I'm sure you know this, but you shouldn't blame yourself for any part of his situation. The part of your post that I bolded is a big red flag. He clearly wasn't singling you out; he sounds like he was kind of a heel in general.
My suggestion: meet up with him, then beat him up in front of his wife and kid! Or beat him with his kid, like Tom threatened to do to Milo's dad.
Not really. At least the guy seems to want to make amends.
No one who bothered me in school has tracked me down so far on FB, thankfully.
Oh yeah, I 100% know this. It was just one of those weird things that hit you afterwards for a few minutes.
But here's a story where I'm somehow more vile than the bullies in question!
So my senior year of high school, I sat at a lunch tables with my friend Kris. In a school with almost 1500 people, with four or five separate lunch periods, I somehow defied the odds and only had one friend in lunch with me. Every other year, I sat at a table with anywhere between 5 and 10 people.
Now, you'd think by your senior year you'd escape general bullying. But not in my high school! When I started, my high school was mildly rough. But by the time I was a senior, it was just completely insane. There were fights and muggings constantly. To wit: We had a snack line in lunch where you could purchase things like Brownie Bites or Vitapups. There would be a group of people camped out at the end of the lunch like who would beg for spare change like it was a NYC subway station circa 1988. And, roughly half the time, if you did not provide said change it would result in some sort of assault (a punch to the neck being the most common). Making matters worse, this would happen right in front of teachers who were so mortified/lazy/broken that they would literally turn the other way as this happened.
So it was just Kris and I in lunch, so there were no safety in numbers. And to make it worse -- when I graduated high school, I was the shortest male in my year, and I weighed the same as a giant state fair pumpkin. (I grew six inches my freshman year of college, which is the exact time you want to go through your realllly awkward phase.) And Kris wasn't a lot bigger than me. And to make it worse, we were both pretty misfit-y. But whereas I had the standard 1995 alterna-rock wardrobe (flannel shirts, a Weezer T-Shirt, Chuck T's), Kris was a total misfit. He had a sort of death metal look going on, never shaved yet couldn't quite grow in facial hair, wore Zubaz pants, etc.
(I don't want to make it like I'm slagging on Kris. He was a great guy and a really good friend of mine... until the end of this story. He just didn't blend in well.)
We were surrounded by the absolute biggest pieces of human garbage in the cafeteria.
One of the biggest was George. He'd throw things and would generally just threaten us. But making it worse was that he was a sophomore and TINY. But the problem with him is that he was backed up by about 10-15 of the most gigantic, toughest kids possible who egged him on.
Now, things escalated over the year with George. And finally at one point I kicked a chair into his legs. He screamed in pain and his friends mocked him to no end. So he ended up embarrassed. But when he left with tears in his eyes, George left by telling me, "You're dead tomorrow."
So lunch came the next day and nothing went on. But then it got towards the end of the period and George started laughing. And all of a sudden, I heard someone say, "YOU'RE F*CKING DEAD YOU LITTLE F*CKING NERD!!!"
This was said by Diane -- a freshman girl. Diane was gigantic -- like the size of one of those weird girls who wants to be an offensive lineman for the football team. And she was CONSTANTLY in fights. She literally wore brass knuckles to school. And she supposedly curbed a dude she beat up on a basketball court. She was just one of the most absurdly frightening human beings ever.
So I did what any right-minded thinking person would do. I, a 17-year-old male senior, ran away SCREAMING as this girl charged me.
I was never more mocked. It was terrible. Somehow, the entire school found out about this. The rest of the day, people were heckling me. By the time I got home, my mom said about 5 people called to tell her how I ran away from a girl. My mom even made fun of me. (I am not kidding.)
I was just absolutely mortified. I was just thinking I wouldn't go to lunch the rest of the year. I only had four months of school left and I could just cut class and maybe get away with it and, at the worst, get an in-school suspension or two if I got caught. But Kris called me that night and told me that I had to redeem myself.
I really had no idea what to do. There was absolutely no chance in hell that I would even begin to hurt this girl. She would absolutely destroy me. Like throttle me.
This crew had a plan. George spent the entire period laughing at me. And his friends formed a phalanx around me and Kris. There wasn't anyway I was going to run. And Diane kept on pointing at me and threatening me the entire period.
So, the bell rang. And I just decided I was just going to cover up and let her wail on me and it would get broken up. I wouldn't get in any trouble and I could save a little bit of face.
So Diane is charging and is about to punch me when Kris leaps across the table and punches Diane square in the jaw. It was one of the best punches ever thrown. It was something Joe Frazier would have thrown in his prime.
This girl Diane fell to one knee and held her jaw. She then jumped up, swiped Kris' glasses off of his face and then proceeded to grab him by his mullet and delivered a series of muy-Thai knee strikes to his face. She kneed him like five times or so. She then threw Kris to the ground and then stood over him and punched him. Finally, someone pulled her off of him.
She then raised her hands in triumph (like a wrestling villain) and stomped on his glasses, shattering them.
The entire time, I just stood there and watched this. I made no attempts to do anything. I made no attempts to stop this from unfolding, even after my friend decked this girl so I could avoid a beating.
Needless to say, we weren't really friends after that.
