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.

I had to change hairdressers after I found out an ex boss went there. I couldn't deal with the thought of bumping into her even though I know we'd both make a point of ignoring each other.

I still haven't found a hairdresser as good. But just the possibility of running into her is worse than a bad haircut.

it depends on her perception of what happened in your primary years,she may have a very different recollection to you.
Clearly whatever happened between you deeply affected her for her her to avoid 30 yrs later.

Same here! I'd be amazed if anyone remembered me from primary school at all as I definitely don't remember anyone except fairly vaguely. I did get a little bit bullied and left out for a while in primary school, as I recall, but it's been a long time since then and I obviously never think about it. Honestly, it seems utterly weird to me that anyone would bother to remember any of this at all.

Obviously if you were horrifically bullied, it's probably a bit different. I definitely remember things my family did when I was that age that it's been hard to let go of. Even so, it was all a long time ago now, and it does get to the point where it just doesn't matter anymore.

Different because I was older, but my life was made absolute hell at university. The two ringleaders were - and still are - a couple. I ‘escaped’ the day I left university, but the nasty comments carried on seeping through from time to time. A few years later I had a very sick baby and the female bully said something nasty about my baby to a mutual friend, which got back to me. She’s a primary school teacher. Sometimes I wonder what her colleagues would think of her behaviour. I’ve had dreams where I’ve suddenly come face to face with the two of them and taken great pleasure in stating I have no idea who they are and no recollection of them at all. I actually think I’d find that quite satisfying if I saw them ever again. Bastards.

Absolutely

I couldn't hold a grudge for that long but as the saying goes "Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes".

You obviously remember and so does she.

No, I couldn’t even tell you who was in my class in primary school! I wouldn’t even keep a grudge from high school.

A few of my friends fell out with each other in our third year of uni and they still talk about it / won’t see each other 10 years on. I find that weird too.

I'm not going to apologize for how I feel about her. She was a horrible person all through primary school, I obviously have no idea what she's like now and I don't want to know.
Yes it is absolutely lucky. I wonder how you would feel if your child came home and said someone had been mean to them? Would you just shrug it off? Tell them not to be so ridiculous?
I was bullied most of my life in school and that was the first time which is why it's stuck with me.
You are being ridiculous and rude suggesting it's the same thing if a 6 year old said something to me now. She was old enough to know what the word meant and to know it was spiteful. You may think it's fine for 6 year olds to be spiteful but it's not.

No I absolutely couldn't be arsed with this.

I fell out with my so-called best friend about 15 years ago (as did everyone else as surprise surprise, she was the problem).

I was visiting my hometown a couple of years back and spotted her in Boots and we made eye contact- I just smiled politely. She, however, stormed out- and I heard after from someone that still follows her on Twitter that she immediately posted about seeing "toxic people from her past" and how "triggering" it was for her. I personally didn't give it another thought, and felt sad that she hasn't been able to move on.

What about your school bully, how do you feel about them?

I wouldn't leave the room, but can certainly hold a grudge for several decades. In fact now that I'm in my sixties I find that I can hold a grudge for far longer than I can remember what it was actually for.

I don't but I am certainly capable of it.
Slightly older than primary but someone once applied for a job I was advertising and I realised they were one of the girls who bullied my DS at senior school so that was a hard no.

Actually I bumped in to a not very nice boy from my form 12 years on. He liked name calling and was a general PITA.

He managed a shop I went in to - I didn’t even recognise him! In his late 20s he was bald and much larger than his good looking & curly haired blonde self at 16 (he’d lost his square jaw).
He spotted me straight away & was very friendly - I’d just been travelling and bought two photo albums from him so no grudge held.

Many people were unpleasant to me at school, I’m a really different person now and I’d quite relish seeing them and sticking it to the man (many friends, two DC, husband, own a business etc).

There are people I knew at primary school half a century ago that I would be very wary of but I wouldn’t ‘storm out’ of anywhere in order to avoid them.

Yes, possibly. I have a grudge against an awful bully that unexpectedly slapped me in the face so hard I fell over; this was in Year 8.
I found out recently that she'd done that to someone else a year later; they had punched her back and knocked her out!
I celebrated 50 years later!

The fact you have no empathy to her feelings tells me she did right by leaving.

I don’t think I could hold a grudge for the reasons you have stated in your op. I’m sure the ‘stolen’ best friend has their own mind and can make their own decisions on who they want to be ‘best friends’ with. I had many petty arguments with girls over this issue back in primary school but could never hold a grudge.

I would and do however, hold a grudge against certain people who relentlessly physically and emotionally bullied me at school to the point of causing emotional and mental distress! Even had a few of them send me friend requests on facebook years and years later which I rejected.
I’m in my 40s now and absolutely cannot get past the abuse I suffered.

Yes! A nasty horrible bully that made my life and others hell. She tried to friend me on Facebook 15 years ago. I said nothing just blocked her. Not something I want to go into again.

I will never get why old school bullies try to add their victims on social media… especially years and years after, presumably because they think what they did “wasn’t such a big deal” so you will have just got over it! It’s irritating but oh so satisfying when you reject their request lol.

We didn’t have a school bully. There were a few boys that were nasty to me but I wouldn’t give them a second thought now. One works in Nando’s and I don’t say hi but I’m not going to avoid Nando’s just because he works there!

It depends! If someone had physically bullied my sibling I would not be up for being their bestie as an adult. If I'd been jealous of someone for having nicer clothes than me I'd be open and warm to them as an adult because that was about my own feelings more than anything they did to me. In general, I'd give people the benefit of the doubt but if you're that person who made my sibling's life a misery or that girl who made others lives miserable as teens, nah, I'm not getting involved and I will hold that grudge.