I don’t know if this is something people say in other countries, but in my country, there’s this common cliché or “wisdom” where adults will assure you that the people who picked on you in environments like school will universally develop lives of hardship later on, one way or another getting into mayhem.
I asked my mother one day what happened to all those people growing up. I can sense she may have been sugar coating it, but she said something along the lines of “well, I waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and became a teacher, and waited some more, and finally watched as my bullies had to go into retirement five years late, yay” (okay, not really like that, but it might as well have been).
Yeah, common theme in my experience that what we hope for is never “that” set in stone. No matter where in the community (or even long-distance communicating) you knew them from, based on life, how much approximate correspondence do you associate with that mindset in the first paragraph?
They’re all very successful now. This whole notion that bullies and assholes would be bagging my groceries and asking me “you want fries with that” in adulthood is BS.
I myself am somewhere in the middle on this. All my classmates were basically this to me because the school allowed it, then when time came to get a job, they were so used to the school environment which disfavored me at their benefit that they ran into a speed bump and ended up feuding with each other. By a rare good stroke of luck, this means I’m my employer’s favorite.
There may be one exception. A kid in the year above me who I didn’t personally know but looked like one of the many people that bullied me was killed on a night out when he tried to break up a fight.
It made national news, but mainly because it led to an underage drinking scandal where it turned out loads of pubs weren’t checking ID. He was only 17.