Aibu to confront an old school bully?

[Lifegavemelemonade]

Back in secondary school I had a very close friendship group. I went to an all girl school and it started off as just me and Sussy being best friends. Then Jane joined our group and finally another girl joined who came down from Japan mid Yr. I became good friends with her and eventually brought her into this friendship group, let's call her Vic. So me and Vic got very close and I suspect Susy, my original friend got jealous. She got very close with Jane and Vic eventually left the country at the end of the year.

The remaining school years then consisted of Susy and Jane sticking together, pairing up for everything and consistently pushing me out. It was a weird sort of passive aggressive silent hatred towards me as they never outwardly treated me differently but would always go out together and never invite me or talk about things and leave me out but we still all stuck close together in school.

If didn't stop there. Although Vic left the country I remained in touch with her and realised she started to become off with me. When I asked her why she said it was because I was talking bad about Susy and Jane to her (I was expressing how I felt pushed aside) and that they had said I was talking bad about Vic to them which couldn't of been further from the truth. At the time Vic felt like my true and only friend but unfortunately I lost her as she said she felt she had to chose and she chose Susy and jane.

So here is the thing, I left that school and that was that. However Jane has stayed in touch with a lot of people from our school and I stayed in touch with the same people (mutual friends). I'm now 24 and they have all asked to meet up. Originally I said yes and was delighted but now I've started thinking about the past and how things played it, how miserable and alone I was made to feel. I ended up making a different best friend after a while which really got to them both but I will never forget the feeling of how unfair it all was.

Since Jane will presumably be there do I finally confront her? I know it was in the past but I never had the courage to stand up for myself back then and I feel like I owe it to myself to find out exactly why things happened like that. Its not that I want an apology as I feel too much time has passed for that but an explanation would be nice? Or do I let it go and accept the fact that it's been so many years these things happen and she could potentionally be a different person now. I don't know how I will feel when I see her. I honestly thought when I left I would never have to see Jane or Susy again and they was part of the reason why I left my secondary school when so many people stayed on in sixth form.

Yabu - do not confront her
Yanbu - confront her

It's a bit pointless to confront them now. I understand it was upsetting at the time but what do you expect the outcome to be, an invite to their next sleep over?

@CreamyBruley i wasnt sagging them off. I was telling Vic I felt like they were deliberately leaving me out. Which they was. I was telling her the truth

It sounds like a difficult time for you but it was almost a decade ago. I think your energy would be better spent having some counselling to deal with the lingering feelings around this issue. If you confront this girl , it will only give them another excuse to talk bad about you and will probably just make you miserable all over again.

In my experience, any attempt to seek closure remains unfruitful. I don't think you'll get what you're hoping to from a confrontation, and you'll just end up feeling more hurt and frustrated. I'd leave it and move on.

I want to make it clear this isn't eating up at me night and day. I'm only given this the time of day because the invite has come up. Before this they never crossed my mind as they really aren't relevant to my life anymore. I have a lovely dc now and my life has progressed alot more since then

Hi @Lifegavemelemonade
I'm reading them! Yeah they do seem to have bullied you, forget the people above who say they weren't. It all sounds not very nice and I certainly wouldn't be going as it will fan the dying embers into a flame again. God forbid you give them your social media links!
Hard as it may be, don't put yourself in the position of these bullies
Good luck 🙂

She says that they told you but you do not know that they did. She equally could just have been tired of you telling her about upset you are that they had moved on and wondered if you were saying the same about her as she had also moved on

No they didn't. They outgrew you. You didn't outgrow them. This is normal behaviour growing up. Why didn't you move on and make different friendship groups?

I think it depends on what outcome you want from addressing it with Jane. Are you prepared for an outcome you don't want? Whenever you ask a question you can always get an answer you don't want.

Have you thought through how you'd feel if they dismissed it all as being in the past?
If they throw their arms open and apologies - how would you move forward from that?
If they turn it round and feel you're to blame - how will you manage that?

What would happen if you said nothing? How would you feel?

Personally, I'd focus on what I want to get out of the evening and not them...

@purplecorkheart i don't really understand why you are trying so hard to defend these people you don't know? It's alot more black and white then you are giving them credit for

@maddy68 i did eventually and they hated it. They really despised seeing me happy.

What they did to you wasn't very nice but I wouldn't say it was bullying. Bullying would be calling you names repeatedly like "square eyes" and then taunting you day after day.

They were a bit bitchy and nasty but a lot of young girls are. It's clear they weren't friends of yours so why confront them? They took joy from your unhappiness so why continue to engage? Just accept they were never your friends and it's over.

You have your feelings, no one is undermining them but what you describe is very normal in friendship groups at that age. My daughter is the 15 now and it's still normal.
We change and grow, most of us have experienced what you describe. Put next to systematic bullying it is not the same. Your current age and circumstances are magnifying your experience to a level the rest of us don't recognise as anything out of the ordinary.

That's not bullying.

I would leave it in the past bringing it up now won't achieve a single thing.

You sound like you’re in a vulnerable place in your life right now - being a sahm can be isolating and lonely. My worry for you is that you’d be going into this situation with a preconceived notion about how this conversation will play out.

I’ve known too many adults who laugh about their school days, and still find their antics with the weird [sub any insult] kid hilarious, even when they are old enough to have dc of their own and worry about bullying.

You might not like the answers you’ll get. You might not like the dynamic that being around these people triggers, or what it elicits in you.

It’s not my experience that little shits grow up into great humans. Sometimes the best thing is to leave the past behind you. You’re already doing well by your 15 yr old self by living a good life. Keep moving forward!

I think singling someone out and making sure they remain alone but pretending to still be their friend is manipulative. Maybe its bullying maybe its not but its mean regardless. I don't understand this behaviour.

But I get the general gist is just to go and enjoy the night and so I will. For what it's worth I don't actually hold her to it. But I did want to ask her about why these things happened and not pretend that it didn't. But it what's ever I think I will just go for the right people and if Jane is there I will give her a chance to see if she is a different person now or not. I'm not wasting to much energy on this as it really isn't that important to me I just wanted some insight as to how others would navigate this type of situation

I think this is pretty typical bitchy teen behaviour. I found that some of my “best” friends and I were awful to one another around that age.

That said, I have absolutely no desire to reconnect with my former school friends as my life has moved on so much then and I really have any sense of wanting to see them or missing them etc.

So do what you want - go if you’re comfortable but I really wouldn’t be pulling them up on what happened years ago, I suspect their recollection of events will be much different to yours with blame at your door and you’ll feel worse for it

I agree with you about their behaviour and you've had some odd replies.
But I don't think you will gain anything by confronting them, and you will most likely end up feeling worse. Either don't go, or go and be happy.

Op you still sound very hurt by their behaviour. I'm sorry but i agree with others that this isn't so much bullying more just teen difficulties, growing up and navigating friendships. 3 is a very difficult number as there is always 1 person 'left out'. High school can be brutal and as you're 24 it's still fairly recent.

In your situation i don't think i would bring this up but if you feel it would help you could. Just be prepared for their recollection of events to be different from yours and you may feel worse. At best they may say sorry and put it down to teens can be horrid but i don't think this would satisfy you as you have already said your feeling are bring minimised here.

If you try to rise above it and enjoy yourself, as you say your life has moved on and you're happy 😊

Kids do horrible things. No violence was used. If you are not sure then don't go.

If you still live in the same area the only reason I would go is to see about making new connections with other people going. If they are SAHM as well with kids your age etc. I would be polite but distant with your old friends. You were treated badly. Being excluded on purpose is bullying.

The problem with these types of situations is that you are both viewing it from a child’s perspective and both of you may not have been aware of the consequences of your actions and the impact on others. For example by making a new friend and bringing her into the group (which is a nice thing to do) you changed the dynamic from a 3 to a 4. Pairings are easy in a 4, and likely you would pair with your friend. When it went back to a 3 you expected room to be created for you however it may be your friends we’re feeling hurt by what they saw as you leaving them for someone else and so didn’t want to make that room for you and felt you were feeling what they had felt. As an adult these things seem so trivial but you are holding onto the feelings you had as a child which can still hurt. By bringing it up you will both go back to a child’s mentality and not get anywhere. The best thing to do is go and have adult relationships with those there- that might include her or it might not but wanting an explanation for her behaviour will lead to a you did this you did that type of conversation which I suspect will upset you and will cause unneeded drama which is disrespectful to those organising the party.

Why bother going? Nothing on earth could persuade me to attend a school reunion. I was relatively lucky with bullying, in that I pretty much escaped until I was 13. Even then it wasn't too bad (just low level nastiness - a nickname that stuck, occasionally being tripped up, etc). Still, it was enough to ruin my final three years.

A few years ago, I bumped into someone I'd known at school. She'd joined in a bit - gleefully repeating the nickname, and so on. But she greeted me like a dear old pal and suggested meeting for a drink. And it wasn't an act. She genuinely had no memory of what she'd done. I don't like arguments and confrontation, so I just nodded and said 'sure', all the time thinking "the minute this conversation ends, I'm going to avoid you for the rest of my life."

If I was you I'd cut them loose. Make some new friends - people who don't bring back bad memories. Personally, I'd be quite happy to never see a single person from school ever again.

You said:

Before this they never crossed my mind as they really aren't relevant to my life anymore. I have a lovely dc now and my life has progressed alot more since then

So I would say don't go and process whatever you need to draw another line under it, you won't get any 'resolution' out of this and it may be that they have a different recollection of the past, no good can come out of it, so just leave it where it already was, a part of the past.

I don't appreciate everyone undermining and invalidating my feelings here. This was more and went way beyond just a simple friendship dying out

OP if you feel like that there is nothing to be gained by seeing them. Having a go at them will upset you more than them. Find new friends, move on and make a success of your life - that is the best revenge.