Well count me with JSGoddess and Large Marge who hit he nail right on the head.
Just the same old Start.
I don’t believe you have ever been fully honest with us or yourself about who you really are.
You haven’t a sincere bone in your body, you’re just a spin doctor, rationalizing you reprehensible behavior and colouring yourself the victim endlessly. You wear your assholishness like a badge of honour, at the same time you’re phrasing your posts like you’re seeking advice or opinions when really you’re just after attention and reaction. Yes, I think you’re just that shallow and insincere.
You make my skin crawl and I don’t think I’m alone. You are not youthful and misguided, making a few errors in judgement.
You are a cold, calculating and cruel with no regard for anyone else. Every incident you’ve described to us on this board demonstrates it. Ugh.
My view, you don’t have a choice, you take it as long as she wants to dish it out. While you say that you can return the favor and you can out-asshole her, don’t bet on it. If you start retaliating, the whole scenario will excalate.
The best plan is to ignore her. Nothing she says can make much difference to you, all she can do is upset you if you choose to let her. Let it go, you will never be friends because she will never trust you enough. Appologize if you like, but that won’t erase a year and a half of torture.
Apologize honestly and profusely, and in person. Take ownership for the hell you put her through. Acknowledge that she has every right to repay you with interest, and tell her that you have no intention of defending yourself.
Then tell her that you hope you can earn her friendship and trust by your future actions, and leave it at that. It may take a while, but if there is a friendship to be had there, she’ll have to be the one to initiate it. If it doesn’t happen, blame yourself and move on - you made this bed years ago.
Only do this if you’re sincere about your remorse, and not just because she’s cleaned up well. The fact that you’re willing to defend yourself vigorously causes me to doubt the sincerity and depth of your new-found niceness, but only time, and your actions, will tell.
Start --I think you’re a good kid who has had life kick you in the teeth lately. It ain’t easy losing a sibling and starting over in a new home etc–all within one year, if I am following any of this right.
This girl is being a jerk–and she has a right to be. The middle school hurts are the ones that haunt us all for the most part. I have searing memories of jr high, and I am almost 43.
Still and all, there is a limit. It sounds to me like you want to move on and yet, she doesn’t. You have no control over when she moves on from this (maybe never). You have apologized, right? I would leave her alone. She is getting her own back and more, but you don’t have to meet her there.
The only way I see for you to “win” this is to turn that other cheek, refuse to enter into a Jerk Contest with her–in other words, take the high road. Damn hard as an adult, almost impossible as a teen, but it can be done.
In fact, I suggest you say sorry I was so rude and smile when she zings you one. Sorry I acted like a jerk, that was a few years ago and smile when she disses you in front of her friends (or your friends)–sooner or later (at least to the friends), you seem to be developing Teflon–it all bounces off you and back onto her.
There is and should be a statute of limitations on middle school hurts. Victim and perp have to move on, otherwise both are stuck. Show that you truly are ready to move on–say a kind word and smile at her…and move on.
… that if you had done something similarly embarassing to me, you would still be paying off the medical bills.
I think the best thing for you to do is to avoid or ignore her. Emphasis on the avoid. If you absolutely must come into contact with her, try to apologize, although it probably won’t make her stop it will at least soothe your concience a bit.
START, Count me among your admirers. I see you as a young man who is striving to become a good decent person despite a lot of obstacles. Few people your age are emotionally mature enough to recognize, much less struggle with, the ethical issues that you do.
Once you hurt someone you can never unhurt them. There are no do-overs in life. It’s tempting to act based on a desire for revenge or a desire to be liked (by people you don’t even admire), but whatever you do, you are the one that has to live with it for the rest of your life. I’ve found that I never regret taking the high road, but eventually I always regret hurting someone or being a coward. Inner peace does not come from gaining the admiration of others; it comes from figuring out what your values are and then living up to them as best you can.
Laura may never forgive you, and that’s something you’ll just have to live with. What you can do is to make sure that from now on there is nothing more for her to need to forgive.
It’s been said before in this thread, but I’ll say it again. If you dish it out, you’d better be prepared to take it.
If you were of a mind to do something constructive, you might suggest to her that she might one day feel the same way about being nasty to you as you do for having been nasty to her. And then tell her not to worry about it, go ahead and be nasty. You have it coming.
Am i the only one who thinks that this is the only reason that START cares about this issue at all? If she was still fat and pimply, would this thread even have been started?
You acted like a little fuck, and you have no claim at all on this girl’s sympathy or forgiveness. If you have, indeed, turned into a better and more mature person, then that’s good, but you’re going to have to practice your new-found humanity and maturity on people whom you haven’t already fucked over. She owes you nothing, and if you don’t want her to give you shit, then stay out of her way.
OK wait a second. START, pretty and popular, made life a living hell for the weird outsider. Now START is the weird outsider and is whining because he’s being picked on by the pretty and popular? No no no no no. You’re better than this.
I love you, kid, but stop whining. It doesn’t help anything and it just makes you look bad. And no more apologies. Once is enough; you have no control over whether she accepts it or not.
Retaliation? “I can be just as mean as she can.” Dude. Do not get in a pissing contest with this chick. She had the guts to stand up to you when she was the weird outsider. She will eat you alive now.
You are a Christian. Don’t blow your “Christian Witness” just because a teenager is acting like an asshole. ALL teenagers act like assholes, from time to time. Expect it. She’s provoking you so she can prove that you are still an asshole too.
Be nice to her. It’s not only the Christian thing to do (But if one who has hate for you is in need of food or of drink, give it to him, for in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head. Romans 12:20); it will totally mess with her mind.
Good Luck. This is not going to be easy, but life never is.
I have a limited time to get this typed and respond so here goes…
These incidents really happened and so I described them the best way I could but if you believe it or not writing about it made me sad because I feel like I wasted 6th and 7th grades as well being mean because I wanted to impress a group of people most of which I don’t even talk too anymore, obviously that didn’t come through but it was there.
I feel bad most of all that I took away the opportunity for Laura to look back on her time in school and have good memories. However when I wrote this it almost could have gone in the pit because I was upset not upset that she doesn’t seem to have accepted my apology, that’s fine. I probably don’t deserve a big hug or whatever.
As for the being a jerk comment you all know the stuff I used to do and I thought the Dope also knew that my jerkiest years were 6th and 7th grade, they just were but I don’t even recognize that person.
Laura asked me if I ever tried sneaking over to my step-brother’s bed at night and trying to have sex with him because she always thought I might be gay. Ok nothing bad about being gay I suppose but a guy that goes after 10 year olds?
That is why I say she went places you wouldn’t believe.
Laura said with a straight face that she put a curse on me and that’s probably why my brother died becasuse it missed me and got him.
Laura asked me if I or anyone in my family had cancer yet because “I might want to watch out for that” it was part of her curse.
Laura asked if I liked listening to my father and step-mother having sex at night.
This was all in the course of our most recent conversation and after every thing she said she would say “just kidding… or am I?” meanwhile I’m not saying a word.
If this is what she needs to do to get revenge then I guess I’m happy for her but she was making me mad the other night. I will back off and let her rip into me if she really needs to but I’m telling you I walked away but I wanted to slap her.
As for Bosda I am really sorry to hear that… I don’t want to upset my “sponsor” so sorry dude.
If she wasn’t overweight and pimply would you be desiring contact with her?
I don’t think so.
Look START, I have a brother that I don’t even speak to anymore. He bullied the hell out of me when we were kids and although he’s apologized many times, he always returns to old behavior. He believes he has some sort of right to tease people. So I just don’t want any contact with him ever.
Why do you think she would want any contact with you? Why should she risk that you’re not going to turn on her again. She was probably relived when she got away from you and now you turn up again. So if the movie was Jaws 2 and the shark was like, “I’m sorry about eating those other people, won’t you come out and swim with me” you would go out into the water?
What the hell is soooooo special about START that, of course the people you made fun of for her appearance, has now improved her appearance enough for you to treat he OK. Everyone must love START. shya right.
There are plenty of people on the planet. You’ve screwed up the chance of having a good relationship with this one. Move on.
Oh man one more thing to say… I for one am glad that she is pretty but if she still looked the same of course I’d still be remorseful. It’s the same person regardless of how much weight she loses or doesn’t or lose or how her skin looks so of course I’d still regret it.
It’s a good thing for me to see that she is enjoying her life now and has found confidence I would feel even worst if she didn’t recover so well.
START, I’m probably going to lose any friends I’ve made here by saying this, but I know exactly where you’re coming from. I’m a bit older than you are (I’m 28) so it’s not as recent for me. I went from being the coolest kid in school to being low-guy on the totem pole in 7th grade. I’m still not sure how that happened, but suddenly I was the one being picked on by the ‘cool’ kids. I responded by finding other people to pick on. I did terrible, awful things during 8th grade that I won’t repeat here because I still am ashamed of my actions. I slowly began to realize that I was being a monumental prick, and stopped picking on people as I went through High School. Eventually, I didn’t really talk to anybody because I had managed to alienate almost everyone in the school.
Changing yourself is hard, and it takes a long time. I know that sometimes it seems really easy just to give up and go back to being a dick, but you have to keep trying. Also, you can’t expect people to understand that you’ve changed - you said yourself in your OP that you were nice to this girl before you insulted her in the hallway. How can she ever trust you now? I will agree with others by saying that you should try to apologize, but be prepared to walk away if she refuses your apology and starts flinging insults. At this point, there is very little you can do to change her opinion of you.
I didn’t start becoming the person I am now until I moved away from home and went to college. Once I was free of everyone’s ideas of who I was (based on my stupid behavior) I could truly start over and rebuild myself. This is going to take time for you START, but please don’t give up. You are walking down the right path now - don’t turn back. My email’s in my profile if you want to chat about anything.
She is not getting “revenge.” She is doing to you what you did to her: hitting you exactly where it hurts. You yourself probably taught her how to do that. Karma’s a bitch, isn’t it.
Just about every one of your threads is the same: “I was a really a Class-A asshole to someone but I said I was sorry and they are still mean to me! Waaaaahhhh!!!”
You should apologize sincerely (I don’t find your OP sincere, frankly) and realize that she probably will never forgive you and she doesn’t have to. Then just leave her alone. That would be the easiest way to avoid hearing these supposedly horrible things she’s saying, right? By not having contact with her? Just leave her alone and you won’t have to hear them ever again.
If you’re happy she’s moved on, apologized and willing to let her decide when or if she’s going to forgive you then WHY are you hanging around for her to insult/hurt you so much?
Don’t get me wrong, from the sound of it, you deserve it.
But if you actively seek her out and try to converse with her, then you need to stop doing that. Tell her you’re sorry you were a jerk and then avoid her. Maybe she will seek you out in her good time, maybe she won’t.
Could be she’s just attacking you because it’s the best defense: before you start picking on her again, she’d best start picking on you.
Start, I assume you are in high school now, am I right? People are still evolving and developing at this point. You’ve made a huge step toward maturity by realizing and accepting fault for what you did. I was in college before I could take that step. Like lightingtool, I couldn’t get away from being a prick until I could get away from everyone’s ideas of who I was.
You don’t have to take the abuse she is giving out, but you do have to understand why, and expect it. It seems to me she is working out issues she had to deal with at this point in her life. You did the same thing when you were in middle school. I can’t remember who suggested it in this thread but something along the lines of “I understand why you would say that given the things I did to you.” Then walk away. A face to face apology would be nice too. But I wouldn’t suggest spending any time with her. She doesn’t need to be reminded of unpleasant things in the past.
START, based on your update to this thread, this girl sounds like she is psycho. You were awful to her. I can dig, I was quite the mean girl in high school. I’m not proud of it, but it is what it is. I can’t go back in time to change things and neither can you.
I don’t think you have to take shit from her. Apologize–sincerely and in person–once and then let it go. I’m with the others who say avoid her. Seriously, cross to the other side of the street if you see her walking towards you.
