Dear C;
When I was in high school, I was tormented by four girls. They formed a club, and even had monogrammed matching satin jackets. I was sort of friends with them, until one day when Top Girl decided I was flirting with her boyfriend. He smiled at me … and all I did was smile back! Suddenly they all turned on me like a pack of dogs. I couldn’t eat lunch without getting food thrown at me. They wrote nasty things on my locker and started rumors that I was a slut who put out for anyone. I was afraid to walk down the hall; it seemed everyone was staring and whispering. It was so traumatizing that I spent my final year doing nothing but hiding in my room after school, reading and eating my way to blimphood.
My parents sent me to a therapist, which was probably a good thing. I’ve done pretty well since I graduated. All the reading I did got me a scholarship to a really good university two states away. After grad school, I found a great, high-paying job and shed my shyness along with the 35 lbs I’d gained.
Then yesterday, out of the blue I got a letter from my old high school announcing our 10-year reunion. At first, it was an unpleasant shock. But now I’m thinking about going. I feel confident enough that I’m curious to see where everyone else ended up. I’m also thinking about those awful girls. In movies, you always see someone confront a bully from the past and make an empowering speech. I’m thinking of confronting those girls and making them face what they did. What do you think of the idea?
Veronica Vigilante
Dear Vigilante;
Quite honestly, I’d like to burn every movie that has that scene in it. The great thing about movies is that they can create any reality they want to, because the actors have to follow the script. Movies about bullies usually include a dramatic climax in which the victim makes a grand statement, then watches with dignity as the abuser slinks off in shame and remorse. Alas, it is a fantasy. In life, no one follows the script the way they’re supposed to.
First, this ain’t a reality show. It’s your high school reunion. Other people came here to have fun and party. This matter between you and your bullies is personal. Unless you want to become the floor show for an audience of cheering drunks, this should be your last choice of venues for soul baring and rebirth.
Next: Do you want to present yourself as a strong confident woman? Then walk in and act like one. A really confident woman doesn’t need validation from others. If you start talking about how much you were hurt in the past, you are going to look like someone who just couldn’t get over it.
Reason # 3: You will never get an admittance of guilt in front of an audience. If these girls are still mean-spirited bitches, they will be wily and defensive; no one likes to have their nose rubbed in something that happened 10 years ago, especially a bully. In a desire to maintain top dog position, they will likely try turn your “self-affirming” experience into a nightmare of humiliation for you all over again. Sound like fun?
Reason #4: This was a life-altering experience for you, but for them, it could have been business as usual, just one in a long string of petty, spiteful acts. They may not even know what you’re talking about, which could make your heroic speech fall rather flat.
Lastly, if these girls have evolved enough to feel bad about what they did, they don’t need any lectures from you. Going after them would turn you into a bully.
So here’s my advice: Go to your reunion. But go like a happy, successful person who’s there to see old familiar faces; don’t go like some mental patient seeking redemption. A lot of years have gone by and people have moved on. Yesterday’s scandal is today’s yawn. Just smile. Start talking. Take it from there. You have no idea how people may or may not have changed, what memories were kept and which were thrown away. We all tend to remember what we want to.
Let it go. You have a great new life. Why drag this old garbage back into it?
