This is a little weird...

[Chan790]

My HS classmate, the class bully (who never bullied me, he was just kind of scary because I once saw him beat someone unconscious.) just IMed me and apologized for bullying me in HS. We were football teammates, had one fistfight and I clearly won it.

Now he wants to have a heart-to-heart it seems? He seems to have become a nice guy but had a hard life. Anybody else had this experience?

[TK421]

1. I've never had any experience with bullies from high school or grade school

after I graduated, but it sure does sound like he has guilt, and it is strange why he would want to contact you now?

Perhaps your fists were the only meaningful mode of human contact he has experienced in his life, and he feels he just may have something else to learn from you? ( KICK HIS ASS AGAIN!!!!! )

just kidding...meet up, and see what it is he wants to tell you

[mitchum]

2. 6 years ago, Mrs mitchum received an apologetic message from one of the "mean girls"...

from her junior high. She visited when her son was graduating here in town. Mrs mitchum said that it wasn't really important to her (since it had been so long ago), but she could tell that it was important to the former mean girl.

[Chan790]

4. That's my impression here as well.

He's contrite but he never did anything to me. I did my best to make him feel {accepted in apology, heard, appreciated and feel good about reaching out}.

[nolabear]

3. Maybe all the bullying news lately made him want to make amends.

If so, good on him.

[MiddleFingerMom]

5. I went back to live in my small hometown (50,000 people) in Michigan...

.
.
.
.
.
...after being gone for 10 years. Two boys who were peers of mine in
high school were the EPITOME of rich spoiled arrogant privileged boys
who KNEW they could get away scott-free of anything less than murder --
and maybe even that.
.
. MONUMENTAL assholes!!!
.
.
.
I met them as young adults (between 25-30) and they were two of the
nicest men imaginable (their father -- extremely wealthy, having worked
himself up from janitor -- was probably one of the nicest men I will EVER
meet).
.
.
. So they grew -- despite the odds against that.
.
.
.

[JohnnyLib2]

6. Once, by a relative who was working a 12 step program.

Surprised me totally, but he is a better man now.

[petronius]

7. It happened to me once - not a bully, a quasi-girlfriend - and it was kind of odd

But I handled it like you did, said nice things to make them feel better. HS was so long ago that there aren't any lingering wounds, and only the vaguest memories, so it was pretty easy to offer some reassurance.

I have the impression that sometimes when people have a life-changing experience of some sort, they reexamine everything they ever did, no matter how far back in time...

[Kat45]

8. I wonder if he's doing a 12-step program

And on the step where he's supposed to apologize to everyone he's wronged.

[GreenPartyVoter]

11. Could be.

[meow2u3]

9. He sounds like someone who acted out of ignorance

Either that, or he's a bully who couldn't bully you because you stood up to him. It seems as if he was corrupted from his childhood and taught that bullying was the right thing.

It takes (intestinal or testicular) fortitude for a guy to admit he has been a bully; however, it takes 10 times the courage for him to go out of his way to amend his bullying ways. If what you're telling us is true, this guy sounds like more of a man now than he was as a teenager.

[rurallib]

10. I had one of the so-called elite

call me about 10 years out of HS. Wanted to get together talk old times.
I told him that you and your crowd had no time for me back then, I have no time for you and hung up.
Think he was trying to get help or money for some alumni thing.
I left HS at 17 and never looked back.

[gratuitous]

12. Tell him you'll meet him . . . after school

Then organize four or five of your biggest, meanest friends and whomp the snot out of him.

Or you could agree to meet him, have a couple of beers, catch up on things that have happened to each of you since those lazy, crazy, hazy days, and wish him well in the future.

[applegrove]

13. People grow up often. But if you still have a bad feeling about this person tell him no but wish him

well. Life is too short.