Not really 'bad', more of an awkward thing. We just received an e-mail from a former classmate who quit over a year ago, which was basically an e-mail full of blatant fingerpointing on how we, in his view, bullied him and treated as dirt. It was such a rage-fueled (and error-riddled e-mail but we'll cut him some slack for that) that I could really only reply with
But the reason I'm sharing it is because I'm really puzzled by a number of things; why now? Why send it not to us in, say, lol an e-mail or whatsapp sent to us directly, but through our faculty coordinator? And what does he want? Does he want a dishonest apology? Because believe me, nobody's about to give him an honest apology. Does he want to sue us? Lol, this is the Netherlands, not America. Sorry, that may come across as a cheap jab but there's a serious point I'm trying to illustrate; lawsuits of these nature are very rare here, so him looking for material gain is not impossible, but highly unlikely. So is it really just a frustrated rant he is too scared to send to us directly, fearing he'll become more of a laughing stock? Which, in all honestly, he is succeeding in greatly. Becoming a laughing stock.
And then the thing that puzzles me the most; what "should" we do with it? We, being mostly me and my classmates, but also; what should the school's board do? What does he expect any of us to do?
Now, let's be fair; he didn't have it easy. But honestly, none of us have or had. Everybody in class is treated equally, and equally means pretty shit. The difference is, the rest of us have a very thick skin. And while there have been numerous real fights, most of the shitty comments have been in good (though sometimes distasteful) humour of no worse level than 'Hey douchebag, we're grabbing a drink and you're coming whether you like it or not.' Of course, the board's picked up on this and we have sat down a number of times, trying to resolve petty fights and urging us to settle down on the dark humour. And we did. This guy's wish to be treated equally (which he already was but didn't realize because he couldn't handle it) resulted in him being treated differently; better. Hey, we're not spawns of Satan. If you feel offended, we'll tone down offending comments. Buuut paradise didn't last long.
I'll be speaking mostly for myself here, but through various (actually a tiresome amount of) conversations I've had I know my opinion reflects the majority of my class'. He was a dick. The purpose of this post is not to make him look bad, but damn did I dislike that guy. I could make a whole list of his "wrong-doings" but it doesn't really matter; of all the times I honestly and purposefully treated him badly, it was a mere reaction to his own doings. And there haven't been many instances of that, because when I think someone's being a dick, I usually just ignore it because I don't consider it worth my time. Yeah, I'm a real angelic jesus right there, turning the other cheek. But it's really just less aggrevating and consuming than actually going against it. Choose your battles wisely, as some wise internet buddhist once said.
Buuuuut here's the tricky part. Thought the above was already tricky? Nah. He's missing an arm. A birth-defect. And while me and - as far as they've told me, of course - my classmates really couldn't care any less about his physical malfunction, it has become his major personal scapegoat. Someone made a mean comment? Must be because I'm missing an arm. Got left out of the party? Yeah, that's because of my missing arm. It's infuriating. I realize he may have gotten self-esteem issues because of past events involving his arm - heck, who am I kidding, he has some MAJOR issues, not only self-esteem, and I'm pretty sure you can find past bullyings in regards to his arm at the root of it. But we didn't bully him because of his arm. In fact, I'll go as far as argue we never bullied him - it wasn't ever my intention at least. But say that him experiencing our social interactions as bullying makes it valid evidence disregarding our side of the story or intentions; it still wasn't because of his fucking arm. Him hiding behind his physical defect enables him to completely ignore the real problem; he's just a plain dick. Nothing more, nothing less.
Sooo what would you do when a dick writes a rant to you - indirectly even - a year overdue? Let's be honest, it's just going to get ignored - but what "should" you do? What would you do?
By all means, go ahead and pick this apart. Play devil's advocate (or God's advocate if that's your stance on all this). I'm just honestly puzzled at what he intents to accomplish with this all.