I don’t know if this is something people say in other countries, but in my country, there’s this common cliché or “wisdom” where adults will assure you that the people who picked on you in environments like school will universally develop lives of hardship later on, one way or another getting into mayhem.

I asked my mother one day what happened to all those people growing up. I can sense she may have been sugar coating it, but she said something along the lines of “well, I waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and became a teacher, and waited some more, and finally watched as my bullies had to go into retirement five years late, yay” (okay, not really like that, but it might as well have been).

Yeah, common theme in my experience that what we hope for is never “that” set in stone. No matter where in the community (or even long-distance communicating) you knew them from, based on life, how much approximate correspondence do you associate with that mindset in the first paragraph?

    • GeekFTW@lemmy.zipEnglish
      5·
      3 months ago

      This lol.

      I’m fucking 40, anyone I grew up with who made my life miserable are people who I have had no exposure to or communications with since I graduated high school June 16th 2002. Anyone since then who makes my life miserable for more than a few minutes gets told to fuck off on the spot lol.

      • cobysev@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        3 months ago

        You graduated on a Sunday? My school always did graduations on weekdays. I graduated about a week earlier than you did. Juuuust about to turn 40 myself.

        And yes, I’ve either befriended my old bullies (a lot of them were just lashing out because they had a shitty home life/no one to listen to them), or they’ve gone off to live their lives and I never heard from them again.

        My class is finally at the age where they’re keeping tabs on who has died since the last reunion, and the list is very short with none of my former bullies on it.

  • ℕ𝕖𝕞𝕠@midwest.social
    6·
    3 months ago

    Definitely thought this was going to be about the other kind of baddies, in which case the answer is generally “they’re married, with kids”.

  • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
    4·
    3 months ago

    How would I know? I left my hometown.

    I did see my high school bully occasionally in college. I was in my 5th year of undergrad and he looked like a grad student. But I was usually walking from my fwb’s dorm to class, so i was doing plenty fine myself.

    I hope these people are better and happier but I don’t care to find out.

  • Diplomjodler@lemmy.world
    4·
    3 months ago

    I haven’t met a single person I went to school with, since I left my home town to go to university. So, no idea.

  • Kondeeka@lemmy.world
    3·
    3 months ago

    One of my former bullies ended up working for a local carwash, I found out when he had to wash mine.

  • renlok@lemmy.ml
    3·
    3 months ago

    I’ve no idea, I haven’t thought about them since I left school and now I can barely remember their names.

  • Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world
    3·
    3 months ago

    A few years ago, my baddie killed himself. No idea what was happening in his life at the time. I hadn’t seen him since high school, which was 25 years ago. I saw the obituary and thought it was surprising and interesting, but didn’t feel bad, or good about it in any way.

  • frankPodmore@slrpnk.netEnglish
    3·
    3 months ago

    The serious psychos are in and out of jail. The ones who were just kinda dicks sometimes (which to be honest probably includes me) are basically okay. And why shouldn’t we be? Being a dick when you’re still learning to be a person shouldn’t carry a life sentence of any kind.

    • JayTreeman@fedia.io
      2·
      3 months ago

      The jokes I said as a teenager would get me fired today, and I’ve usually been more progressive than my peers.

  • otp@sh.itjust.works
    2·
    3 months ago

    One of them is in jail for a looong time. Gang activity including relation to murders. Not sure if he pulled the trigger, but he was the “leader”, lol

  • gerryflap@feddit.nl
    2·
    3 months ago

    Many people who were assholes as kids turned out to become chill adults. I had a person who I considered a best friend suddenly turn on me in my last year of primary school. He always targeted me specifically and Istill remember coming home crying from the bullying. However, our lives diverged and we didn’t really meet until late in highschool somewhere in a bar in the city. We were both already a bit tipsy (alcoholic age was 16 y/o at that point here), and when he ran into me he basically just acted as if we had never not been friends. It was like the old friend was back, rather than the guy who caused so much pain. It was like he never realized what he had done. At that moment I realized we both had changed so much since the moment that he was bullying me, and I chose to just be glad to reconnect with an old friend.

    This story goes for quite a few people who bullied me. Pretty much all of them, when I met them years later, seemed blissfully unaware of the pain they caused and just greeted me as an old friend or classmate. And with all of them I also recognised that they had grown into chill people, and had changed so much that they weren’t really the same person anymore. So I chose to also consider them old friends or classmates, and if I ran into them now I’d probably just have a nice chat about what our lives became.

    • Call me Lenny/Leni@lemm.eeOPEnglish
      2·
      3 months ago

      As friendly as the two of you are, I would encourage you to not be afraid to explain to him the pain he caused.

  • Treczoks@lemmy.world
    2·
    3 months ago

    I met one of the guys again who bullied me in school. He was a junkie, begging for money at the train station.