Okay, I don’t wanna “bully” this chick. But grow the fluff up.
The background is essentially this: Dude was mean in middle school to her, they end up at the same college, he asks her out to dinner, and she stands him up after giving the waitress this note to hand him:
That’s not bad, but the whole bit with posting it to the internet, all “look what I did!” kinda is. But, let’s start with a concession before I start nitpicking. She’s getting at least a point and a half from me for that whole “I starved myself cuzza you so I’m also skipping food with you tonight” thing. There’s a fun zingy connection in that which I can’t deny.
However, something about this whole note gave me eye-roll migraine. Maybe it’s that it felt dramatic and contrived. Or maybe it’s that she reveled in her revenge inspired dinner ditching enough to upload it online along with his reply “I just wanted to meet up because I wanted to make friends with people – not because you’re good looking”. And maybe it’s that she’s twenty-one going on twelve if she’s still holding enough of a grudge to put homeboy on net level blast. And I bet she totally “revised” that note he wrote back too. Because no dude who’s spent a lot of time being a bully would let that shiz slide.
He’d have a ready-made “I didn’t want you anyway” comeback on deck for her.
Say what you will about bullies, but they know how to guard their feels. At least until daddy comes home drunk. So, it probably went something more like, “Bish, I ain’t even wanna eff you. I mean your body’s a’ight but you got a butterf–… Anyway, I’m trying to be a better person now. I thought we could be friends and I really just wanted to meet up with you at the campus cafeteria so I could ask you about your hot roommate. Is she available?”
(GossPause: Dude, what if she’s one of those “Swimfan”-y types? And this whole story didn’t even happen? Like she applied to the same college as her teenage tormenter and then fabricated everything?)
I’m getting off track here.
The fact of the matter is that – despite my belief in compassion and forgiveness – I don’t always adhere to my own belief systems. So, my intrinsic bitchiness won’t allow me to judge her on that. Rather, my only insistence is that if you do a job, do a job right. I’ve said that in about a million point million posts about criminals – and the same should apply when it comes to revenge. Where crime requires you to not be dumb, revenge requires that you serve it up cold. This letter, contrarily, reeks of residual insecurity simmering away on stovetop. Too much Romy and Michelle getting back at Billy Masterson and not enough Tarantino samurai hottie slicing you with icy eyes ‘cause she’s got nothing to lose.
And maybe that’s because this fails to meet the other pre-req for revenge:
Have a valid reason. This nonsense happened twelve light years ago.
It’s not happening right now. So, stop worrying about it. Do something else.
Just tell him “THX, but no.”
And get back to rushing the sorority that’s gonna reject you for not being blonde enough.
Which you’ll probably use as a new reason to hate yourself.
But maybe that’s the problem. She’s still acting like a non-adult because the adults who raised her did a bad job. It’s always a parent’s responsibility to hew off their limbs if they have to to make the creature they’ve created grow up normal. I’m pretty sure it’s right there in the contract I read once before burning. The parents of the bully and the parents of this chick are both included in this. One set had a shithead for a kid who was bullying chubby children at school. The other set was so oblivious that not only did they miss the telltale signs of a depressed daughter being bullied, but they also didn’t monitor her dietary misinterpretation of that “apple a day” quote.
When we’re adults, we can choose how we’re going to respond to life’s obstacles – including the horrible people in it who vomit verbal poison anytime their face hole is open. When we’re children, we don’t know any better. That’s why adults – who have children – have the responsibility to show (not just tell) them how that shit’s done. Important lessons like, “They’re just words. If you stay bitter, it’s just gonna throw off your swag. Don’t get thrown off your swag. Now drink your orange juice and take your Flintstone vitamin.” Otherwise you end up with a white girl who thinks she’s Damien Marley morphing into a bitter collegiate creature who thinks she’s year-two-thousand-and-early version of Jessica Simpson.
Parents need to monitor their kids better to see if they’re being douchebags.
Their online presence is a good start.
And where they fail, the victim’s parents need to arm their kids with better coping tools. Finally, when all the parents fail – I suppose we can only hope that these poor misguided fools somehow de-program themselves from their parents’ involuntarily instructed courses in “how to do life wrong and make yourself miserable”. And learn which drawer their big girl drawers are located.
Preferably, sometime before they lay eggs themselves.