When People Who Hurt You Try To Reconnect

Or, why I have absolutely zero interest in hearing from people again.

99 percent of the time, I kinda relish the joy that comes with having a little slice of internet fame. (A very little slice.) Once in a blue, I’ll meet someone who reads my content in passing. It’s cool.

Unfortunately, people tend to be easy to find when they have article after article online with their byline. Yep, that means that a lot of people who I never wanted to hear from again decided to crawl out of the woodwork.

Ugh, can they NOT?

I can’t help but ask why this happens. It’s a phenomenon most people will experience at least once. Person A rejected you, abused you, hurt you, or ghosted at the worst possible time…Then they just try to reach out.

Like nothing happened.

I don’t think I’m alone when I say that this stuff gets on my nerves. I’m the type of person who, if I wrong someone, will apologize (if it’s timely). If I feel I really hurt them, I avoid them because it can open up old wounds. Then, I try to do better and be better.

Why? Because I realize that most people wouldn’t want to reopen old wounds. The best thing you can do, if you hurt someone, is to learn your lesson and make sure it doesn’t happen again. Or at least, that’s what I do.

Others? Well, it seems like there are a couple of running themes, judging from the recent interactions I’ve had.

Most seem to want to hurt you or use you again.

I had not one, but two ex flings who sexually abused me reach out to me. One even had the audacity to comment on my Instagram complimenting my husband. Why? Because they saw I modeled and that my husband and I had an open relationship at the time.

Welp, I guess that means abusive creeps think they’re entitled to fuck me!

I confronted one who pretended to be my friend so he’d get laid. I told him that his behavior was cruel and that he didn’t care that he contributed to me disassociating from reality. He called me a “means to an end,” an attention whore, a lunatic, and made sure to tell me that I will never matter to anyone.

Honestly, if people looked up the phrase “sex-obsessed predator who has no problem manipulating to get sex ego tokens,” his picture would be there. A lot of people like him contact victims because they like being in control or adding torment to their lives.

The other one? I straight up told him that he’s a serial rapist for what he did. Honestly, I don’t know how he sleeps at night, but that’s not on me to figure out. With both of them, I told them that if they talk to me again, I’m going to call the police.

Call me cynical and bitter, but I don’t believe that most people change. I’ve seen people claim they changed, only to slide back into the same shitty treatment they gave me earlier. That’s why I believe this is the go-to reason for most people crawling out of the woodwork.

I’m sure a handful want to apologize.

Yes, I’m sure that there are a couple of good eggs who actually feel bad about their behavior in the past. They may actually want to apologize because they developed as a person. But…I personally have never seen this in a person before.

More often than not, people who reach out to people they harmed aren’t actually doing this for the victim’s benefit. They just want to hear that they’ve been forgiven, that they’re a good person, etc.

A real apology is followed by action, whether it’s talking about what led you to be a complete dick so others avoid it, or by donating to an organization. It does SOMETHING. Most people don’t do real apologies.

Moreover, those who apologize need to realize that the person on the other end might not ever want to reconnect. In the case of bullying and sexual abuse, those people may have decided that they wanted to leave that behind them.

Some think that because enough time has passed, you’ll forget and forgive what they did.

I think this is the case with a bunch of college and high school colleagues who bullied me rejected me or treated me like a dirty little secret. (Hint: I don’t forget and personally, I leave forgiveness to deities.)

Personally, I see no reason to believe these people have any good intentions. They may want to reconnect, but I’d always be left asking why. I’d also be left asking why they didn’t apologize for what they did, and why they think I want to be around them.

Whether people realize it or not, there is a certain timeframe where someone’s help and presence are meaningful. After that period of time, trying to establish a connection is a lot like giving someone the toy they always wanted as a kid when they turn 40.

At that point, having this person around is kind of awkward and meaningless. Like, okay, cool, I guess. This has no meaning to me anymore, but whatever. I don’t know what to tell people who try this later on. Why are you shocked when the reception is lukewarm at best?

You’re doing well for yourself and they want a slice of that pie.

You know, I have my problems, but I’m doing a lot better than plenty of others. Currently, I live in one of the most expensive counties in America. I make enough to financially support myself and my husband. I have a food magazine I’m working to launch a solid copy of.

Oh, and yeah, I also make a living in one of the hardest fields to actually make a living in. And despite often dealing with mental illness up the wazoo, I also still have a decent relationship with my DJ husband, get invited to attend concerts across the country, and model for magazines.

The thing is, I realize that a lot of the people who I walked away from or who walked away from me is that they are not doing well. Or more succinctly put, they are not doing as well as me. In some cases, they are doing better but have no “glitterati” vibes to their world.

So what do these people do? Well, here’s my guess, though I might be wrong. They see my ass on Instagram and decide, “Hey! I can have this shiny person who I treated like shit to make me look better.”

What’s sad here is that I’m not really that famous. Hell, I kinda suck when it comes to looking Insta-worthy. I’m kinda chubby too. The fact that they seem to be interested in getting cozy all of a sudden usually strikes me as them trying to have a living curio in their cabinet.

A lot of them seem to be acutely unaware of how fucked their behavior is.

When I’m not friendly to people after they treated me poorly, they always seem to be a bit shocked. Or just confused. They give me this cat’s look and are like, “What did I do?”

I’ll rattle off a laundry list of grievances, including not inviting me anywhere, acting like they’re embarrassed to be seen with me, calling me a whore behind my back, or whatever they did.

Generally speaking, I don’t think most people are stupid enough to not know when they’re doing something hurtful. They’re smarter than that. And if I think they don’t know, I’ll explain.

From there, it’s generally ghosting from me and a request not to come back into my life. I realize they may have changed, and that’s fine, but that doesn’t mean I have to welcome them back into my life.

Regardless of why they are coming back, I don’t suggest that anyone bother with them.

I’ve written about this in the world of love before, but it holds true for the vast majority of relationships that resulted in you getting hurt. Once people have shown you that they’re shitty, let them leave.

After a certain point in life, we all tend to have our limits for bullshit fill up. We wake up, and are like, “Okay, enough is enough. I never did anything to deserve this.”

That’s usually when friendship sever.

Personally, a lot of the people who finally came around were people who, at one point, I would have killed for them to notice me. It doesn’t feel as good as I thought it would. It just made me feel even angrier that they were so terrible to me when I needed them.

Even if they had good intentions this time around, I don’t want to fuck around and find out. It’s, as the Italians say, cavoli riscaldati.