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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to send a Facebook friend request to a girl who bullied me?

26 replies

NaiveMoi · 22/05/2010 20:18

Long story short(er), was best friends with girl in high school for a few years, then she decided I wasn't cool enough to be her friend. Dropped me like a hot potato but not before making me feel like shit. I've always been shy but the way she behaved knocked my confidence even more, and I still find it hard to make friends to this day.
We have mutual friends on FB, and I've been tempted to send her a friend request on several occasions. If I'm honest, I'm hoping she might have realised what a bitch she was and apologise. I realise that's probably hopelessly optimistic; she'll possibly just ignore the request altogether.
AIBU? Should I forget the whole thing? I feel lke if I don't do it I'll always wonder..

OP posts:
fruitshootsandheaves · 22/05/2010 20:20

forget it. Whats to say she won't make some nasty comment on facebook and hurt you again.

BelleDameSansMerci · 22/05/2010 20:21

Hmmmm... Sounds like a recipe for more hurt to me. If you can see her via mutual friends, then she can also see you. If she wanted to apologise, I'm afraid I think she could have done so by now.

Honestly, unless you need to call her on this and try to make her apologise, I'd leave it well alone.

dustycups · 22/05/2010 20:23

depend if you want to forgive her for what she did!

i added people who i had fallen out with in quite a nasty way because i felt like we were just kids then and much more grown up now! (and i wanted to boast about my great life now!!)

we r fine now, infact we have had a laugh about what happend

you can always block her if she is nasty!!

hocuspontas · 22/05/2010 20:24

No. If she wants to be 'friends' with you she'd request it wouldn't she? Also I wouldn't bank on people realising the error of their ways. She's probably forgotten what happened.

ASecretLemonadeDrinker · 22/05/2010 20:25

I would say wait to get a request from her (has she just joined?) but she may be doing the same. Request, if she refuses ignore and move on. I wouldn't mention the bullying if I am honest, it was a lifetime ago and she is more than likely a very different person. Did she just turn abit not nice, or was she very cruel? I am friends with people on FB who in primary school didn't want to be my friend because I didn't have excema (!!!!) or long hair as it was the 'cool' thing amoungst them. Lifetime ago. I requested some, some requested me, abit of idle chit chat, some 'new' mutual friends - social networking I guess!

RedTartanLass · 22/05/2010 20:25

No no leave it! If she wants to she can add you. But don't invite her, noooooo

Cleggover · 22/05/2010 20:25

YABVvvvU for being on facebook at all, so no don't send her a friend request- hold your head high without wanting such a slime as your friend

HecateQueenOfWitches · 22/05/2010 20:25

Do you want to be her friend? If not, then what's the point? You have mutual friends? That means she can see you too? If she wanted to apologise then she could have, right? So you ask her to be friends and what? Nudge her for an apology? Tell her how much she hurt you? And you'll get an oh sorry, or maybe a we were only kids or something offensive, who knows?

It's easy to say from outside it, but you need to move on. You are giving her such power. I have been bullied terribly, to the point I tried to kill myself. I wouldn't seek out the people who bullied me. I do want to become very rich and very beautiful and show up at a school reunion and pretend to not know any of them but in real life, here and now, would I contact them to try to get an apology? No. An apology that comes because you push for it is meaningless.

You want to contact her for that apology? You might get one. Or you might not. What if she can't even remember you? How would you feel if what she put you through meant so little to her that she doesn't even know who you are?

thisisyesterday · 22/05/2010 20:27

what would you do if she accepted the request and then didn't say anything at all?
or if she acted like nothing had happened?

Original poster
NaiveMoi · 22/05/2010 20:34

I don't actually want to be her friend as such (I don't take FB friendship status that seriously), I suppose it's more about closure of a sort. I know she'll remember who I am, we were practically joined at the hip for quite a while, but I don't expect she's spent much time thinking about me since. Just wondered if she'd ever felt guilty, even if only briefly. It's silly I know. What can I say? I dwell on silly stuff

OP posts:
Original poster
NaiveMoi · 22/05/2010 20:36

Uh oh. I ignored all your lovely sensible advice and sent the request anyway. And she's accepted

OP posts:
Original poster
NaiveMoi · 22/05/2010 20:37

Crappity crap, meant to italicise, not strike out

OP posts:
PatTheHammer · 22/05/2010 20:45

So............spill the beans? Do you have a much better looking DH than her now or something that you can feel exceedingly smug about????

MadamDeathstare · 22/05/2010 20:52

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Original poster
NaiveMoi · 22/05/2010 20:57

Ha! How do you know I don't look like supermodel MadamD?

Pat She has an MD and runs marathons She's not married (actually I'm pretty sure she's gay), so can't compare DHs

OP posts:
MadamDeathstare · 22/05/2010 21:05

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

noteventhebestdrummer · 22/05/2010 21:34

I didn't add an old bullying person from school on fb but I emailed her to say hi after I saw her at a concert with her choir.

She sent the most wonderful reply, saying how she knew she had behaved appallingly badly, was very, very sorry, had no excuses and hoped I was happy in life now.

This was good closure!

MagalyZz · 22/05/2010 21:37

If she doesn't reply to your request then that won't be closure, it would be picking open an old wound.

electra · 22/05/2010 22:15

Don't bother - why would you want to have someone who made you so unhappy at school look at your personal life every day? I tend to reject friend requests from people who were horrid at school. You just don't need all the crappy baggage.

Your life has moved on and you should concentrate on the people you've had good times with imo

didgeridoo · 22/05/2010 22:22

If she felt any genuine guilt or remorse she would send you a friend request & offer an apology. Forget it & move on. If she snubs you it will send you right back to your schooldays. Don't give her the opportunity.

DetectivePotato · 22/05/2010 22:24

I was friends with someone at school and after she said I bullied her. I'm not quite sure how really, the way I was with her, I was like with all my friends and they never said the same. However, years later I was quite good friends with her cousin and she told the whole family about my 'bullying'. At the christening of my friends children, to which I was godmother and had to stand in front of the whole family thinking about this. I saw her outside and she gave a very curt hello because she had to.

I know she is on facebook and I have been tempted to send her a message apologising ro her. If she thinks I bullied her then I am genuinely sorry. I don't think she is the forgive and forget type though. She was bullied badly by nearly everyone. Hardly anyone liked her and I was one of her very few friends. I was very when she came out with the whole bullying thing.

She may have wanted to send a message too but thought it may not be well received.

lifesideways · 22/05/2010 22:36

You're not silly, NaiveMoi. A very similar thing happened to me, including being dropped because I wasn't "cool" enough. I was devastated at the time and fell into what in retrospect was a depression.

Like you I felt I had never had "closure" on the incident and it left me with a lot of self doubt. In fact I have name-changed for this post as in a strange way I still feel stigmatized.

Anyway a few years ago there was a reunion and a mutual friend from that era contacted me with details. I was at a point in life where I was happy, my career was going well and I was finally feeling confident in myself, so I wrote back to both her and asked for my former best friend's email address, quite excited and thinking we could all be on friendly terms again.

The former best friend NEVER answered my email. Not only that, but the mutual friend wrote an email letting me know that they knew perfectly well what I was doing and where I was living (I had not gone into these details so she had apparently Googled me) and were not impressed -- and that the invitation to the reunion was a formality.

I didn't go. (I would have had to take time off and travel for it.) So . . . not exactly a happy ending . . . just an ending. I know it's hard to accept but sometimes people don't change that much -- and sometimes the past belongs in the past.

electra · 22/05/2010 22:44

lifesideways - poor you, what nasty people. They themselves must feel inadequate to try to make you feel bad though - I hope you recognise that!

Elvisina · 22/05/2010 22:59

A girl who bullied me (and many others) has friend requested me 3 times, even putting a little 'Hello, how are you? etc' style message on one of the requests and I have to say I have very much enjoyed ignoring each attempt! She sometimes comments on the same mutual friends' statuses as me and I like to think that she wonders why I'm friends with them and not her (very sad of me I know but she really wasn't very nice). Although, to be honest she probably doesn't think abut it at all!

MagalyZz · 22/05/2010 23:25

DetectivePotato, there was a girl at my school who didn't bully me exactly but she was quite menacing generally. She wore docs loads of eyeliner and had a really aggressive way of talking to people. It sounds like no big deal when I type it noW! but she has since gone on to talk publicly about the bullying she suffered at school. She is a writer, of sorts. Can't say too much really. I was in her year at school and if I trashed her, she'd figure out who 'magaly' was! But the re-writing of history that has gone on in her mind is like a magical journey through fictionland.