A Student Stands Up to Her Former Bully – by Ditching Him on a Date
@anacalderone
12/06/2014 AT 05:00 PM EST
The best revenge is looking great, right? Well, that's only part of the story in Louisa Manning's case.
The 22-year-old student at Oxford University - once ridiculed for her weight and unibrow and called a 'manbeast' - got the chance to teach one of her bullies a lesson eight years after the fact.
'I was at a ball last Friday and he was there,' Manning tells PEOPLE. 'We spoke on Facebook afterward and he asked me on a date.'
But instead of meeting him at the restaurant as planned, Manning asked the waitress to give him a photo of her as a young girl with a handwritten letter on the back.
'Remember year 8, when I was fat and you made fun of my weight? No? I do,' she wrote. 'I spent the following three years eating less than an apple a day. So I've decided to skip dinner.'
Her letter continues: 'Remember the monobrow you mocked? The hairy legs you were disgusted by?' She refers to the photo of her younger self: 'Next time you think of me, picture the girl in this photo, because she's the one who just stood you up.'
Manning says reliving those years is not something she wants to do.
'Being bullied was horrible,' she says. 'I try to block it out most of the time.'
But one positive thing did come out of her experience - an apology from the bully:
'I can't change who I was 8 years ago, and I won't insult your intelligence by pretending that it didn't happen, but I hope you believe me when I say I'm a completely different person now,' the bully wrote to Manning on Facebook. 'I can only apologize and wish you the very best.'
Even so, Manning says she doesn't plan to go on a real date with him anytime soon.
'I'm really happy he apologized,' she says. 'I just feel it's too little, too late.'
Post a Comment for "A Student Stands Up to Her Former Bully – by Ditching Him on a Date"