To fair, he's not saying he wants to go to the reunion with a baseball bat. Why should he make an effort to meet them when they were all callous jerks? Furthermore, a perceptive ex-classmate might have thought of the fact that the author had a really tough time, and said something to the effect of an apology. Given that that clearly wasn't the case, I'm 100% with the author: fuck 'em. There's plenty of friendly people in the world. Why try re-making friends with a bunch of jerks? Life is too short...

I totally agree. Life is too short to waste time with people who've treated you badly.

It's likely that some of the same high-school administrators are now failing to protect geeks in the same or a different high school today. Maybe he should make an effort to generate some accountability for administrators for allowing bullying.

I got over my anger about high school, but there is no way I would buy a plane ticket to visit those jerks.

I moved on from my hellish HS life and also would rather not re-visit that past.

I had a similar experience, though not as bad. And Junior High was worse than High School, but it was for the most part the same group of kids.

You don't forget it, ever.

Have you ever had your fingers broken by someone? Unless you're a Buddhist monk, I think you'd be hard pressed to forgive that and multiple similar transgressions.

I remember a bully that nearly tore my head off during one of his "roid rage" incidents in high school. In his high school yearbook, he said his goal was to become a state trooper.

Reading it, I literally shuddered at the thought of being pulled over in the middle of nowhere, PA, by this bully I had locked horns with. They would never find my body.

Guy friended me on facebook last year. Being an Air Force MP has apparently mellowed him. Also, me being a defense contractor doesn't seem so geeky to him. The fact that I also did 8 months of 5 days/week body building and went from the FTA's description to "normal looking" didn't hurt either.

I don't know what the psychology of picking on someone different that you is all about, but once everyone grows up, its time to get past it. I don't have any fears of the state trooper (former bully) killing me anymore. He probably doesn't even remember why I pissed him off so much.

Granted, it never came to blows, because his friends kept stopping him from pounding my face into the concrete at school, and I never went out anywhere where I'd run into "cool kids".

My point is that while this guy was definitely persecuted in high school, its likely the people aren't toxic anymore. Its been 25 years for them, too.

Not that it is important to this thread, but I had a few broken noses during my childhood.

I used to be fairly angry. But there came a time in my life when I was about 16 where I was happy, and it didn't really matter. Let it go and live well.

As a small side note, it troubles me seeing him push his kid so hard into Karate. It is still influencing his decisions and impacting his child's life now too. (not that Karate is bad, but the reasons are)

His reasons for the Karate seem perfectly acceptable to me, as long as his kids enjoy the activity. At that age, the activities kids participate in are almost totally driven by parental influence. He's making choices that are guided by the lessons in his own life. How could he act differently? Would you object if he made a point to teach his kids how to be social and interact positively with others just because he learned the lesson the hard way?

The anger, though, he should release if possible. If not, however, it seems pretty clear that he'll be able to go back to just avoiding the stimuli for another five or ten years.

Karate teaches a lot more than self defense, it also teaches self control and a whole bunch of social skills.

Chances are that his son is less likely to get into a fight because of going to karate classes than he would have otherwise been.

I'll second this. I studied karate as a child and it is one of my most cherished memories. In addition to the concepts of self defense and self control, it teaches respect. Respect for yourself and respect for others. I believe respect to be one thing most people in our current society are lacking.

How does the saying go? "Anger is punishing yourself for other people's mistakes".

The point being however that the only person that it affects is you.

You need to get over the anger to affect yourself. To hell with the fool that offended you.

I'm not sure if only Buddhist monks are enlightened enough for this. But I am sure all that anger is not good for him.