Forgive yourself. That's all you need to do.

mrsconn23

Dear Prudence,

While in high school, I was hiding a pretty tumultuous home life, including homelessness and living out of my car. As a result, I was pretty shy in big groups, and now that I think back, quite rude to potential new friends—think showing up at small house parties and completely ignoring the host or lying to people who wanted to be closer. I realize this was a long time ago, but as my high school reunion comes up, I feel compelled to explain myself and apologize for my behavior. I’m sure it’s not as memorable as I think, but I genuinely feel guilty about people I may have made such a horrible impression on. I know now that there is no excuse for being such a rude person, and I feel bad. Would it be out of line to re-introduce myself with an apology and explanation, or should I just pretend like it never happened?

—Explanations Owed

banana468

The dawn of social media tells me that should you ever feel compelled to tell the truth you can do it without a complete reintroduction. 

If there are any friends that you actually feel like you connected to years ago reach out to them.   If not, forgive that you were an adolescent and you grew up and this was a coping mechanism.  

mrsconn23

People forget that most people are self-absorbed in HS (not that many adults are much better, but I digress). As self-conscious as LW feels about their previous behavior, there's probably things from HS that people think they somehow fucked up forever that no one has thought about again. 

Maybe people thought LW was quirky or shy? Maybe they thought they were an asshole?  Maybe there's nothing LW can say to people to change other people's opinion of them, good or bad?

The thing is, it was 10 years ago.  I have a hard time remember 10 months or days ago most days, so I bet no one has thought much of LW since. 

charlotte989875

I’d say if there was someone you specifically feel you hurt by doing something concrete then I think it’s never too late for an apology. 

But general struggles and working through shit as a teenager? You don’t have to apologize for that. I think most people look back at things they would have done differently but that doesn’t mean you have to tell people you’re not close to anything about your personal experience unless you really want to. 

downtondiva

Nearly all teenagers have some sort of crap they are dealing with that makes them not so nice to be around at least some of the time. They don't all feel the need to apologize for that years later. You had worse things to deal with than most, and it's totally understandable if you weren't exactly warm and fuzzy with your classmates. Stop being so hard on yourself.

If you want to attend the reunion, then do so. Just be friendly to everyone you encounter, and I'm sure nobody will remember or care that you weren't the friendliest back in high school, so long as you never bullied anyone (which it doesn't sound like you did). I don't think you need to apologize for anything at this point.

MissKittyDanger

Honestly, since it was H.S I wouldn't bother. HOWEVER if you LW runs into these people now - whether it's on social media or whatever - you can just be like "hey, I was going thru a lot of shit in h.s so I just wanna apologize if I was rude" or something.

climbingsingle

I've actually been on both sides of this. And I will say, it felt good to express myself as an adult to people that I felt I had treated badly because of my own insecurities. And I did feel a weight lifted. 

I also had a friend from HS apologize to me for something that happened many years prior, and expressed that she wished that she had been a better friend. And while I told her it was not necessary to apologize, it felt nice to hear.