02-01-2015, 04:37 AM
Had a strange experience this week. Someone I went to high school with posted an article about a middle-school victim of cyberbullying who had committed suicide. I commented on it and mentioned that I had attempted to contact the principal of our school (now only K-8... the high school closed a few years after we graduated) as part of a cyberbullying education campaign called "Write Your Principal" and that the principal stopped replying to me when she found out why I was contacting her.
A few minutes later I got a PM from him telling me that he wanted to apologize for the way he treated me in high school. I don't particularly remember having a problem with this guy, but apparently he was doing or saying something and one of our coaches pulled him aside and gave him a stern talking-to that he remembers all these years later. He never did it again. Now his oldest son is being bullied in school and he said it reminded him of his own behavior. We were already FB friends prior to this and I don't know what prompted him to tell me now; I have to guess it was the above incident.
The next night, after I had posted something unrelated to our alumni page, I got a PM from another guy, in a similar vein. Again he wasn't someone I would have considered a serious tormenter, but he apparently had been plagued with guilt about the way he treated me and a few others (I found out later that he had reached out to at least one other guy too). We ended up talking for more than three hours (more, he pointed out, than in our entire four years in HS) and it was really interesting hearing what his life has been like. He became an iron worker and a volunteer fireman and was at Ground Zero a few days after 9-11.
I am sure some may be surprised that I was so quick to forgive them. But I think it took a lot of balls for them to approach me at all, and I grew up in a different time and place. I am sure they were acting the way they thought boys were supposed to act, and I was not. The fact that they see past that now is good enough for me.
Just thought that was a nice story to share.
A few minutes later I got a PM from him telling me that he wanted to apologize for the way he treated me in high school. I don't particularly remember having a problem with this guy, but apparently he was doing or saying something and one of our coaches pulled him aside and gave him a stern talking-to that he remembers all these years later. He never did it again. Now his oldest son is being bullied in school and he said it reminded him of his own behavior. We were already FB friends prior to this and I don't know what prompted him to tell me now; I have to guess it was the above incident.
The next night, after I had posted something unrelated to our alumni page, I got a PM from another guy, in a similar vein. Again he wasn't someone I would have considered a serious tormenter, but he apparently had been plagued with guilt about the way he treated me and a few others (I found out later that he had reached out to at least one other guy too). We ended up talking for more than three hours (more, he pointed out, than in our entire four years in HS) and it was really interesting hearing what his life has been like. He became an iron worker and a volunteer fireman and was at Ground Zero a few days after 9-11.
I am sure some may be surprised that I was so quick to forgive them. But I think it took a lot of balls for them to approach me at all, and I grew up in a different time and place. I am sure they were acting the way they thought boys were supposed to act, and I was not. The fact that they see past that now is good enough for me.
Just thought that was a nice story to share.