START- I am unfamilure with you or past postings others refer to here so I will take what you have said at face value. To this I would add
Get a nice, simple “I’m Sorry” card that will fit into your hip pocket so you’ll have it when you see her. Put in there the regrets you had the same way you told us. When you see her, just say “I understand” and give her the card and leave.
On the outside of the card envelope write"You ARE invited" and explain to her the new & improved START she is invited to know.
Have a son someday and tell him what you did wrong and the damage to a young girls heart that you inflicted. Make sure he understands the hurt he can cause and it is more heroic to be a friend to those the crowd attacks than one who sacrifices others for personal gain.
If this stuff were easy, everyone would do it.
START every one of us has been a jerk at some juncture. We’ve all had a oops fart and soiled our knickers, too-but there’s no reason to hire a billboard on I-95 to advertise it, either.
Your threads seem to have a common theme: You tell us how you were an asshat, how you’re now feeling remorse or catching flak for having been an asshat, and when the predictable dogpile ensues, you cry. Some of the opening posts to your threads are practically a “Kick My Ass” sign taped to your back.
START since you seem sincere and some of the advice you are getting here is shit here’s my 2 cents:
First don’t let her abuse you. You really should avoid this girl, it’s a losing situation for both of you. Apologize once sincerely, be nice to this girl but don’t let her “go places” with her rudeness. There’s no amendment to be made by letting her rag on your family and use the death of your brother against you. It probably comes out of pain and desire for revenge but it just looks poorly on her. Obviously she wants to hurt you so don’t give her what she wants. She will never like you again, and you don’t deserve that, but she may recognise a changed person and heal her emotional scars. Unfortunately it may take a long time.
Second forget the apology card. She will take it, spit on it and stick it to the forehead of your voodoo doll if she feels that has the slightest chance of getting back at you.
Third, drop the “she needs to grow” thing. She doesn’t. Adults feel anger at bullies who pick on the vulnerable too you know?
No, you do not have to put up with her verbally abusing you, but this does not mean you get to out-jerk her. You are not entitled to escalate the mudslinging. As a Christian, you can (and should, given that you originally instigated this mess) turn the other cheek and forgive her (as Jesus says) “seventy times seven” (please see the parable of the unforgiving servant, Matthew 18:21 - 35).
I admit to being of mixed mind about issuing another apology. Given that she understandably was in no frame of mind to accept your initial apology, I suggest that you find a time to in person give her a thorough and sincere apology - once. Make it clear that, after that, the ball is in her court - explicitly tell her that she can choose to continue to put you down and insult you, she can choose to ignore your existance, or she can choose to give you a second chance as one human being to another. Then walk away, and let her choose. If she chooses either ignoring you or giving you a second chance, great. If she chooses to continue the put downs, you get practise at forgiving her and demonstrating the sincerity of your apology by not mudslinging back, but choosing to walk away instead. Given that her comments now are also going way over the line, you have the right to protect your own boundaries by walking away or avoiding this source of abuse.
I have to say that this is the more mature things I’ve seen on or off this board in a very long time.
START, for what it’s worth, I believe you’re sincere in your apology and your desire to “make things right” with this girl. At 15, you probably believe that there’s no such thing as a problem that can’t be resolved with sincerity and a lot of hard work.
Sadly, this just isn’t the case. From everything you’ve said, it seems as if the damage to Laura has already been done. You’re not going to be able to come back from this, dude. There’s no way you can fix this problem. Your best bet is to walk away and deal with your mixed feelings as best as you can.
To me, this situation can best be summed up as item number one on what is hopefully going to be a very short list titled “Unresolved Shit in START’S life.” Walk away from this situation, learn from it, and don’t ever pull this shit again.
And for those of you justifying Laura’s subsequent abuse as justified or “karma,” what are you thinking?! Seriously! Is Laura’s tormenting START going to solve anything? Is it going to magically change the past? Is it going to fix any of her problems in the here and now? Is Laura really justified in hurting START or anyone else based upon her feelings of being wronged, however justified? I’m reminded of Kipling: “Those to whom evil is done do evil in return.”
Laura’s way out of her hell lies in making peace with what happened and moving on with her life, not in perpetuating a cycle of abuse. I’m no P-Shrink, but I see Laura beating her children someday if she doesn’t find a better way of dealing with her unresolved anger. She and START had both better learn to deal with shit more constructively if they don’t want us reading about them on cnn.com.
Wesley Clark: Do you think that someone who is constantly picked on, day after day, is not going to have “psychological issues”? And do you think Laura was the first picked-on kid who ever thought, “Hey, if I can get my worst torturer on my side, maybe he’ll lay off and others will do likewise”? She did nothing wrong in that middle-school scenario. She thought that for once in her miserable life she would get a break, and she got kicked in the face. So she found out that there’s no point in being nice. That’s not a “psychological problem”. I think START is the one with the psych problem, to be honest.
What I was trying to say, Wesley and others, is that when someone gets nothing but double handfuls of shit day in and day out, and then out of nowhere, someone starts being nice to them, it can be so overwhelming, they can’t think in a “rational, well-thought out manner”. Especially when they’re 12 years old, and their reasoning is not top-notch to begin with. Don’t. Blame. The victim.
WTF? Having spent several years in this girl’s position, as the butt of everybody’s jokes, I very much doubt that she was “mentally messed up” until she was turned into a laughingstock and made to feel that she was a worthless lump. She may be mentally messed up now, but to imply that this was a pre-existing condition rather than the effect of the mockery is both callous and absurd.
I got the same vibes from the OP. Reading your statement about you being a nice guy now, I thought : “not a chance”.
I would advise you to ignore her. Apparently, she’s hating you and it’s not going to go away. She had good reason for it, and whether or not you’re reformed or think you are doesn’t mean it’s going to change her feelings towards you in any way.
If you’re thinking you could be a bigger jerk than her if need be, I can’t believe an apology would be truly sincere. Anyway, as I wrote above, even a sincere apology won’t necessarilly result in her hating you less or being less rude. If you can avoid her, do so. Only if you couldn’t for some reason (say, she married your brother or worked in the same office) things would have to be settled.
Aplogize if you really want to, but don’t expect it will solve the issue.
And by the way, no, you don’t have to take shit forever for something you did years ago. ou can even tell her so. But retaliating won’t improve the situation. Once again, my advice is : avoid her.
I dunno people, if START wants to ask for advice on the boards, shouldn’t we be able to offer him some without dogpiling on him and telling him what a horrible person he is? Yes, he’s self-centered: the last time I checked, a lot of teenagers (and for that matter, adults) are. Yes, he was a giant jerk and did a lot of emotional damage to a girl who didn’t deserve it, but he’s telling us that he wants to change and is asking for help. Chances are he’s not a pathological liar, he’s just a person like you or me, and maybe we should give him the benefit of the doubt and offer him some advice instead of telling him a)that he’s a horrible person who’s never going to change or b)that he should indulge in some emotional flagellation, since neither option makes START a better person or undoes the pain that Laura went through.
People have already given the advice that I would. You should apologize, either with a letter or in person, whatever you think she’s more likely to listen to. Then avoid her. If she comes over to see your step-brother, either leave or go into a room and close the door.
I can say with absolute assurance that never in my life, including my childhood/teen years, did I ever hunt someone down and make their life a misery for my own gratification.
I suspect a lot of people on this board could, in fact, say the same thing.
I read it. He doesn’t say that. The OP has nothing about her forgiving him, he was simply curious as to what he should do when she makes comments that go too far. Nothing in there about forgiveness.
In fact, his second doesn’t make mention of forgiveness either. Once again, he’s simply emphasizing that he’s asking how rude he should let her get before he says something.
His third post, says that he doesn’t expect her to accept any apology from him.
You’ve got your own personal issues that you’re projecting onto START. You should probably stay out of this thread since you don’t seem to be able to handle it objectively.
No, actually, it’s not the theme of his OP. The theme of the OP is “This girl has gone over a line with me, but I was terrible to her, what should I do?”
She’s the sister or cousin of a friend of his step-brother. That’s not exactly “closely connected.” He would have no knowledge that she was there or connected until she actually came over to hang.
Because she tags along with her brother when she comes over to hang. He’s not calling her and asking her out or anything.
Very true. But that doesn’t give you license to make shit up, which it appears you’re doing.
Start, well done on realising how badly you behaved, and trying to do better in future.
However I don’t think you’re completely reformed yet though. For example, your thread title suggests that you think you have ‘paid your debt’ to this girl. You have to face up to the fact that she may resent you for a long time, and there is no point at which she suddenly has to be nice to you.
Being a pleasant person is its own reward. Also, a few people will be rude to you no matter what you do. Learning this is part of growing up.
Good luck on making decent friends in the future. (If you find the people you’re hanging out with are behaving like assholes, consider finding new friends.)
Bosda states we are dogpiling on to Start. I don’t think that’s true - certainly bullying is horrible and deserves criticism.
I never bullied anyone myself, but I did stand by while others bullied. I know that I learnt from that, and it has helped me be a more concerned teacher.
Finally a message of hope.
I was bullied for years at School. When we were both 16, the chief bully dropped out of School (he had never paid attention in class). He came over to me on his last day and I expected some more grief. Instead he apologised for all the suffering and said he finally realised how wrong he’d been.
I think it might be important to make the point that this is a complicated issue that most adults would struggle with, never mind a somewhat misguided youth. Yes, she is treating him badly, but yes, he did treat her badly before - this is not a clear-cut, “you should obviously do this particular thing” kind of issue. You can see from the range of responses here that even adults don’t agree on how to deal with this.
glee, what was your response to the bully that apologized?
If it was just one or two threads like this, I’d agree with you. But START is constantly posting these “I did such and such do you think that was a bad idea and why” OPs. And it’s been going on for a while. Do a search for his name, if you haven’t already.
I’m not insensitive to the fact that this is a young man who needs guidance, and all like that. But I think this board has too much going on to meet START’s personal-counseling needs. I think he should get a therapist. Not a hardcore psychiatrist, but just someone he can talk to who can help his work through all these questions and issues. That might be in order anyway, just in light of the fact that his brother died recently. Perhaps the school counselor could recommend someone.
