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.zip
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      2 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.world
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        2 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.

  • renlok@lemmy.ml
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    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.

  • Diplomjodler@lemmy.world
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    2 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.

  • frankPodmore@slrpnk.net
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    2 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
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      2 months ago

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

  • Chef_Boyardee@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    There was a kid in grade school growing up that was a bully. He made a kid cry while we were waiting for our class picture to be taken in the 6th grade, and you can see that kid crying in the picture. I still think about it often.

    The bully ended up being one of the greatest running backs my county ever knew. He was a game changer.

    I randomly decided to look up the crying kid from the school picture a couple years ago. He is now a very successful man. I couldn’t be any happier seeing that. It almost brought me to tears.

    The bully was shot and killed in the streets a couple years after graduating high school.

  • ℕ𝕖𝕞𝕠@midwest.social
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    2 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”.

  • Zak@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    When we were both five years old, I knew one of my classmates would end up in prison.

    Most kids can be jerks on occasion, and I can think of a few examples where that applied to me as well as it could to anyone. I haven’t generally kept track of people who bullied me in school; I imagine most of them grew out of it, and a few didn’t. This guy was something else, as if cruelty was the only thing that brought him joy.

    At 19, he and two others beat a taxi driver to death. He was convicted of manslaughter and spent more than a decade in prison. A quick web search suggests he’s out of prison and working as a car salesman now.

    • Call me Lenny/Leni@lemm.eeOP
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      2 months ago

      He must’ve been unbearable if you knew his fate at five years old. I barely had any concept of prison when I was that age, in fact I was one of those kids who thought it would be easy to just slip through the bars if that ever happened.

      • Zak@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        I certainly didn’t have an adult understanding of what prison is, but I knew people who committed really serious crimes like murder went there. I expected this person to do something like that, and I wasn’t far off.

  • Clbull@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    They’re all very successful now. This whole notion that bullies and assholes would be bagging my groceries and asking me “you want fries with that” in adulthood is BS.

    • Call me Lenny/Leni@lemm.eeOP
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      2 months ago

      I myself am somewhere in the middle on this. All my classmates were basically this to me because the school allowed it, then when time came to get a job, they were so used to the school environment which disfavored me at their benefit that they ran into a speed bump and ended up feuding with each other. By a rare good stroke of luck, this means I’m my employer’s favorite.

      • Clbull@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        There may be one exception. A kid in the year above me who I didn’t personally know but looked like one of the many people that bullied me was killed on a night out when he tried to break up a fight.

        It made national news, but mainly because it led to an underage drinking scandal where it turned out loads of pubs weren’t checking ID. He was only 17.

  • LaggySnake@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    tbh I can’t even remember any of their names, neither of the ones that were being friendly with me.

  • TheRealKuni@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    My bully from grade school is serving up to life in prison for attempted murder (he shot two teenagers while he was an adult, something gang related I think) and also sex with a minor.

    Not that he doesn’t deserve it, he absolutely does, but part of me feels bad for him. He never stood a chance. His home life was fucked, he was always on this path and nothing was going to stop it.

  • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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    2 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.