deserves to look me in the eye, know what she did was wrong and yeah - shamefully, look at me and feel bad about herself.

WWYD?

@contrmary

Go for it! Bullies are vile creatures and need to be called out. Any shame or embarrassment you can cause her is nothing compared to the hell she put you through.

People who like to 'call out' other people are invariably bullies themselves, and usually thick as mince into the bargain. They don't have the intellectual or emotional maturity to recognise they are calling out others for traits they display themselves.

My bully from primary one now runs a tea shop about 2 miles from where we grew up.

Anyway - Don’t confront - what will you gain? Definitely don’t say anything to her child or parents - you will look like an obsessive! What will she say - I don’t remember or you are making it all up?

Best thing - Act as if you don’t remember her.

I had a friends request on social media a few years ago from a girl that made my life very miserable at school. I couldn't believe she had the cheek to be honest. I just sent her a one sentence back saying we weren't friends at school, we won't be friends now and there is a very good reason why I've not seen you in xx years and left it at that. I'd be the better person and whilst I wouldn't be forgiving or forget, I'd just be a bit cool with her. I certainly wouldn't drag her child into things

This is definitely one of those cases where "Two wrongs don't make a right".
Move on. What do you think the people around will think of you when you do essentially the same as she did all those years ago. The difference being is you're a grown adult now. I would expect your plans to backfire.

Surely the fact that you have gone on to be successful and happy is enough. As you said she got stick at school too so was also a victim. Whatever you decide please don't bring her daughter into it. That would make you a worse bully than she was IMO.

I had the chance at our school reunion. It was 10 years later on when we left and took place in a pub.
I hadn't intended to, and wasn't drinking either.
But one of my school friends who is still all these years on a great friend hadn't really wanted to go as we were badly bullied but her mum persuaded her and said we were all grown up now.
She came in from the pub garden and I could tell she was upset straight away and asked what was wrong. This woman is very successful in chosen career, a wonderful mum and wife and has always had a great sense of humour. But she looked 15 again so I knew someone had been cruel. She eventually said the same little carry group of mean girls had been sitting in the garden and had indeed made some nasty comment about "oh who invited the ugly fucking nerd crew" and "Why'd you invite that sad fuck, like we care what they're up to".
So I went out there and gave it to the lead girl both barrels, said how sad it was that 10 years on she was still stuck at age 15, that we didn't care what she thought and that if she still needed her two brainless hangers on for validation then I felt sorry for all 3 of them. I also asked if she was only there to get a full house on all the boys in our year group as there must be three she hadn't shagged or sucked off on the school field and clearly she wanted to sort that out.

The whole place went silent. Literally silent. I don't think anyone saw it coming as for years and years, in some cases from primary all through secondary, I had never fought back and had been abused on a daily basis, several times a day. It was so bad I didn't go in for our last day of school before exams as the group had pinched my leavers book and instead of signing it had written threats of what they would do to me on the last day to the point the police for involved. None of them ever got in trouble for it as they didn't sign it but any teacher could've guessed the handwriting, the school just didn't care. Instead I always felt like I was punished and missed out.
All 3 of them left shortly after and lots of people offered to buy me a drink that night.
Do I regret it ten years on? No I don't. It doesn't change what went on but I certainly hope it made them chat to their kids so they don't follow the same path.

If you didn't even consider yourself bullied until retrospectively looking back then I don't know what you're so worked up about. Hardly scarred you has it? I was actually bullied, and knew about it at the time. I still wouldn't aim to 'humiliate' anyone fifteen years later in front of their child. All you'll be doing is making yourself out to be a massive bully yourself. The way you comment on her appearance shows you're not a nice petson. Grow up and move on. You don't have to be friends with this person if you meet, but surely you manage a polite nod? People grow up and change, they could have grown into a lovely person. I'd use this issue to reflect on yourself and be better.

If it came up I might say something but planning to say things like that to a little kid makes you sound odd, can you move on? I’m sure they have

I remember once seeing one of those godawful 90s American talk shows in which people who were bullied as kids got the show to track down their school bullies (in the days before social media, how much stalking must it have taken?) in order to bring them to the studio so the victims could show them how pretty they were now, or how well they could sing (and that woman actually couldn't sing at all, it was painful).

It was honestly just morbid fascination. Grown adults hauling back other grown adults based on adolescent tiffs in order to get them to say how pretty or talented they were. How could they still care this much after so long? How had they not managed to find anything else to focus on in so many years? The bullies clearly felt the same way and having a series of people they hadn't seen or thought about for however many years prancing around in front of them trying to show how desirable they were plainly wasn't prompting any feelings of remorse or guilt. It was just embarrassing.

Let it go. Lots of people have change since school, if she hasn't changed and you speak to her DD like that she may get violent.
I've a group of friends we meet twice a year from my teenage years, we were awful to each other at times bitching, stealing ex boyfriends etc none of us hold those traits anymore.

I think in the past adults didn’t encourage kids to be kind to one another in the same way they do now. Law of the jungle applied at school and home.

Obviously she was wrong but she was also wronged.

You really are best to move past this.

You are literally asking us if you should bully her or bully her 5 year old child because of the way she behaved as a child?

Grow up and get some therapy.

It doesn’t sound as if you need to engage closely with her - you might see her in the pub, on the street etc- so just try to maintain a distance. You might embarrass yourself by doing anything else- she’s not necessarily going to be ‘mortified’ by anything you say; she could still have the personality traits that made her a bully and (for example) just laugh at you.
Bullying does leave scars, but you lost my sympathy (and some credulity tbh) when you compared your looks to hers. Life isn’t a beauty contest.

I'm really sorry @ManCubsMama that you're getting a lot of people on this thread saying unpleasant things (but AIBU does require a pretty hard hat). I don't think you're a bully at all and I can see that this person really hurt you. I think that many people don't understand the long term, serious effects that bullying can have on people, including some people who were bullied themselves - they're lucky that they have got over the bullying and suffer no long term effects. Other people carry the hurt around for years and it sounds to me like you're the latter.

Firstly, I do agree that you mustn't say anything to the child. I do have fantasies myself of inflicting the same sort of mental pain to the bullies that I suffered, but I realise that this is just my inner child lashing out. It's not you - it's the child inside you who is still hurting and angry at the unfairness of being bullied, because if you (like me) didn't really see it as bullying at the time, you haven't been able to process it.

I think you have to look at the realistic options:

1. say nothing and "get over it" (much harder said than done) so if you don't think you can just get over it, you'll probably need to keep your distance
2. say something to the former bully - keep it polite and explain clearly what happened and what you feel. "Bob, I don't know if you remember, but at school you slapped me/spat at me, and although you may not realise it, to me it was bullying. It has affected me quite badly for a number of years, and I still carry the hurt around with me, so although I will be polite to you for the sake of our parents, I'm afraid it will take me some time to get my head around the fact that you're now part of my social circle."

I know two people who met their bullies later in life. In one instance, the bully came up to Friend A on a tube, and gave them a full, heartfelt apology, saying he'd felt guilty about it. My friend just said "oh, ok, appreciate the apology but that doesn't make up for it, does it".

Friend B confronted her bully, and the bully had absolutely no recollection of the bullying behaviour at all, didn't recognise as bullying at all. Friend B doesn't give a shit about her bullying though - never thinks about it, and feels able to completely rise above the bullies. (She just thinks they were dicks)

I met Friend B's bullies (it was a group) too, a few years later, and I WISH I'd had the balls ovaries to say "I don't know if you girls realise what a bunch of vile, unpleasant cunts you were, but I hope that you spend the rest of your life worrying that your DDs have been bullied by people like you too". [note, I would never ever want the daughters to be bullied. I just want the mothers to worry about it, because I spend every day of my life worrying that my DD will go through what I went through]

Seriously. Please tell me this is a wind up

Involving a 5 year old, come on

Omg i outwardly gasped at your desire to talk to a 5 yo. Ffs that would make you an incredible bully.

I think you just need to rise above it now, be polite but you don't need to go out of your way or be nice to her. Tbh she's probably not given it another thought and will simply see you as an old school mate. You are giving it much more thought than she is - understandably so.

@ManCubsMama

I never considered myself bullied as I just thought certain scenarios where just part of growing up/I happened to encounter some unpleasant kids. But when I look back on it I can see I was targeted, taunted and treated very nastily ie I was spat on, once I was slapped round the face. This was all by a group of girls, sometimes boys, older than me.

I might soon have the opportunity to confront on of them group that bullied me, around 15 years later. We’re all grown up now, her parents have moved down the road to my parents and they Mix socially ie drink in the same pub (before lockdown), attend BBQs/garden drinks together. My parents have no knowledge of how this girl acted when we were at school and on meeting her a few times think she’s nice enough and that her 5yo daughter is very sweet.

Eventually I’ll cross paths with this girl when I’m with my parents in the pub or I see her on their road or something. Question is.. how do I play it? I am envisioning calling her out point blank in front of her own family with a simple “you werent very nice to me in school” and seeing her reaction. I’m half tempted to go one further and say to her daughter “your mummy was a bully at school, you won’t be a bully will you”

My other approach is to embarrass her by calling her the unfortunate nickname she had at school (on reflection, despite being popular she got a fair bit of stick at school and I wonder if that’s why she became a bully herself). This would put me in a position of power of her by mortifying her and giving her a taste of how it feels. As an aside, she is not the most fortunate looking person, whereas I consider myself good looking, slim and unlike her I am successful - good job, nice house, nice car, attractive husband etc. So I really feel like I should bloody go in there and hold my head high and how her that I made something of myself whereas she hasn’t.

The main thing is that we both now have children, and the thought of anyone treating my child how I was at school gives me the worst anxiety. I also do bloody think she deserves to look me in the eye, know what she did was wrong and yeah - shamefully, look at me and feel bad about herself.

WWYD?

So you are now going to bully her and EVEN WORSE her small child ?

Yeah I wouldn’t do any of that

I think that telling her she was unkind to you in school is fine. I think a lot of the other stuff (insulting her, dragging her 5 year old into it) would make you a bully too.

Do nothing OP, move on from it and don't be the person now that she was then, because from your post it sounds like you're in danger of being exactly that.

I did have a very different opportunity to confront my school bully, a couple of years after school. He started on a friend of mine in a pub because said friend dressed and looked a bit different to the 'norm' (he was a full flower-power hippy, 30 years too late). Said friend however was also accomplished at martial arts so bully ended up on the floor in a hold. I really, REALLY enjoyed standing over him and telling him exactly how much of a little whimpering shit he was.

I wouldn't do that now I'm a grown Woman though, nor would I have in any other circumstance.

Please don’t involve this woman’s 5 year old daughter. Say nothing, be cool yet polite. You already have had a kind of revenge by having a happy life.

Thanks for the sensible replies.

I agree to pretend I don’t remember her, or icily polite would be the best approach should I ever encounter this women.

I agree the comment to the child is extreme - I should have stated although I thought it was rather obvious this is all a fantasy in my mind. Tell me some of the stuff you fantasise isn’t farfetched!

Also to those saying I need to let it go, get over it etc. As I said in my post I am successful and have a happy life - I never even considered myself to be bullied and hadn’t given this girl or group a second thought since I left school. In fact I didn’t even immediately make the connection when my parents told me who they’d been meeting up with, that’s how much I had forgotten about it. It’s not like I am sat around every day thinking about it. I recently got informed of the connection with my parents and only just now thought “oh, it’s possible I will run into her, how shall I act?”

Although I am a very resilient person and don’t really consider myself bullied (V aware many have had it MUCH worse), please don’t victim shame. I’ve hardly said I am going to attack this person (like I was at school!) I’m just playing out scenarios of how I can make her aware of her actions.

You sound like a bully yourself!

Why the F would you say that to a 5 year old?

You don't sound very nice yourself.

Move on. It was 15 years ago.