Everyone has been bullied at some point in their life and no one likes the feeling. Bullies can make us feel absolutely worthless, usually at a time when we’re already feeling low. There’s often little hope that things will get better. Should I fight back, or will that just make things worse? Going to school everyday is so often dreaded when we have a bully there waiting for us.
Sometimes though, we get lucky and a friend called karma steps in and delivers swift justice.
These people came forward to share their experiences with bullying and how in the end karma helped them preval. Sometimes justice even took years but in the end these bullies finally got a taste of their own medicine.
1. Please Join My Dojo
I’ve told this story before but I think it’s worth repeating.
A couple of years ago I was working part-time at a karate dojo as an instructor. It was a Thursday evening and business had been pretty slow. I was getting ready to close up for the night when in walked Stevie. I was fairly certain that this was my elementary and middle school bully but I wasn’t 100% sure. It has been many years since then and people’s looks can change.
I didn’t mention anything about our potential shared history. Stevie was looking to potentially take some classes so I showed him around and discussed our different offerings with him. I just treated him like a regular old customer.
By the end of everything, he liked what he saw and wanted to become a member. I went into the office and had him fill out some standard paperwork. When I read the application and saw his first and last name: Stevie Brown, I knew that this was my old tormentor.
He used to give me hell every Monday through Friday from the ages of 8 till 13. He once stuffed me in a locker and left me in there for hours.
I waited until he had paid for an annual plan before mentioning our connection. I walked him to the door and said, “I’m looking forward to seeing you in class next.” I smiled with all my teeth.
“Yeah, me too. I’ve been really wanting to take karate classes for a while,” Stevie said.
I replied, “I take it you don’t recognize me, do you?”
Stevie says, “Hmmm should I? I seem to be drawing a blank.”
“Yeah we went to elementary and middle school together. You made my life miserable for six years. Well, I can’t wait to see at 5 pm on Monday for your first class.”
Stevie’s expression totally changed and I could tell he was embarrassed. He just slunk out of the studio and didn’t say anything back to me. I never saw him return to the dojo. He just wasted a full year of membership and he got the premium membership which cost $1999. That’s how much he didn’t want to be in the same class with me.
Oh well, I still get a nice commission check for signing him up.
2. Oh How The Tables Have Turned
When I was in 3rd grade I ended up becoming friends with this girl with red hair who was new to the school and was kind of overweight. Everyone had already formed their own friend groups so she was the odd person out.
I also didn’t have a ton of friends so I thought it would make sense to be accepting of her. We quickly became inseparable. Dare I say, best friends even.
Let’s go forward a couple of years and now we’re in the 7th grade. She was still on the heavier side but because she developed more quickly than other girls and wore makeup she became popular. I, on the other hand, was tall and lanky with braces and a speech impediment.
I was made fun of and eventually she started to make fun of me in order to ingratiate herself with the popular crowd. She eventually started to be the one who would instigate the bullying. She would ding-dong ditch my house and egg it along with the other popular girls.
Let’s now go to grade 10. By now, I’ve grown into my body a bit more and have some more friends. People also started to see how mean and fake my ex-best friend had become.
I saw her by herself crying in the hallway one day and felt bad so I went up to her and asked if she was alright. I even offered to let her use my cellphone if she needed to call her parents to pick her up. For context, this was the early 2000s so most high school students did not have a cellphone.
It turns out that she was now being severely bullied. I didn’t see her during 11th and 12th grade and found out that she transferred high schools because the bullying got so bad. I still feel bad for her even though she bullied me. We really need to figure out a way to end bullying, it’s horrible.
3. Slow Justice Is Still Justice
When I was in 7th grade and about twelve years old, this guy in my class threw a piece of wood at me. I wasn’t super popular and was often picked on for being the “punk goth girl”. He and his friends probably thought it would be super funny to throw something at me. I’m not sure if it was his intention, but the wood ended up hitting me in the head and I ended up passing out for a little while.
When I regained consciousness his friends and him were standing over me and just pointing and laughing. My parents took me to urgent care for fear of a concussion. I even had to miss PE for a couple of days which was my favorite class.
Even though I told administrators what had happened, no one did anything. You see, his dad was on the school board and sat on the budget committee. People were afraid that if they disciplined his son that he may retaliate by shifting or adjusting budgets in an unfavorable manner. So much for teachers and administrators standing up for students and having their back. It was all a bunch of baloney.
The only person who did something was my history teacher who also doubles as the basketball coach. He forced him to run extra during practice that week but that was the only punishment he got. I still appreciated the gesture even if it wasn’t nearly enough.
Three years later and we’re now all in high school and every guy is obsessed with making the football team. It turns out that the guy who threw the piece of wood at me will never be able to play football again. He got drunk at a party and ended up with a couple of broken ribs and a pretty bad concussion. The doctors told him that if he sustained another concussion that there could be serious ramifications for his brain function for the rest of his life.
Although some of you may think that two years isn’t that long to wait, it felt like an eternity for me. I’m glad justice was finally served. This guy should’ve been thrown out of school for what he did to me.
4. You’re Such a Clown Bro
There was this kid in middle school named Arthur who used to bully me. He had been held back a couple of times so while most of the kids in middle school were 12-14 years old, he was 16. He was nicknamed the clown because he sometimes would come to school wearing clown makeup. Don’t ask, this kid clearly had a lot of issues.
He was always out to get me for some reason and to this day I have never figured out why. One time in science lab, he thought it would be funny to try and light my hair on fire. He also took my first real girlfriend from me. In addition to all this, he ended up getting expelled because he kicked this sixty-five year old teacher in the head.
About five years later, my friends and I are all hanging out at my house and we’re watching tv. The local news comes on and we see that a local man has been arrested for a violent assault.
Yup, you guessed it. It was Arthur the clown guy who is now going to be in prison for the next seven years.
5. What Goes Around Comes Around
It’s been decades since high school and recently this guy from that chapter of my life decided to send me a friend request on Facebook. During senior year, he stole stuff from my house without my knowledge and then bragged about it to some of our mutual friends. Those mutual friends told me about what he had done.
I never spoke to him again even though we had some friends in common. Both of us stayed away from each other.
My life has changed dramatically since high school. Most of my classmates still live in the same town and work dead-end jobs. On the other hand, I worked hard and now have a great job in big tech that pays me well and allows me to travel. I added a lot of people from my high school days to show them that I made it big.
One day, the guy who stole from me posted a status on Facebook about how someone had stolen something from his daughter and that karma was going to get this person back. Many of his friends and family said that it was horrible that someone stole from her and they generally felt bad for him and her (his daughter). My comment could not have been further from the prevailing sentiment. I said, “Yeah it sucks to be stolen from, doesn’t it? I guess karma does really come back to get someone even if it takes 20 years.”
Zingbot! I got him. I even received messages from people who knew about the incident saying it was about time the universe paid me back for that incident.
He immediately deleted me as a friend and blocked me. I could care less and have been laughing ever since.
6. Hey Batter Batter, Swing!
I used to take the bus to school and there was this really mean kid who would make those rides miserable. He would often spit on me as he walked by to get to his seat, and he would also sit behind me and slap me on the head or kick his feet into the back of my seat. He started taking a different bus so I thought that my window of opportunity to get payback had closed.
Luckily, fate decided to intervene and I happened to find him one Saturday afternoon at one of my baseball games. He was the opposing 3rd baseman on the team we were going to play that day. This was my chance, I thought. I hope our team pounds them into submission. Just seeing him on the opposing team got me hyped and riled up.
During the game, he would start to smirk and laugh everytime I came up to the plate. I ended up striking out in my first three at bats which just got him laughing at me even more. It was the bottom of the 9th and this was my last at bat. I badly needed a hit not only to redeem myself but also to keep my team in the game. I swung and missed badly at the first two pitches and I was down to my final strike.
I glance down the 3rd base line and I see my nemesis with a smug look on his face. I wanted to wipe that smirk off his face so bad. The next pitch I swing and hit a line drive down the 3rd base line that ends up hitting my bully square in the face.
It was completely unintentional. I don’t have much if any control over where I hit the ball.
It was a pretty hard hit so he went down and started crying. Some of his teammates came over to check on him but no one had picked up the ball so I just kept running.
I ended up scoring an inside the park home run due to all the confusion. My teammates mob me as we celebrate our last second victory. Meanwhile, he’s being helped by players and parents back to the dugouts. Now I was the one with a huge grin on my face.
7. Be Careful Who You Decide To Mess With
There was this really large guy named Len who used to mess with me during high school. He even had a gang of bullies that made my life from ninth to twelfth grade a living hell.
About six years later, I’ve graduated from college and am now making decent money from my first big boy job. I decided to reward myself by going to a shop to buy some new surround sound speakers for my apartment. Guess who is one of the sales associates.
It’s good ole’ Len.
He comes up to me and I say, “Hi Len, I’m here to make a purchase but I’m not going to be buying from you.” I walked over to another associate and requested their help instead.
Just to spite Len, I end up spending three times as much as I originally planned. This was my ultimate revenge on Len. I knew this place paid their sales associates commissions so the other guy was thrilled. Len was dejected. I was super happy that high school me was finally having his moment after years of waiting.
This was worth the wait!
8. Who’s The Big Man Now
When I was a freshman in high school I was tiny. Like really small. I was a guy and I probably was about five foot nothing and weighed 100 lbs soaking wet. A lot of people picked on me just because they thought they could get away with it. I ended up transferring to private school after my freshman year to get away from the bullying. Fast forward to senior year and I find myself at a party with my old classmates, many of whom haven’t seen me in 3 years.
I recognize one of the bullies from the party who I’m now bigger than. In the last 3 years, I’ve had a growth spurt. I’m now 6’1” and much more well built than before. This guy comes up to me and is still talking nonsense to me. We start to jaw at each other.
He then shoves me in the chest and I immediately react by clocking him in the face. He hits the deck hard and is completely knocked out. I just KO'd that idiot in front of 100 people. Everyone cheered me on.
9. Role Reversal
I was quite nerdy in highschool so a lot of the jocks would often pick on me. I was almost 30 when I got a message on Facebook from one of the bullies from my high school days.
He told me that he was sorry for bullying me and that he was just a stupid kid back then and he now realizes how wrong it was. He then asked me for advice in becoming a physics major since that is what I studied in college. I decided to help him because I didn’t believe in holding grudges or carrying anger for the rest of my life.
It felt good to finally get an apology.
10. I’m Not Surprised No One Wants To Date You
When I was in middle school there was a guy who used to be so mean to be because of the way I looked. He always called me hideous and said that I was better off taking my own life because I was going to end up alone due to my looks.
I’ve recently gotten on the online dating apps in order to find a boyfriend and I found him on Tinder. He asked me if we had gone to school together in the past because I looked kind of familiar and he also said that I was really attractive. He never was able to put the pieces together that I was the girl that he used to bully. I was just happy that he had been on the dating apps for months without having any modicum of success.
He told me that he’s been on so many dates but hasn’t had any luck finding a girlfriend. He was finally getting his comeuppance. Maybe no one wants to date you because you’re a really mean guy who doesn’t know how to treat a woman properly.
I never ended up going on an actual date with him. I just listened to him vent for a bit before eventually ghosting him. Sucks to suck.
I ended up finding my eventual husband on Tinder a couple of months later.
11. That Sucks, You Were Hit By A Truck?
A couple of years ago, I was punched in the stomach by my ex-fiance. The kicker, I was pregnant with my daughter. Even though he wasn’t the father, who would do such a despicable thing. I told him that I hope that he gets hit by a bus.
Not even a week later and I came to find out that he was hit by a car when he was riding his scooter. He survived his injuries but there was extensive damage that required a number of surgeries.
On top of that, he didn’t have any health insurance so he’s going to be paying bills for a really long time. His credit score is going to be in the toilet. Karma was very quick in this instance.
I also want to point out that I was punched so hard that I began to bleed and had to go to the hospital to make sure the baby was ok. Thankfully, she was. Even though I called the cops, they didn’t do too much about it but at least he’s in the system due to the police report I filed against him.
12. Pick On Someone Your Own Age
When I was about 5 and my brother was 12 he got in a lot of trouble because he kicked some kid in the face during recess. I don’t remember many details since I was small when the incident occurred but I do remember my brother saying that he did it in order to defend a fellow classmate.
My brother got in a ton of trouble. No more recess for the entire year and he was suspended for two weeks. My parents also made him go to the kid’s house that he kicked and apologize to him.
A few months later we get a notice from the local court indicating that the mother of the boy who was kicked wants to sue for causing mental distress to her son. She said that her son could no longer function normally and was having problems with processing his emotions due to the trauma from the injury.
She tried to do everything in her power to ruin my family and brother’s reputation. She would go to school board and PTA meetings in order to paint out my family to be violent and dangerous. She would also routinely lobby the principal to expel my brother.
We lived in a small town so even though we were able to emerge from the legal battle relatively unscathed, many members of the community saw us in a different light.
I’m in my late 20s and my brother is in his mid 30s. My dad texts the family group chat a link from the local news. It turns out that the mother of the boy that my brother kicked was being indicted by the state government.
She had been embezzling from the local government (she was a local government employee) for her entire year tenure and made off with funds totaling over $1 million dollars. Wow! It may have been decades in the making but she sure got her punishment.
13. Am I Really The Loser?
I had dated this girl when I was really young, like 18 years old and she broke up with me and immediately started dating another guy within a month. I asked her if she’d been cheating on me and the guy who she was with happened to be there.
He said, “Look buddy she chose me for a reason. I have real career prospects in life and provide stability. She realized that you’re a loser who isn’t going to be able to provide for her like I can.”
To give you some context, he worked at a diner and played in a band with his buddies. Sounds like awesome career prospects to me. Meanwhile, I was in college getting my degree in business so I could set myself up for success in the future. I wasn’t working at the moment because I wanted to double up on classes so I could graduate early and avoid additional student loans.
A few years have passed and I bump into this guy at a kickback that is being hosted by a mutual friend of ours. We acted like everything was cool and didn’t really bring up the past.
After we both had a couple of drinks, he asked me what I was up to. I told him that I ended up getting that degree in business and now work at a large tech company in their partnerships department.
I ask him the same question. He tells me that he’s trying to be a cook and is looking to go to culinary school. It turns out that over the last 7 years he’s had a bunch of odd jobs here and there. I also came to find out that my ex is pregnant with his kid.
It’s funny that I was told that I was unreliable and unstable and yet he’s the one who’s having trouble holding down any kind of job. I also learned that my ex and him are no longer together.
It’s a complete mess. My ex has a kid and has a baby on the way with him. He also has another kid from a previous relationship. That woman left him because she said that he was unable to hold down a job.
14. The Tables Have Turned
There was this guy in high school who had a penchant for fighting. He was always getting into fights with one person or another for the most stupid of reasons. One day, he singled me out as his target and we went at it. He ended up breaking my nose right before prom which ruined all my pictures.
There was no punishment by any law enforcement officials, but we were both suspended from school for the incident even though I told the school that he started it and I was just trying to defend myself.
Fast forward a decade, and I find him laying down on the street corner near my office building. I recognize him and ask him how everything has been since high school. He tells me that he got his high school girlfriend pregnant a year after graduation and they eventually got married and then promptly divorced.
This caused him to do some really heavy drugs and party with the wrong types of people. This behavior pushed away all the people in his life who cared about him. I asked him if he was clean and he said he was. He told me had no money to buy anything even if he had wanted to get high.
Wow. This guy had really hit rock bottom. I felt super bad so I decided to ask him if he wanted to stay in the guesthouse that I have in the backyard. It’s basically a nice little one bedroom apartment. He agreed and told me that the first night of sleep was the best night of sleep that he’d had in years.
I got him some new clothes and made sure that he had enough to eat. I eventually found him a gig working with a contractor that I had previously used.
It’s been a decade since then, and now he owns his own contracting business and has a wife and two kids. He even lives in the neighborhood now as he was able to buy a house last year.
15. I Forgot All About You
I was at my 10 year high school reunion with a bunch of my former classmates. The guy who used to torture me in high school still described me as his arch-nemesis. I’m like bro, I haven’t even given you a second thought in the last decade.
I guess I’m living in his head rent-free. This made me feel super good.
16. I Got To Beat Up My Childhood Bully
I was a really chubby kid and because of that I would get teased all the time. This one guy at my school named Dewey would always pick on me. He was three years older than me and would constantly beat me up.
I was fortunate that I moved away from the area right as high school started so I didn’t have to deal with his bullying anymore.
When I was in college, I decided that it was time to take my health seriously and I began to eat healthier and workout more. One activity that I particularly loved was MMA. I ended up falling in love with it and it helped me lose over 50+ pounds.
After college, I ended up moving back to my hometown (yes, the same one where Dewey used to beat me up) and I was eager to find a new MMA gym. I went on Yelp and found the one that had the highest ratings. I called the manager and let him know that I was interested in joining and he told me to come by and watch a class so I could see if I liked it.
When I got to the gym, guess who I saw? It was none other than Dewey. I couldn’t believe my eyes.
He definitely hadn’t grown up at all. The first thing he said to me was, “I see you’re here so you can finally learn to defend yourself.”
I left my MMA gear in the car because I was just going to watch so I think Dewey assumed that I was a total noob. At the end of every class, they do free sparring.
Dewey approaches me after class and asks the instructor if he can spar with me in order to help teach me a few things. Dewey had no idea that I’d been training in MMA for years now and could kick his butt.
He brags that he’s been coming to the gym for months now and watches UFC religiously. Ooh, I’m scared.
I went to the car and grabbed my stuff so I could change my clothes. We ended up sparring and I was able to get him in a chokehold three times. He was forced to tap out everytime. I signed up for classes after I embarrassed him and I never saw Dewey at that gym again.
What a moment! How many people can say they actually got an opportunity to beat up their childhood bully when they were an adult? Also, the fact that I thoroughly embarrassed him in front of everyone in the gym just made it that much sweeter.
17. No Talent
This meanie who had bullied me in middle school and stolen my digimon card collection ended up going to the same culinary school as I did after high school. He was a horrendous cook. So bad, in fact, that he was asked by the school to withdraw after just 3 months. Yikes!
I hope you have fun playing with my Greymon card, because you’re never going to cook in anyone’s restaurant.
18. Wow, He Was Stabbed!
I needed to get my car checked out so I went to my local mom and pop auto shop. They’re nice honest people so I have no problem supporting their business. I’m talking to the person in the back office and they offer me a coffee.
I’m sipping my coffee as I’m making my way to the garage when I notice a guy working on a blue Toyota Corolla.
It really looks like my old high school bully Ron. I yell out his name and he looks at me and says, “John, is that you?”
I told him that he was a really horrible person to me and a lot of others in high school. He told me that since then he’s really turned his life around and his attitude has done a complete 180. He told me about an incident that changed his life.
He showed me a scar on his neck where he said he’d gotten stabbed. He told me that he almost bled out, but luckily the doctors were able to save him.
He told me that he had just gone to the local community college to take some classes on becoming an auto mechanic and that this was his first job.
We chatted for about fifteen to twenty minutes and I concluded that he actually had become a good guy. I now bring in donuts whenever my car is in the shop because in exchange he gives me discounts. I mean, who can resist hot, fresh, and free donuts!
19. I Didn’t Expect The Bully To Cry
The bully in my highschool had it all. He was super athletic and very smart. He was on the wrestling team and was an undefeated state champion. He even got a full scholarship to Stanford for his efforts.
He knew he could hurt people and he would constantly intimidate his classmates. Those that got in his way he would physically punish them.
I was at a party that involved alcohol and I saw him there. He kept looking at me from across the room but didn’t say anything.
I’d never really interacted with him before. The only times we spoke is when I tried to intervene when he was about to beat someone up.
Yeah, he was a real peach.
He definitely seemed drunk because he kept trying to pick a fight with every person at the party. Everytime he started to yell at someone and get in their face, I would come over and try to break things up.
I probably broke up upwards of five potential fights that night.
This time I’d had enough. He was trying to pick on some guy half his size, and I put my finger on his chest and told him to relax. I then pushed him backwards. It was like something had come over my body. In my head I was thinking, crap this guy could really do some damage to me if he wanted.
After I pushed him back, he just gave me a look and said, “You know I could beauty the stuffing out of you and everyone here if I wanted to, but I don’t want to anymore.”
He then just started crying and ran into the other room. It was the most bizarre thing I had ever witnessed.
People at the party were cheering me on for defeating the bully. At the time, there wasn’t much of an emphasis on mental health. Looking back on things, I think he was really struggling with some stuff internally. I hope he got the help he needed.
20. How I Helped My Bully
After high school, I became a personal trainer and was eventually able to save enough money to open my own gym. I’d owned the gym for a couple of years and would get inquiries on the website from people who were looking to be trained. There was this message from this woman whose name seemed oddly familiar.
I wasn’t sure if it was the same girl from highschool who would constantly tease me. She comes in for her initial training assessment and I could tell that it was her. She must’ve gained 100+ pounds since highschool and was out of breath after only 5 minutes.
She seemed to be down on her luck so I didn’t want to mention our past connection and decided that I would do my best to help her with her fitness goals.
We’re all adults now so there was no need to dredge up the past for no reason. I’d moved past what had happened before.
A couple of months into her sessions, I notice that she’s having a hard time doing one of the exercises. I walked up to her with some positive energy and I noticed that she’s crying.
She looks at me and says, “I’m sorry how I treated you in the past. You’re such a good person for welcoming me into your gym and never bringing anything up.”
I learned through a mutual friend that she knew that I was the owner of the gym and specifically picked it on purpose.
This is a happy story. No, I didn’t get any revenge on my bully and there was no need to. She was clearly sorry for what she did and was struggling. Wouldn’t that just make me the bully if I refused to help her?
21. Prom Queen To Grease Traps
Every high school had the girl who was the prom queen and dated the quarterback of the football team. Not all those girls are mean. In fact, some are really nice people. The girl I went to high school with fell in the bucket of the stereotypical mean girl. Most of the “unpopular kids”, myself included, found her to be shallow, mean, and stupid.
I’m usually someone who wants the best for people and I don’t like to pray for other people’s downfalls. However, fate had a funny way of intervening. I walked into my local Five Guys to get a bacon cheeseburger when guess who I saw standing behind the counter. It was Ellie Bell, the queen of Natoma High for the four years that I attended.
I’m in my late 20s now as it has been over a decade since our high school graduation. She looks almost exactly the same as she did in high school. Maybe she’s put on ten or so pounds, but other than that things look the same. Same hair and the same makeup.
This gives me the indication that she’s still probably stuck in high school and is trying to relive her glory days. After placing my order, I asked her how she was doing. I was trying to do the mature adult thing and make polite small talk.
Instead of responding in a normal manner, she looks me over and says, “Who do you think you are Stacy? You’re gross, please don’t speak to me.” I decided to hold my tongue and just ignore her. There was a long line behind me, and I didn’t want to create a scene.
Unbeknownst to her, I was really good friends with the general manager of that particular Five Guys. I asked him about Ellie and she said that she was a single mom and was trying to get on her feet because she was evicted from her last apartment. She’d just begun working there a couple of weeks earlier.
I told her about her interaction, and she was horrified. She couldn’t believe that she would behave so rudely to a customer. She ended up getting fired the next day. Justice was served. Would you like fries with that?
22. Don’t Worry She’ll End Up Flipping Burgers
There was this guy who used to bully me non stop throughout middle and high school. It seemed like he would purposely go out of his way to say mean things to me. He never physically harmed me, but the verbal abuse I took was extensive. If I had the misfortune of having a class with him, he would make sure that his displeasure for me was known. Unfortunately, because he was kind of popular, a lot of other students would just go along with whatever he would say to me.
I got so afraid to even open my mouth and speak, because I thought that bringing attention to myself in any way would lead to more ridicule and insults. Those were some really miserable years. My mom was always in my corner and would always try and make me feel better. There was one thing she said that always stuck with me. “One day she’s going to be flipping burgers at Burger King. She’ll be forced to be nice to you, otherwise she’ll be fired.” In fact, my mom even referred to her as the Burger King girl.
About a year or two after finishing college, I was in my hometown visiting my parents when I decided to stop at the local Burger King for lunch. Lo and behold, behind the counter was Burger King girl. When I’m about to place my order she says, “Do you remember who I am? We went to high school together.”
I reply, “Yes, I remember who you are.”
She says, “Oh ok, what would you like.”
I proceeded to give her a crazy order with so many different customizations that it made her head hurt. I could tell she was getting annoyed and frustrated. The best part was that her manager was standing only a couple of feet away so she had to be nice and tolerate my nonsense.
My mom was right. She’s a straight prophet.
23. Teachers Should Never Talk Down To Their Students
When I was in high school, I had a math teacher who was horrible to me. He would make fun of me in front of the other students and would often give me lower grades than I deserved. He even said that he would never send his own kids to public schools because he was afraid that they would have to meet dumb people like me.
A couple of years later, I've gotten my bachelors degree and have graduated with a 4.0 GPA. I’m now pursuing my Master’s in kinesiology. I was doing an internship at a physical therapy clinic when I recognized the person who walks in.
It’s the mean math teacher from high school.
He ends up only interacting with my coworker. I wasn’t trying to actively avoid him, that’s just how things happened to unfold. I tell my coworker all about him and how he ruined my confidence.
He comes back in the following week for his appointment and the same coworker who I explained my story to is talking to him. She is acting like she doesn’t know any of our shared history (my math teacher and I). She told him how I was a joy to teach and that I was excelling at school and in the clinic. She said that I’m going to make an amazing physical therapist one day.
I guess he didn’t like all the praise I was receiving, because he never came back in for another appointment.
24. Sometimes You Need A Kick In The Butt
My best friend Jimmy’s little brother was a total bully. His name was Marcus and he loved to torment me. I tried to block a lot of my time in high school out but there was a lot of name-calling and being beaten up. The worst thing happened when he stole my clothes after swimming during PE and I was forced to walk around school all day in just my swim trunks.
Despite Marcus’ bullying, Jimmy and I stayed very close throughout high school and even enlisted in the Marines together after graduation.
A few years later, Jimmy is killed in combat trying to defend a US Navy base overseas. I flew back home to the states with his body. At the funeral, his little brother Marcus was nowhere to be found.
I learned from some of his family members that he was living in the rough part of town and made friends with unsavory characters. I got his address and busted down his door. I found Marcus and read him the riot act. I then physically picked him up and stuffed him in my trunk so I could drive him to Jimmy’s grave.
I forced him out of the car and took him to Jimmy’s grave so he could pay his respects. I also had some other choice words for him. I told him that this was not what Jimmy would’ve wanted for him and that he needed to turn his life around.
On the two year anniversary of Jimmy’s passing, I went to visit his grave to lay some flowers and say a few words. Marcus was already there doing the same thing. He told me that he spent the last two years getting sober and was back on his feat.
We went out for dinner after and he asked me if I could put him in touch with a Marines recruiter because he wanted to follow in his brother’s footsteps.
I was so proud of him and I know that Jimmy would’ve been too.
25. I Beat Up My Teacher
My dad is a mountain of a man. We’re talking 6’6”+ and well over 300 pounds. I used to get bullied in school by the other girls so he told me a story from his youth to make me feel better.
My dad had always been chubby ever since he was a little kid. In high school, he was a natural fit for the football team due to his height and weight. He was a star offensive lineman. But his true love was basketball. He tried out for the JV team as a freshman but didn’t make it.
The English teacher also coached the basketball team and he told my dad that he was too heavy to be on the team. My dad really took his message to heart and trained really hard over the summer to improve his cardio and shed some extra pounds.
It’s now my dad’s sophomore year and he happens to be put into the English class that is taught by the basketball coach. My dad was a really good student so he thought that this would be a really good opportunity to also impress the teacher with his reading and writing skills. He was sure that he would get an A in the class.
This, unfortunately, was wishful thinking. The teacher had the gall to actually make fun of my father’s weight in front of the entire class and even called him mean names. Mind you, this is an adult teacher making fun of a teenage student. My dad was the type to play it cool so he never fired back or reported the teacher.
Luckily, a new coach was hired that year and my dad ended up making the team his sophomore through senior year.
A year after graduating college, my dad was working part-time at a nightclub to make some extra money. It was a random Thursday evening when guess who walks in.
Yup, it was his sophomore English teacher. My dad thought that he was just going to be professional and do his job. Basically just ignore the guy. That was until the teacher kept making jokes about my dad’s weight. He also said that my dad didn’t have the guts to stand up for himself.
This makes my dad upset so he decides to use his position as a bouncer to his advantage. He tells his English teacher that he’s had too much to drink and begins to escort him out of the nightclub. The teacher protests saying that he’s only had 2 drinks max.
My dad has him by the collar and insists that he’s being too rowdy and needs to leave the club ASAP.
He then decides to throw a punch at my dad. Since he threw the first punch it gave my dad license to defend himself. He beat the crap out of that guy. Afterwards, he told him, “That is for all the kids that you’ve ever belittled or made fun of. I hope you’ve learned your lesson.”
That’s probably my favorite story from my dad’s younger days. I hope you all learned a lesson from the story. Don’t be mean!
26. I’m Going To Leave You The Biggest Tip Possible
I went to boarding school during my high school years and to say that I was an ugly duckling would be an understatement. I had braces, was barely five feet tall and had the body and look of a teenage boy.
With no friends, I tried my best to keep a low profile to avoid attracting attention to myself.
Unfortunately, some of the popular junior and senior girls noticed me and began to make my life miserable. They started by making nasty remarks about my appearance but it eventually turned into them physically attacking me.
There was this one girl that stood out. For some reason, she just really loved to pick on me and made a point to do it even when her friends didn’t want to participate. She’d often find me at school and isolate me 1:1 before making fun of me or pushing me up against the lockers.
I’d plot ways in which I could get my revenge and get her back. I’d almost always go through with it but then something would stop me and I’d lose my nerve. I didn’t want to jeopardize my place at the school or have anything go on my record that could affect college admissions.
I guess I was just going to face her wrath until she graduated.
About a decade and half has passed since high school and I’ve now grown into my body. I’m now six feet tall and am considered quite attractive by the general public. I had a dinner meeting with some business associates at a local steakhouse when guess who walks up to our table.
The waitress looked like she had really unhealthy hair, bad skin and clothing that was a couple sizes too small. Even though she looked nothing like she did before, I knew who this was. This was my high school bully.
She had her notepad and pen out to take our order when our eyes met. We didn’t say anything to each other, but the glance we shared told volumes. I was now a popular attractive girl and she was down in the dumps.
I finally had my revenge. I’m happy I waited a decade to get it.
I told her that I remembered her and was glad to see that she was doing well. The meal went incredibly well and I ended up closing the deal over dessert. I was in a generous mood so I gave a 100% tip to help her out.
I’ve never seen her again since dinner, but now I feel happy inside whenever I think about her.
27. I’m Finally Going To Stand Up For Myself
In middle school, there was this bully who was really tiny. I’m talking like five feet nothing. Granted, at the time, I was only four feet ten inches tall so to me this guy was a giant.
He wouldn’t bully me everyday but he would always find a way to ruin my week with some random jerkish behavior.
It’s now after college and I’ve shot up to six feet tall and am over 170 pounds. I also wear contact lenses and no longer have dorky glasses. I finally feel content and happy with the direction that my life is taking. I haven’t thought about this guy in nearly a decade when I see him dining alone in a restaurant that I’m eating at with my girlfriend.
I’m just about to finish my meal, and I can see by the mozzarella sticks that he’s eating that his meal is just starting. I settle my bill and head over to his table to greet him. He looks me over and I can tell that he recognizes me.
I move my hand towards his plate and take one of his mozzarella sticks and calmly eat it. I then told him that it was nice to see him before I walked away. The patrons at the restaurant must’ve thought that I was crazy.
It was so worth it. I wish you all could have seen the look on his face.
28. Even My Bully Didn’t Deserve That
My family moved from Florida to California just as I was about to start junior high. As you can imagine, there was an adjustment period as I was unfamiliar with the area and had absolutely no friends. After a couple of months, I had started to settle in and was getting good grades along with forming some friendships. Things changed when I caught the eye of this one bully. He’d been held back a couple of times so he was 15 instead of being 12/13 like most of my other classmates were.
He was your garden variety bully, there wasn’t anything special about him. He would stuff boys into lockes and tease girls about their insecurities. He also had a group of followers who would just egg him on.
Apparently, it was a thing in California to challenge people to a fight if they didn’t like you. When he found out that I was from Florida he decided to challenge me. I still don’t know what he had against Floridians.
I didn’t really know what was going on and I didn’t think people actually fought so I accepted his challenge.
On Friday, after school, we all gathered in the park across the street where a very real fight went down. Honestly, I didn’t get hurt too bad. Just some bumps and bruises. If anything, my ego had shattered.
The rest of the time in middle school, I was known as the kid who got beat up. Unfortunately, that nickname stuck through high school.
I was visiting town in between my sophomore and junior years of college when I decided to accompany my dad on some errands. We went to the local Lowe’s to pick up some gardening equipment for a backyard project we were working on. That’s when I spotted my bully working in the outdoor gardening section. There is a noticeable scar running along the back of his head, and it looks really bad.
He gets really happy when he sees me and says, “Hey I think we went to school together. We must’ve been friends?” He then helps me with my cart of stuff and he tells me that he got into a massive car wreck right after high school.
He had to have nearly a dozen surgeries and has permanent brain damage. I could tell that he wasn’t fully there anymore.
He helped me lift the heavy stuff into my car and then he shook my hand and smiled at me. He told me to visit anytime as he enjoyed the company.
I reevaluated how I felt about him. I had hated him for so long because of what he did to me and the subsequent bullying that ensued. I realized that I needed to have more empathy and compassion and felt horrible about the state he was in now. I decided that anytime I was back in town that I was going to pick up seeds so I could say hi.
29. Sometimes You Have To Help Karma Along
I’m normally an advocate of being the bigger person, but in this instance I couldn’t help it.
I used to be a bouncer at a local pub after college, and I saw the person who used to bully me enter the pub. While this guy didn’t physically harm me, he made my life in school miserable. He would call me names of all sorts and always play mean practical jokes on me.
I knew that he most likely brought his car here because this pub was out of the way and a lot of taxis and ubers didn’t like to come here. It was also notoriously tricky to find a good parking spot because there were a ton of tow-away zones. Most people usually disregarded the signs because no one ever really got towed.
Since I was feeling particularly vengeful, I found his car which happened to be in a tow-away spot and called the towing company to come pick it up. He had no idea this was going on, because he was still inside the pub.
He spent about two hours inside, before he decided to step out for a smoke break. It was raining really hard that night (what do you expect, it's the UK) and the ground was quite slick. After he finished up he was on his way back up the steps to reenter the pub. I stood in his way blocking the door and he tried to shove his way past me.
I let him know that I found his behavior aggressive and that he wouldn’t be allowed back inside. He told me that he just needed to step in for a second, because he left his car keys on one of the tables. I replied that maybe if he didn’t try to push me out of the way I would’ve considered getting them for him.
This got him upset and he lunged forward and tried to punch me in the face. Remember how I mentioned that the ground was real slick. Well, he ended up losing his balance and falling on the cold hard ground.
There happened to be a few coppers who had stopped by for a quick drink and smoke who witnessed the whole incident unfold. They called one of their friends who was patrolling the area to take this guy to the station until the morning so he could sober up.
I felt awesome about the whole thing. I know what you all must be thinking. I should’ve just been the bigger person. Unfortunately, my high school memories had all come flooding back when I saw him and I was determined to have my vengeance. I couldn’t wait till he was released in the morning. He was going to come back to find out that his car was gone.
I was content, we were finally even.
30. High School Was 5 Years Ago: Grow Up!
I underwent a lot of bullying during middle school and ended up going to a private high school so I didn’t really keep in touch with many of my middle school classmates.
I’m now 25, and I’m visiting home with my fiance. My fiance and my two siblings are at the mall with me looking for a gift for my mom since her birthday is coming up. We were browsing Macy’s when my siblings said that they wanted some ice cream. My fiance decided to take the two of them to get some while I continued to shop.
I noticed a couple of racks over, a girl that I used to go to middle school with. We weren’t friendly or anything, but I just filed away seeing her in my brain. She then walks up to me and seems to want to make friendly small talk. After asking how I was doing and how it was so nice to see me, she immediately turned nasty.
She says that of course she’d find me here alone and that I still looked like the same loser back from middle school. I am stunned into silence.
To put things in perspective, I haven’t seen this girl in well over a decade and it’s not like we had any interactions in middle school. Any opinion she has of me is just based on my reputation back in middle school.
I replied to her, “We’re grown-ups now so maybe you should try acting like one because you’re embarrassing yourself.” I wanted to say more, but her dropped jaw and blank expression were good enough for me. I turned my back on her and walked away with my head held high.
Hopefully, she takes my message to heart.
31. Be Careful Who You Ask For
There was this guy in my high school who wanted to pick fights with everyone. He always wanted to play the victim and attempt to get people in trouble because he found it amusing. I always would try to avoid him because I didn’t want to fall on the wrong end of one of his schemes. Unfortunately, he tried to make it look like I planted drugs in his locker. I was able to wriggle my way out of trouble, but I was super annoyed and upset.
Towards the middle of senior year, college acceptances are starting to come out. I end up getting accepted into Johns Hopkins which had been my #1 choice since I was a little boy. This guy would constantly tell me that I had no shot of getting in so it felt nice to prove her wrong.
He ended up getting rejected from his top three choices and would constantly complain how the system was rigged against him.
I got a degree in hospitality management and moved back to my hometown in order to be closer to my family. I ended up getting a job as general manager at one of the nicer restaurants in town.
One day, he entered the restaurant with a group of his coworkers and he started to laugh because he saw me bussing tables and taking orders. He asked me where the manager was because he wanted to complain about my behavior even though I hadn’t interacted with him. I was giddy with excitement to answer his question.
I say, “I am the manager. What can I help you with?”
His jaw completely drops, and his face turns as white as a ghost. I learned that he works as a barista in the local coffee shop and barely makes minimum wage.
He still occasionally visits the restaurant since the food is phenomenal, but I always have a coworker of mine handle his table. I usually will even take a break when he comes, because I never want to be accused of doing something to any of his food.
It felt good knowing that all my hard work had paid off!
32. I Guess We All Grow Up At Some Point
My husband decided to take me to dinner to celebrate the fact that we had just bought a house together. We went to a fancy steakhouse that we both really wanted to try. I noticed that our waitress was someone who used to bully me back in high school. I didn’t even need to look twice, I was 100% sure that it was her.
I looked way different than when I did in high school and I’m sure that’s why she didn’t recognize me. Plus, since this was a fancy restaurant, the lights were rather dim. I decided to just treat her like I would any other server.
The bill finally arrived, and I was torn about how I should tip her. Normally, I was a really generous tipper at well over 20%. Her service was excellent, but I also wanted to get some revenge for how she treated me in the past.
I realized that I’m an adult now, and there was no need to be childish. I was going to leave her a 25% tip. However, I did decide to leave her a little handwritten note. I wrote, I want to believe that people do really change after high school, and I wrote the year of our graduating class.
She found me on Facebook the next day and immediately sent me a friend request. She told me that she knew who I was, but I looked so happy that she didn’t want to disturb my peace by bringing up any old memories.
She also apologized for her previous behavior and said that she was a crappy person back in high school who used to project her insecurities on other people by bullying them.
Wow, I thought. She had really grown up, and I was happy for her.
33. I’m Gonna Grow From This And Get Better
There was this kid at school who was absolutely horrific to my friends and I. My friends and I were all nerdy and quiet kids who just wanted to be left alone.
Unfortunately, he viewed us as the perfect prey for those very reasons. We were extremely unlikely to ever take a stand and fight back. He caused me and my friend group to be the lowest of the low throughout schools. No one wanted to interact with us for fear that our social status would rub off on them. He was the worst kind of bully. He would physically harm us as well as verbally abuse us any chance he got.
To make matters worse, my home life was less than stellar. My father had a similar personality and also had the tendency to get violent. These events shaped who I would eventually become. I hated people who preyed on the weak and defenseless and I wanted to become their protector.
Fast forward to the future, and I’m now in my mid-20s and working at a bank. It’s a slow Monday morning when guess who walks in: it’s none other than my childhood tormentor. He’s clearly down on his luck based on his appearance and is looking for a loan. I do a check on him (standard for anyone who is looking for a loan) and I find out that he has an extensive police record. Convictions for assault, possession and burglary. On top of this, he also had no home address.
Now, this guy should definitely not have been in this position. We all went to a private school and grew up with a good amount of money. It’s clear that he just made a lot of bad decisions and took zero accountability for his actions. Now he wanted a loan from our bank so we could help bail him out. He told me that this was his last chance, because all the other banks in town rejected his loan application.
I was 1000% professional with him and told him that we would be unable to give him a loan at this time due to his prior history. This wasn’t me trying to get back at him. With his kind of track record there is no way that I could give him a loan.
Even though I recognized him immediately, I could tell that he had no idea who I was. It’s nice to see that all his poor decision making finally caught up with him. Maybe this is the wake up call he needs to get his life back on track.
