Would you reach out to ex colleagues under these circumstances?

[Vari757]

I already expect the answer to this to be no and to leave the past in the past but I just can't seem to let this go and I feel like I need to at least get it off my chest. Sorry if it's long.

I'm in my mid 30s now but when I was in my early 20s I got my first graduate job at a fairly decent sized manufacturing company. I was taken on as a graduate sales professional along with about 5 other young people who were completing this sales and marketing graduate programme.

Most of the other employees were significantly older than us so the 6 young people (including myself) would all have lunch together and sit beside each other at meetings etc.

However, not long after I started, I noticed that whenever I spoke or tried to make conversation with the group, they would try and stifle a snigger like they were laughing at me or give each other side eyes. I'm 100% sure I wasn't imagining it as there was 1 vocal person in the group who was actually outright horrible to me.

I wish I had called out at the time but I was very young and quite unsure of myself. I was also really embarrassed as I had never had any issues socialising previously. I still can't for the life of me work out why they were doing it? I don't think I was saying stupid things, my accent is quite normal for the region I was working in etc.

I still have one of these ex colleagues on Instagram. Would it be reasonable to reach out and ask if they would mind telling me now what the issue was back then?

For a number of reasons I'm currently working through some experiences I had in my teens and early 20s. I unfortunately grew up in a verbally and physically abusive household where my parents would tell me to my face that they didn't like me and didn't love me and I was, fat, lazy, useless, weird etc so I feel like this memory from my early career is quite triggering and I need an answer to why they were doing this to me before I can put this time period to bed. I hope that makes sense.

what indications that you sped read and missed out a third of the OP

ill leave you to read the thread and the op to be honest and hide the thread.

@backwayentrance you don't understand the difference, ok. No problem. 🙄

Try to be more supportive of the op. You sound very accusatory and dismissive.

are you over weight?
is that why she was mean to you?
you said your parents called you fat

block the person from your instagram though

No I wasn't particularly overweight but I wasn't very very skinny which was the desired look of the 90s early 00s. I grew up when size 0 was a very celebrated thing. I did a lot of sport so I had a more athletic build

I feel like you are hounding me a bit now and I'm not sure why or what you are hoping to gain from it tbh.

What do you want to achieve? If it's a grovelling that's not you're going to get.

Sometimes people just don't like you, and you them, and that's just the way it is

No, just an explanation if I was doing something wrong or if I was accidentally making a social faux pas or offending someone in some way.

It's the not knowing why that I'm finding triggering so even if the answer was "we all thought you were insufferable and boring" it would at least give me some closure and something to reflect on. It probably won't make me feel better, I think a lot of posters are right.

They likely won't give a straight answer though.

At best, they will just find the question popping up out of the blue awkward and say whatever they think they need to say to make you go away... because it's intense to ask that after all this time... they won't know if you're an emotionally unbalanced nutter or just asking a simple question cos you'd like to know.

At worst they'll put the boot in.

Why are you following this person on Instagram, you'd be better off blocking them so you can start to get them out of your head.

They disliked you, it doesn't really matter why, their opinion of you back then has too much importance attached to it for reasons of your own history. Heal from your history and that importance will melt away.

lock down your instagram
no point in looking at their posts

Hey op. They aren’t going to say you were “insufferable and boring” you will either get no response or a platitude, ie they were arseholes, oh we loved you kind of thing,

the truth however is , if you want to work through experiences you had as an adult , so excluding parents , and child hood, which sound horrific, we also need to look at our own behaviour. Learn from it, and grow. A therapist will help you. This it’s important rather than they were at fault and it wasn’t me,. I’m sure they were at fault. But that doesn’t mean your behaviour was also good. It may have been, but the poster is pointing out, you have had behavioural issues in the past.

this episode, was clearly a long time ago, with very young people. For them it won’t loom large in their minds, they may not even remember you.

id seek help with a therapist.

Thanks for all the responses so far. I've decided against reaching out. To clarify the person I had on Instagram was one of the "nicer" ones but still not a friend. I do realise that.

I'm trying to work out why I care so much and I think it's because my mum was very keen on me being popular as a child and teen. If she found out that there was a sleepover on a party I hadn't been invited to or in earlier years, that someone didn't play with me at break she would become very angry with me and demand to know what I had said or done to cause the issue. I did know even as a child that this was a weird thing for her to do but perhaps it stayed with me more than it should have.

In all honestly I wasn't every good at sales and the job wasn't for me, so maybe they were making fun of me about that, who knows!

Vari757 I also tend to think over past experiences & run a kind of fantasy version in my head (I was badly bullied by 2 girls at work in my Twenties) 'I wonder if they realised/what would happen if I spoke to them now? Did they realise what they were doing? What would they say? Would they apologise?' Etc.

But I realise that the likelihood of myself (or you) getting the answer we want is slim.

It was probably, as you say, just a small thing that they took a disliking to.

I hope that you are ok now, sometimes writing about it brings it all back up doesn't it!

It doesn't matter. I promise. Could have been anything.

OP, your mother sounds very fxxked up as does your childhood.

Some people are just not kind.
Its them, not you.

Focus on minding yourself and your mental health.

Avoid people who make you feel a bit shit about yourself.
Good luck.