I hold grudges. There are people I knew in grade school & high school I won’t have anything to do with. It takes a lot to get on the list, but once you’re there you ain’t going nowhere.
I do hold grudges against a very few people, but mostly I do what a lot of other posters have already said: if someone shows me over time that they are willing to fuck me over and show little or no remorse about it, I’m just going to remove that person from my life. I don’t talk shit about them, I don’t actively try and screw with their life, but I don’t need to keep opening the door to another possible incident.
It’s not like I wake up seething, burning with the hot fire of a thousand suns, determined to seek vengeance against people; I just don’t need any more assholes in my life. There’s already plenty of 'em around FFS.
Absolutely. I think it’s an essential trait. I will quickly waive off a minor slight, but if you seriously wrong me or those I care about, forgiveness is optional and must be earned.
My perception has been that women hold more grudges than men and for much longer.
Nope, I don’t. Like others have said, if you’ve done enough to get onto my, “This is a bad person” list, I won’t lie awake nights dreaming of revenge; I’ll just quietly erase you from my life.
I’ve found the opposite to be true. I doubt this is the standard, but in my experience the men I’ve been around have been more likely to hold grudges for things that have been done or said against them. My father has always been bad about this, and holds grudges for a long time and has a hard time forgiving people. Whereas my mother and I can be at each others throats and 10 minutes later apologize and be over it.
Personally, I try not to hold grudges or use people’s past offenses against them if the issue has been resolved. I can’t say that I readily trust the same people as easily, but I have never been able to hold a grudge for very long.
Did you ever ask him what happened? You may owe him an apology. I don’t drink anymore but had a few of those drinking type resentments from friends. I asked one why she was acting distant and she said it was because I told the bartender not to serve her tequila because she would embarrass herself. I told her I was sorry and didn’t even remember saying it.
I stopped holding grudges back in 05 when I was in recovery for alcoholism. I went through The Steps and it isn’t good for me to hang onto them. I was really suprised how many resentments I had on my list. I also used to disown people that I felt slighted me. I don’t do that anymore. The only thing worse then hate is indifference.
A resentment is like pouring poison for the person I’m mad at and drinking it myself. Life is better now and I’m getting better at saying I’m sorry.
Same here. My Sprint grudge is about 10 years old now, due to horrid misbilling issues and terrible customer service. My Best Buy grudge is also nearly 10 years, for terrible sales service and a botched home delivery.
For people, I cut some slack for moodiness since everyone has their bad days, but if it’s a pattern then I am no longer going to make an effort to keep them in my life.
I only wear cargo pants so that I can be sure of accommodating all the grudges I’m carrying around.
Yeah,I did ask her about it and she hemmed and hawed and basically told me that I had been acting like a “spoiled bitch”…and this is different than how I normally act?j/k she never really told me what the real reason so I let it go because I frankly didn’t want to know at that point. We stayed friends…good friends…for years. She stopped talking to me about three monthes ago and I have no clue whatsoever why. Doesn’t return my phone calls,deletes my emails,just plain doesn’t talk to me anymore. I have racked my brain as to the reason and I am coming up with nothing. It couldn’t have been abn alcohol thing because the last time I got ripped enough to have a memory failure was about 7 years ago.
It’s a pretty upsetting thing for me…this is a girl I have been friends with for 15 years. I miss her like mad.
I only use my gun whenever kindness fails.
I’m going to have to chime in with the people who needs a definition of “grudge”. I tend to be forgiving towards the stupid things people say. If I am offended by someone, I confront them about it. Depending on the response, either it’s all laid out and I get some perspective on why the person said what he/she did and everything’s settled, interactions continue as normal, or I learn that it’s someone who has a different reality than I do, so I remove myself from their presence and limit further interaction. Whatever the result is, I don’t actively pursue actions about it beyond that initial confrontation.
On the other hand, I “remember” things.
For example, a couple of months ago, I blew up at a friend for canceling plans on me last minute (again). Basically, when she called to ask me why I was upset with her, I let her know that it is not okay to cancel on someone because she was tired from work (sometimes legit, if not for the following), that she was an adult so if she knew she had a big workload coming up (and she did) she should have just chosen a better time when her workload was lighter, that they were not tentative plans as she suggested because when I asked her to let me know once she knows her schedule she had immediately said “Thursday will be fine”, and it was not the first time she had done so.
When she challenged me and asked me when the last time she had done something like this, I reminded her that just before Halloween, she asked me to go to a musical with her but didn’t try to get tickets until the last minute. But whatever, it wasn’t about having them or not, because tickets do sell out. However, instead of trying to meet up have dinner or have a cup of coffee or whatnot, she just didn’t bother. So then, she tells me that her canceling plans is just something I’ll have to deal with because she deals with people holding grudges and other flaws in their personality.
She considered me bringing up her past transgressions to be “holding a grudge” whereas I brought it up again because she didn’t remember the numerous times she’s been flakey about following through on our plans. I didn’t bring it up to hurt her, but it was pretty matter-of-fact that it was not the first time it happened, and I’d already expressed my annoyance to people who are prone to doing that. If you are busy and can’t hang out for a while, that’s fine, but absolutely do NOT make plans and then cancel. So is that holding a grudge or not?
I’m fairly easy going and tend to cut people slack, but I reach a tipping point. Once the list of incidents when you’ve wronged me gets long and often enough, I no longer like you and you are going to have a damn hard time convincing me that you no longer suck as a human being.
That really stinks. Like I said, I didn’t even remember what I did wrong but at least she told me so I could straighten it out. How about just sending her an e-mail saying that you have been racking your brains trying to figure out what you said or did to make her so mad. Just say, I’m sorry for anything I said or did to hurt you. Tell her you miss the friendship. Then the ball is in her court and she may realize that you really don’t remember. If she doesn’t respond at least you tried to rectify the situation. Good Luck!