Teen got bullied for years by her 'best friend' — only to end up more popular than her bully in high school

Bullying is something that society is still struggling to eradicate from educational institutions. Whether it is physical abuse or passive acts of putting somebody down, tormenting someone in different ways can have some serious consequences. One person, u/Moist_Policy_71, turned to Reddit to recount how her former best friend turned on her in middle school and became a bully. Thankfully, the tables later turned once they reached high school.

"I was a very cringeworthy, dorky kid. A big reader, into sci-fi/fantasy, loved old movies and music. I was just generally too enthusiastic about the 'wrong' things. It didn't help that my family was too broke to keep up with trends and, to top it off, I was an undiagnosed little ADHD weirdo with uhh...not great social skills," the woman wrote. She then talked about how her longtime best friend suddenly decided not to be friends with her once they reached middle school. The best friend was too preoccupied with fitting in with others and saw the woman as a "liability."

"Instead of spurning me altogether, she'd let me tag along but began to bully the hell out of me regularly," she wrote. "Anytime I gushed about my interests, this girl would make a disgusted face, then pointedly look to other kids like, 'Ummm, ok. Weird,' for a cheap laugh. Sometimes, she'd begin taunting me in front of a whole classroom about not having any friends," she continued. The woman then talked about getting stood up as a joke, getting ditched and even getting dogpiled at sleepovers. "All the classics and all spearheaded by my former best friend (let's call her FBF). However, I simply did not have the self-esteem to stand up to or ditch her. I just took it. I thought I deserved it. Three to four years of this," she wrote.

Thankfully, things got better for the woman once she hit high school. "One of the girls my former best friend began to hang with had an older brother who was a member of the ~Cool Older Alt-Kid~ clique, so when he allowed us all to tag along with him to a local concert one night, we ended up being introduced to his friends," she explained. It was when the mean friend tried to ridicule her when she talked about a film. To the mean friend's surprise, the older girls "whirled around to exclaim" that they really loved the movie. "Within 10 minutes of arriving, I shifted from standing with my former friend group to the Cool Older Kid group. Turns out we had a lot in common and it felt incredible finally meeting people who shared my interests."

Just like that, the bully suddenly was reduced to being a nobody in high school. "I barely associated with my former bullies. I was too busy going to shows, playing D&D, thrifting, and meeting all sorts of new people at parties," the post read. The bully soon started taking an interest in things she used to ridicule her friend for. "It was a pretty nice lesson. Your sense of humor, taste in music, etc., might be considered cringe by one person, but they might make you stand out to another. It's all subjective. At the end of the day, though, being a nasty bully isn't gonna endear you to people," the woman concluded her post. 

A significant number of people responded to the situation in the comment section. "To be cool, you gotta not care about being cool. Which, of course, makes you cool. This is known as the geezers' paradox," wrote u/Charlie24601. "Be nice to the nerds. They'll be your boss one day," added u/Electrical-Web-7552. "My group of friends in high school was a bunch of nerds. Now, we're rich nerds," expressed u/Range-Shoddy.