Anonymous: Dear Sasha-ssi,
In July, I was on a summer school program abroad. There was a big group of students who were in the same program. At the beginning, I made friends and everyone was really cool. But then on the third last day, I was showing something on my iPhone to my friend and this one guy (who can get touchy at times) just grabbed my phone from me and my first reaction was to slap him (I used to be semi-violent kid). It wasn't a major slap, more like a pat on the face and I didn't hit with the intention to hurt, but he freaked out and told his friends, "Did you see that? What a major b*tch, etc.!" And all his friends agreed with him. I'm not a person who swears a lot so the names he called me made me really uncomfortable.
Afterwards, they would refer to me as 'Ms. B*tch'. I thought they would forget about it the next day because the guy seemed like the forgiving type and other girls have hit him too, but he kept it up for the remainder of the trip. In a few months, there's going to be a group reunion and I'm not sure how it's going to go over. I'm not good at confrontations either so I didn't tell him about this.
Should I apologize at the reunion or just not talk to him at all?

Friend: Dear Anonymous,

What’s in the past, is in the past. Be the mature one and simply forget about that incident. If the rest of your classmates are mature, they’ll follow your example and do the same(:

The way I see it is that if you both do bump into each other and make small talk, if he doesn’t mention the incident then you shouldn’t either. Heck, maybe he’s forgotten all about it himself. If it won’t be brought up, then let the past be put behind all of you(: After all, it’s been a few months. Not hours, days, weeks, but months. That’s more than enough time to get over such an incident. If he brings it up himself and starts pointing fingers, it only shows that he’s truly an immature little boy. Simply brush it off and ignore him if such a thing happens.

If the topic does come up, I think you both should apologize. After all, he shouldn’t have stolen your phone or called you those immature names, but you shouldn’t have raised your hand at him. Although he played a bigger part on the fault, I think that if you apologize he’ll do the same. However, I think that he should be the one to apologize first seeing as he was the one who made the first strike. If he starts throwing a fit saying how it was your fault, be the bigger person and don’t raise your voice. Explain to him how it was he who initiated the big fuss after grabbing your phone in the first place and, to make matters worse afterwards, he began all the taunting and teasing with the names.

If you want, you can avoid him and not talk to him at all during the reunion, but when the time comes and the two of you somehow do end up talking, just be calm and breathe(: Don’t let such a little thing of the past bother you and spoil your reunion. After all, a reunion was meant for the people to catch up and see one another, not argue and fight over something that’s happened months ago.

Hope your reunion goes well(:

~(Chingu) 친구