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r/amitheasshole • Posted by u/Alrakis 9 hours ago
AITA for being “obsessed” with my childhood nemesis years after we left school?
There is a lot of backstory here, but I’ll attempt to keep it as succinct as I can. I have changed some details for the sake of anonymity but let me know if anything is confusing.
I [24M] attended a small boarding school in the UK. There was a boy in my year, a couple of months younger than me, who had a slightly strange upbringing, but I didn’t know that at the time. He and his parents were famous at our school, but he grew up unaware of this. We had a misunderstanding during our first meeting and were subsequently placed in opposing school houses. We developed an intense rivalry, and he became my nemesis.
Because of his parents' fame, he was immediately the more popular child, mostly because other students were too nervous to really get to know him. Our school had house points and sporting events, as do many British schools, but most of the teachers were incredibly biased against my house, so I never got a chance to celebrate my own achievements. Additionally, he received a number of house points for arbitrary extra-curricular activities that other students did not get the opportunity to complete.
We played the same position in sports, to similar levels of skill, but our matches were often cancelled due to weather, acts of gods, or his equipment being confiscated, so we never had a true chance to compete without interference.
In our sixth year I was doing an extra-curricular project for an external employer (which turned out to be an incredibly toxic work environment, but I digress), and he was incredibly suspicious about it. He would pop up out of nowhere to ask me about it, as if he was following me. It turned out he had a tracker on me the whole time, which makes complete sense. I would have done the same to him.
He didn’t return to our school for his final year, because he did vocational work experience instead, depriving us of the chance to settle our rivalry once and for all. I didn’t get any closure on the relationship.
My friend [25F] told me recently that our dynamic was "weird back then" and that "it’s even weirder" that I still think about him today. I don’t think our dynamic was strange; I believe it was normal for the conditions we were in. If anything, it made me cooler, since he was a famous student and I interacted with him more than most. She argued that I talk about him all the time, but I believe the amount I talk about him is reasonable, given my point above about lack of closure. AITA?
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AdultierAdult • 9 hours ago
YTA. It sounds like you peaked in high school. Also, no one else has a nemesis. I would bet anything that this kid did not even notice you, and is definitely not still thinking about you.
haveifinished • 9 hours ago
yta dude… your language is really sketchy, you said you had a ‘misunderstanding’ and that teachers were ‘biased’ against you… might want to look back on your actions if that keeps happening…
CelsiusFarenheit • 9 hours ago
YTA. “if anything it made me cooler…” This is the least cool thing I’ve ever heard.
MissHoneyIsTheGOAT • 7 hours ago
INFO: Why do you think the teachers were biased against just your house? Speaking as a teacher, that sounds very unlikely.
Alrakis 🎤 • 7 hours ago
The main reason is that several decades before our time, there was a student in my house who later turned out to be a serial killer. It was a big part of our school’s history and raised a lot of questions around the culture of our house. The administration carried forward this attitude into the present day.
haveifinished • 7 hours ago
lol that makes no sense… why would the teachers care about something that happened so long ago…
Alrakis 🎤 • 7 hours ago
Well, for most of the pupils in my house, our parents worked with him while he was a criminal, so I believe the teachers were concerned that we were part of the crime ring too. It was really only our Head of House who put effort into trying to separate the house points issue (which is the main issue I’m asking about here) from the potential crimes.
MissHoneyIsTheGOAT • 5 hours ago
OP, you’ve buried the lede here. If your families were all involved in crime then your house points thing is just the tip of the iceberg. You should include this in the OP because it really changes the context.
Alrakis 🎤 • 5 hours ago
I made this perfectly clear in my post, my question is solely about our unresolved childhood competition. The crime issue was resolved separately (also by my nemesis but NOT as part of our rivalry, just as part of his general work).
CelsiusFarenheit • 2 hours ago
What about your "nemesis"’s parents?
Alrakis 🎤 • 2 hours ago
It’s a long story and I think it will over-complicate this scenario to go into it, but they are not in the picture.
justhereforvibes • 3 hours ago
This is absolutely wild
BloodAndBonesPodcast • 2 hours ago
OP’s story does not add up, I know of every single documented serial killer in Europe and none of them match these details. Please treat OP's story with skepticism.
VpnEnthusiast • 6 hours ago
ESH. You clearly have a lot of issues that other commenters are picking up on but also he put a TRACKER ON YOU?
whataboutist • 9 hours ago
ESH omg this is why we need to eat the rich. you both sound like assholes, and talking about your petty squabbles when you both went to this exclusive boarding school is ridiculous? There are so many other things going on in the world right now.
BelieveInTedLasso • 4 hours ago
NAH because everyone is a bit difficult in high school but have you considered therapy? It sounds like you have a lot of unresolved feelings about someone you don’t regularly interact with.
pm_me_excel_formulae • 8 hours ago
INFO: Was he correct to be suspicious of your extracurricular project?
Alrakis 🎤 • 8 hours ago
Technically, yes, but he had no way of knowing that at the time and was purely doing it to inconvenience me.
prongymcprongface • 1 hour ago
NTA!!! This is why i hate the internet sometimes. everyone is always convinced that they had the standard school experience and refuse to consider that it might be different for other people. like my experience was not quite the same as yours OP because I was a very popular kid (most years) but i completely get what you mean. i had a nemesis (like, a school one, separate to my other nemesis) and we had a dynamic super similar to what you are describing.
i kinda miss him now because it’s super frowned on at my job to have a nemesis or even like a minor antagonist but like. every day i wonder what he’s up to? maybe if he’s moved on. maybe in his job he is allowed a nemesis. if he is i bet they’re not as good at it as i was. anyway. having a nemesis is a very cool and normal thing dw about it. NTA
merriam_webster_fan • 1 hour ago
What you have described here is a crush, not a nemesis.
prongymcprongface • 1 hour ago
lol good one, i think i would know the difference. believe me i have had enough nemeses to last a lifetime
merriam_webster_fan • 1 hour ago
Please enlighten us about the difference between a nemesis and a crush, in your own words.
prongymcprongface • 1 hour ago
the only similarity was that all my crushes and my school nemesis played the same position on our sports team but that’s just a weird coincidence
i would never give my crushes funny nicknames
i would never stealth-follow my crushes around the school at night
i would never disguise myself as my crush’s friends to get close to them
those are all nemesis things
very very easy to tell the difference
ttp394 • 43 minutes ago
look at mr two nemeses over here
jeez dude leave some for the rest of us
prongymcprongface • 32 minutes ago
i don’t know why you’re replying as if i chose them??? i didn’t ask to be anyone’s nemesis, it just happened
OurGoodShadows • 2 hours ago
I’m just amazed there are two of you.
fuck_terfs • 2 hours ago
It would be so good if u/prongymcprongface turned out to be OP’s nemesis.
prongymcprongface • 2 hours ago
haha no chance, he would never be online. he’s super old-school lol
Alrakis 🎤 • 16 minutes ago
Absolutely no chance. My nemesis would never be caught reading, he can barely string a sentence together.
OurGoodShadows • 2 hours ago
/remindme! 3 months
SoundsWeirdToMe • 56 minutes ago
Lol you are just as deluded as OP. I hesitate to say that it’s not a normal experience because everyone’s experience is different but honestly having such strong feelings towards your childhood bully is not a typical thing, at least where I am from in the US.
prongymcprongface • 14 minutes ago
honestly im gonna stop commenting here because the downvote brigade is just depressing. you have no idea what you are talking about
Alrakis 🎤 • 1 hour ago
This is exactly what I was thinking. I really don’t think it’s that unusual. Lots of people at my school were quite intense and statistically at least some of them must also have had rivals. Thank you for sharing your experience.
SoundsWeirdToMe • 57 minutes ago
So typical that you’re only responding nicely to the one commenter that agrees with you. Why did you even post if you don’t want to hear the answer?