My bully has Facebook friend requested me

[planetme]

At school, there was a girl in the year above with a reputation for being really "hard". She didn't even know me but when I was about 13 she beat me up in front of loads of people walking home from school. I just remember her pulling me about by my hair and just slapping and punching me over and over again including in my face while all her mates were laughing and encouraging it

I think The worst part was I was with my so called friends, they walked away really fast and let it happen. I think they were scared they'd end up getting hit as well

I never told my parents or school, i wish I had as if it happened to any of my ex (god forbid) I would go to the police. I was too ashamed, I blamed myself

I don't understand why she'd try to friend request me but part of me actually wants to accept her. So I can send a message asking if she remembers what she did to me. Or let her find out from my page that I now have a lovely family, own a very successful, profitable business, drive a Porsche and have a damn good life

Both are pointless so I'll do neither, I am best to just block her

I guess seeing her name pop up has bought it back a bit and I just wanted to get it down.

Sounds like she has little self awareness. Although as @deeedeee says she may have messaged you an apology already?

@TaysideTeuchter ha! We all want a plain Jane super brain moment.

@SheeceRearsmith

Decline and block, OP. I too was bullied at school (nowhere near your experience - which sounds truly awful and I’m so sorry that happened to you) but I very recently found out that the girl who mercilessly bullied me for years is a deputy head and safeguarding lead at a very good school. Couldn’t make it up. She must have had some serious road to Damascus experience. I sometimes wonder what I would do if I ever bumped into her - confront her or treat her with indifference? In my mind I always go with indifference. I have an incredibly good life and have no need to lower myself. She knows what she is and what she did and I’m the lucky one who doesn’t have to live with that on my conscience. Enjoy your good life, OP.

A Damascene experience indeed? Or perhaps your bully is a very good actor , even a sociopath. Imagine the delicious bullying and humiliation opportunities offered by her position as 'safeguarding ' lead !

@KatherineJaneway

I'll get piled on here but it is very possible that a 15 year old bully has changed into a decent 30/40 something woman, especially if she has had children who have mellowed her.

It's more likely however that she's rewritten history in her own mind and conveniently forgotten her actions. This is why they bluster and feign astonishment when confronted with the truth.

This rewritten history had indeed occurred with the 'in crowd/so called popular' girls at school. Imagine the reality that they were a group of cowardly bullies.

@girlmom21 I'd rather someone slept with my boyfriend than had years of fertility issues. You sound awful.

Not sure what I think about this. Had that been me I wouldn't have gloated but equally I wouldn't have cared or felt sorry for the bully either.

I had this a few years ago. I then sent her a message saying I forgave her as it looked like she'd changed.

Then, to cut a long story short - I had an exchange with her recently (she was basically trying to offer me a free sort of 'life coaching' session but she wanted to get me to sign up for more as she asked me to do this before. Another friend of mine told me when I'd sent her the message, "she thinks you've got money".

If you don't want to interact with her then fine!

On the other hand - someone at primary school - she FB requested me over Covid - in fact she wasn't even that bad at primary school just the odd kids squabbling - but she did apologise, said she wasn't very nice then. Since then her partner has died, I met up with her a couple of times and she has changed. But I don't really call that bullying - I don't recall her being in my face and hitting me or shouting at me! There was a nasty schoolgirl from primary school who was a bit of a bully and she did FB request me but I declined, she was deliberately cruel.

Block her. Don't give her the satisfaction of a window on to your life

It very much depends. Sometimes it's good just to get it off your chest.
You can accept the request, tell her about your life, ask about hers and then block her.
No matter what many people say, sometimes getting over something includes a certain amount of pettiness.
A good proper "fuck you bitch" goes a long way to calm you down.
On the other hand, if you're not the person who can drop the bomb and leave the building, don't do it.

@Abhannmor… You’re not too far off the mark with bullies being attracted to safeguarding positions, just like paedophiles are attracted to jobs and hobbies which allow them unrestricted access to kids, DV & SA perpetrators and other misogynists become “Ambassadors” for women’s “Awareness” causes like White Ribbon Day or WWD. It’s a form of virtue-signaling and Social Munchausen’s Syndrome at the same time. They get off on the feedback (whether real or imagined) and give themselves a pat on the head to excuse their ACTUAL behaviour.

@Momijin

Accept her and let her see how far you've come in life and then post a few karma posts etc.

Rightly or wrongly , a guy I was seeing at uni went off with a friend (not a close friend but nevertheless it hurt). Rightly or wrongly, she struggled for many years to have kids and only managed to have one very late on. I had mine super easily and she looks a lot older than me. As petty as it sounds, serves her right.

Bloody hell, you might want to consider your own karma if you're still gleeful about somebody else's heartache and suffering years later.

She either wants to apologise or sell you MLM.

Either way , block move on and do not let this arsehole take up any more headspace

Leave the request hanging, that will drive her insane that u have compeltely not noticed it xx

I wouldn’t block her as that’s a clear message that you remember her.

I would just ignore the friend request and let her stew wondering each day if you are going to accept her.

If she messages you it will go to your spam folder and you are able to read the message without her knowing until you click to accept her as someone you know.

I would read it and ignore if that’s the case, regardless if it’s an apology.

Apologies from bullies to their victims many years later are not for the victims benefit, they want to assuage their own guilt.

@Justilou1 Ha , yes I often think if Mathew Hopkins were reborn today he or she would be a safeguarding lead. Or travel the country giving diversity training. No ducking stool of course , but lots of public shaming.

Block, delete, flush - you've got better things to do with your time than give this person headspace, haven't you?

Don’t block, don’t respond.

Completely ignore.

Not entirely unrelated, but I had a fucking miserable time at highschool. (Abused at home, which made me a sitting duck for bullies.) I returned to Aus from living in Europe just prior to our lockdown. I caught a bus and ran into one of my friends from then, who convinced me to go to our 30th highschool reunion. I was reluctant as my memories were bad but blurry (C-PTSD) and she convinced me that I would be at a table with people I genuinely liked and we would all have a good time. We were all laughing and chatting over cocktails and a group of women with extremely expressionless faces strutted/stalked over with their hands on their hips like something from “Heathers.” My friend said “Oh here we go…” I genuinely had no idea who they were, but they obviously all used the same surgeon. The lead one looked me up and down and said, “So you’re back then…” I looked at my friends blankly and said “Who is this?” She told me her name, expecting a response, and it still drew a blank. My friend whispered, “bully” in my ear and I was relieved to be so unaffected. THEN she said, “Don’t you remember me? I’m L.W., and I’m an Alpha Female.” I exploded into peals of laughter because - who wouldn’t? And so did the rest of my table. I said, “I’m so sorry…. I don’t remember you, but that sounds really exhausting. I hope you can relax and have as much fun as we are.” And she did not know what to do. (BTW, I genuinely can’t remember her. C-PTSD gives you lovely amnesia, sometimes even when you need it most.)

I would just ignore the friend request and let her stew wondering each day if you are going to accept her.

I think you'd be putting way more thought into it than she would. I doubt very much she would be "stewing" over it.

And then the bloody friend request won't go away if you don't dismiss it. You see it all the time.

I suspect she remembers it very differently to you (child bullies tend to have a slightly different recollection, if they remembered exactly how horrid they really were, they'd find it very difficult to live with themselves) but wants to get in touch to apologise as she's grown up. That's the thing. Some children are utter shits when they're teenagers, but they generally don't stay that way forever. And when they realise their younger selves did not act the way their older selves feel comfortable with, it does not feel good.

However, an apology just makes the person apologising feel better, and I'd say your feelings are more important here. If it's still upsetting and you don't want to hear from her, just block her.

I think I'd work on forgiving her for my own sanity, but you don't actually have to have any interaction with her for that to happen. You just have to remember that hate is not the best response to someone who's wronged you - indifference is. Forgiving is the easiest path to indifference.

I'm sorry you had this experience during your formative years, and I'm really pleased for you that you've gone on to have such a great life.

I had a boy who used to bully me relentlessly sending me messages and telling me it was just a case of 'boys will be boys' and then trying to tell me how gorgeous I am. He made my life a misery in school and contributed to me developing an eating disorder. I just ignored him until about the 3rd or 4th message, at which point I got pissed off as it felt like harassment, told him how pathetic he was and blocked him. She may be trying to ease her conscience, or pretend to herself that it was all just 'banter', or she's even still a bullying cowbag whose best days were when she could victimise the other kids in school and so she's wanting to relive those days again and thinks she can still hurt you. I'd just block or ignore if I were you, give her as little attention as possible. She's clearly entitled, so the best thing to do would be to give her zero attention.

My high school bully added me on Facebook … I accepted only because I knew I needed to get my revenge…. I posted on her wall a lovely message reminding her of all the things she done to me… and then asked why would I ever want to be her friend ? I later heard that she was dismissed from her role due to the fact she was an anti bullying coordinator at a school and part of that was that they never bullied anyone and her manager deemed her adding me to Facebook was another form of her trying to bully me as apparently she had no good reason to give as to why she felt she wanted to add me - she’d obviously stalked through friends accounts because the name on my social media is not the name I went go school with…

I’m not sorry for doing what I did she destroyed my high school years and my confidence for years.

OMG justilou that is amazing! Oh I wish someone had caught that on video. Wtf? Is it people who don't move away or do much with their lives that think talking like that is in any way normal?

Forgive me for not reading the whole thread so apologies if this has been posted. But the song you need here is this:
Kate Miller-Heidke “Are You Fucking Kidding Me”
m.youtube.com/watch?v=SUTyMBt2uk0

It refers to an ex rather than a bully but it still totally works

I’d also leave it hanging. Don’t accept or decline. That way she’ll never know, which hopefully will be more annoying for her.

@hoplittlebunnyhop

My high school bully added me on Facebook … I accepted only because I knew I needed to get my revenge…. I posted on her wall a lovely message reminding her of all the things she done to me… and then asked why would I ever want to be her friend ? I later heard that she was dismissed from her role due to the fact she was an anti bullying coordinator at a school and part of that was that they never bullied anyone and her manager deemed her adding me to Facebook was another form of her trying to bully me as apparently she had no good reason to give as to why she felt she wanted to add me - she’d obviously stalked through friends accounts because the name on my social media is not the name I went go school with…

I’m not sorry for doing what I did she destroyed my high school years and my confidence for years.

What you did makes you as bad as her. Seeking revenge is awful. For all you know, the woman may have wanted to make amends in some way. I don't know what you think you have achieved - apart from possibly losing her her job.

You didn't have to accept her friend invitation, that would have been the best thing.

There are a couple of bullies in my past who made things very difficult for me. However life goes on, my life turned out all right, in many ways I'm different to how I was when I was young and they probably are too. In the unlikely event that our paths crossed again, I'm not going to seek vengeance. What would be the point? I don't want to be horrible and bear grudges.