Could you still hold a grudge against someone from primary school?

[BeardofHagrid]

Just silly girls’ politics during primary school, falling out with each other, accusations of best friends being stolen etc, could you still hold a grudge against someone for that now?

The context is that I saw a woman I was at primary school with recently in a shop and she stormed out when she saw me. I hadn’t seen her for 30 years.

Agreed. There are one or two people from senior school I never want to see again.

You are your truest self as a child and don't fundamentally change.

You don't have enough of a "self" as a child to say this. You are your most immature, ignorant, unsophisticated, unknowing and unanalytical. You don't fully understand consequences or impact. You're often figuring them out, and by extension figuring out morality itself. You have certain traits that might not change, like being inherently introverted or creative, but you don't have a developed or mature enough self to be judged in any meaningful way on it.

That's not to say people who were bullied while very young mustn't be deeply affected by it or that they have any duty towards their bullies. It can be a very harmful and lasting experience and you don't have to like or engage with these people. You feel about it however you feel about it, it affects you as it affects you. But I can't accept that a person's entire moral character for their life is dictated by stuff they did when they were eight. If that's true, why bother trying to raise kids at all?

If nothing else, at that age children are often just copying behaviour that has been modelled to them and they simply aren't developed enough yet to understand it.

I was never a bully but I once had an argument with someone as a young child. She called me something like a smelly bumhead and I responded with something that was much worse but was entirely normal in my household and always being excused and downplayed by my mother. In my mind, it was no worse than "smelly bumhead" but it was obvious by her reaction that it was. I had never intended to shock or hurt her so much and I never said it again. It was part of a long and ongoing process of unlearning the horrible stuff I grew up with and realising that no, these are not acceptable ways to treat people.

I don't think I had an ongoing effect on the other girl because we made up soon after and stayed friends all through school after that. It wasn't the kind of thing I did regularly. But if it did affect her profoundly, then that's not her failing. These things can hurt. It wasn't her fault and she isn't obliged to not be hurt or affected. But still, which is more my true self - the seven year old who said something horrible because she had learned it at home and didn't understand how horrible it was, or the older person who had learned to understand and therefore did not do it?

I've not told anyone "what they feel". The idea that you enjoy holding a grudge but equally give that grudge no "headspace" is nonsensical. But you do you, of course. All the best.

If she stormed out, it sounds like more than just a falling out and I'd presume that you bullied her for her to have such a strong reaction. I still despise my school bully,.I wouldn't leave somewhere if I saw her, but I'd blank her.

Perhaps it's like Jason Donovan's response to Kylie dumping him on her Netflix documentary - I bet most days he might answer in a suave, light-hearted and magnanimous way but caught on an off day, he might sound embittered, as has been observed on another thread! Time can be like a loop, sometimes past events feel like decades ago, other times they can be like yesterday.

I do not give them head space and have moved on with my life and am very happy. However, i do recognise they adversely influenced the way I am today - friendship trust issues are now part of who I am.

They know what they did but do not acknowledge the damage their behaviours had - no it was not funny- I have met them once since. It was cathartic to realise I had moved on and was in a better place than they were.

However, the need for bullies to be forgiven years later is not my problem- they need to live with the guilt they feel for what they did - you were truly vile as were your parents, one of whom was a teacher in the school I attended at the time.

"you were truly vile as were your parents, one of whom was a teacher in the school I attended at the time."

Child bullies are not born out of nowhere.

I think, as in so many MN discussions, it would have been useful to define 'grudge' at the outset...but we didn't.

You (not me!) have told me that I 'enjoy holding a grudge'. No I don't. You are still making things up and telling me what I feel.

Neither do I give grudgees headspace - I hadn't thought of them for decades until OP posed the question here.

I'll spell it out for you in really simple, unambiguous terms to prevent any further misinterpretation:

I do not forgive horrible behaviour unless the perpetrator shows genuine remorse.

I haven't forgiven people who did horrible things to me in the past. I do not spend time thinking of them, I do not wish or plot revenge - I simply have a negative opinion of them.

These people are very few - possibly 3 in my whole life.

I had not thought of them for 30 or more years until OP asked. Therefore your insistence that I 'give them headspace' is silly.

And finally - you do have a tendency to accuse people of things with no evidence - even when they tell you clearly that you've misinterpreted! Pps on here have have different experiences and those who do 'hold on to a grudge' have every right to do so. You cannot legislate for others' feelings and experiences.

HTH.

"I hold several grudges and quite enjoy them!".

🤔"You (not me!) have told me that I 'enjoy holding a grudge'. No I don't. You are still making things up and telling me what I feel."

The girl who bullied me in y7 waylaid me in Aldi the other year just to apologise about her behaviour to me back then. Apparently, every time she'd seen me in passing it had preyed on her mind.

We'd worked together in a restaurant when we were 20 and she'd not mentioned it, so why she was bothered by it now we're 50 I don't know!

I still hold a grudge with the girls who bullied me at school, I wish every ill & bad luck on them for the rest of their lives, they ruined my education & their bullying still affects me 44 years later.

There is one particular person who if I saw again (especially if with her husband/family) and if she recognised me, I would say N you were a nasty bully to me all through school, lets not pretend to be friends because you made my life miserable for years. Goodbye.

abso- fuckin - lutely

Absolutely! A really nasty kid to me at primary school for some weird reason tried to add me as a social media friend once. I just blocked them. I hasn’t thought about the person for years but I remembered as soon as I saw them. I did wonder wtf