do you think a school bully can end up as a good adult friend?

[northernlurker85]

hello. genuinely interested in your thoughts here. i had a friend request from a person we all hated at school this was over 20 years ago. i am happy to forgive and forget as we were both very different people,nothing more than kids but do you think people like that can change?

Being "mean to each other" is completely different from being bullied. Isn't that obvious from this thread?

I think it depends on a lot of things.

A friend request on social media I'd probably ignore as I'd suspect they were just being nosey and I'd have no evidence they had changed. But if our paths crossed naturally and they seemed to be a nice person as an adult then it may be different.

Also depends on the level of bullying. One girl at high school honestly just seemed to enjoy bullying those less socially powerful than herself, including me, and I never want anything to do with her again. Conversely, another girl had elements of being spiteful towards me at the start of secondary school, but I know she had a hard time at home, and once we got to sixth form and she was away from her former crowd, the dynamic changed and she seemed a fairly nice person and we became quite friendly.

I think it depends on a lot of things, but ultimately it's up to you. You shouldn't feel an obligation to befriend your former bullies though.

Well, they're similar things tbh. I was bullied by someone else at school. We never became friends, but I don't hate her and if we met I'd be friendly enough. I did say at the end of my post you've just quoted that it depends on how bad the bullying is. I don't think it's impossible if it's fairly low level bullying. If you disagree then fair enough 🤷‍♀️

Bullys never change unless something earth shattering in their lives happen to humble them. The worst bullies ive encountered are now care assistants and if I'm honest I wouldn't trust them with a cactus let alone another human being. They may forget but the people they bullied haven't.
I'd avoid and reject persons friend request. They will add nothing to your life but bad memories esp if they flood their newsfeed with how happy they are.

wow so many conflicting thoughts. this might have been better in the "other subjects board" as i am not really asking if i am reasonable or unreasonable. until the friend request i had only ever heard little snapshots about what he was doing now with his life he has 2 teenage dd's according to a friend and has quite a good job apparently. i think if he lived down the road i would feel a bit less easy about it but there's like 60 m distance between us and so the chances of him asking for a meet would be slim. i have always believed in second chances. i can think of kids at school who i didn't like at all. one of whom followed me to college and i was dreading it when i heard but we landed up really good friends.

I won't ever be friends or acknowledge anyone who made me feel as if I was nothing. I still remember being spat on, hounded every single minute in school, I remember the horrible names I was called, what should of been the happiest days of my life was a living nightmare. I'd sit and hide in toilets during class time missing out on valuable learning time because I was scared of the humiliation. I lost the chance to do something great with my life, so I would never give anyone a second chance who thought it was OK to terrorise me. They may have moved on, I can't, it's a lifelong misery of memories.

Completely agree

Well I guess you can always unfriend them again if it doesn't work out!
You could message them and say something polite but to the point,
"Hi X, Did you mean to friend me or did you mistake me for someone else? Because you did make my life hell for years at school. I get that sometimes external pressures make people behave badly and that they can change a lot for the better in adulthood - but I'm sure you can understand why I'm cautious. Be interesting to hear what your situation was. Bert"
And see what the reply is and go with your gut.

Looking back, my own parents' poor socialisation was handed on to me, and until about say, 30, I wasn't brilliant at getting along with people. Better influences, helpful life experiences and general reading of self-help manuals made me a somewhat more agreeable personality. So yes, people can learn to be a much better version of themselves. But that doesn't always happen!

My partner has been known to change direction to avoid his secondary school bully. Don't minimise the impact bullies have.

thanks all and to those who have found it hard to move forwards after such experiences i am sorry if some of you thought i was underestimating how difficult it is i know its not,its actually dam hard. for my first year or so out of the situation i struggled then just something clicked, don't know what it was, i found myself thinking "i can't screw the rest of my life because of what happened. no way if he had got in touch after just a single year i would have wanted anything at all to do with it but with 2 decades passing since them days i suppose i was just curious,could he had changed etc. thanks all for these replies. i am new here and so this has been an interesting first post.