Apologizing bullies

I guess the fact that he could not make eye contact shows that he was ashamed. While I don't harbor any anger towards anybody who was unkind to me in junior high, I do hope that they eventually matured to the point of realizing what they did was wrong. I got picked on for... of all things... being a teacher's kid. Like I could help that! 😂

😆 I think (depending on the situation) being able to look back on it with a bit of humor helps.




[also none]

An apology in my scenario might have been nice, but the sheer fact of his nervousness and that he couldn't make eye contact with me spoke volumes and was satisfying.

Speaking of bullies who met bad fates, I read many years back that a girl who was cruel to me in elementary school was murdered. Somebody shot and killed her. I hate to say it, but my first thought was "I wonder who she finally pushed over the edge?"

While I think you're right that a lot of high school bullies tend to be on the football team I do have one story I should share that redeems one football player. I got picked on briefly in high school because during my first month there I made 100 on a chemistry quiz and blew the curve, thus angering a small pack of immature boys in my class. They picked on me for a while and it was hard because I was new at the school and wanted to fit in. Eventually I started dating a guy on the football team who confronted the boys who were picking on me. They never picked on me again. 😁

it's purely a power trip: football is a very tough-guy type of sport, and you've got to have a violent mentality or you will not fit in with the sport. Especially with people as young as high schoolers, they aren't going to turn off the football psychology when practice is off. Sometimes, they need to take out their intellectual inferiority or inferiority about their looks on someone else. It makes perfect sense why that overdone movie stereotype has relevance to actual high school.

I think it's very rare that someone can get all the way through junior high and high school without ever getting picked on a single time, even if it wouldn't be classified as all out bullying. If you really were that fortunate, then you truly were very fortunate!

You're ugly and stupid. How did that feel?

While I don't feel any active anger towards people who were unkind to me in the past, I'm with you, I would not let them be a Facebook friend. I would not want someone who did not have my best interest at heart (even if it was years ago) being able to have a window into my personal life.

It's a cognitive distortion that causes them to remember things differently.

This is a well-documented phenomenon: bullies often minimize the severity of their actions, rationalizing them as jokes or playing around. Because they lacked insight into how harmful their behavior was at the time, they often have little to no recollection of it years later.

If their intent was to make amends, they should have included an apology or acknowledgment of their behavior along with the friend request. Without that, it simply seems like they’re out of touch with their actions.

I'm sorry you had to go through being bullied JT. My hardest year in school as far as people being unkind was 8th grade. There's something about 7th and 8th grades that just brings the worst out in some people.

Yeah I think it's best to leave the past in the past and I feel no need or desire to ever interact with them again.