Is AUTHOR wrong in the post ? POST : For context I've been socially awkward my entire life, but was at my worst in the seventh grade (13-15 years old). I didn't really understand boundaries both physical and verbal, or how to make friends. I had been bullied a lot over the years, to the point where I was suicidal but I somehow thankfully survived and have an incredible life now. My social skills have improved tremendously over the past few years, and while I still don't act properly in every situation I now have made a good group of awesome friends who let me know when I'm being weird, and have helped me learn how to behave properly. But before then when I was being bullied I was constantly told that I was A) retarded and B) that I shouldn't be in a grade school but actually an institution or program for mentally disabled children and that my parents were paying my school lots of money to keep me enrolled in it. This became common knowledge and everyone basically knew me as the "special kid" that was there only because of my parents, even other parents believed this and I would catch them saying things like "it's a disservice to keep him here when he needs to be in an institution." I even started believing this due to my poor grades and stopped believing my parents when they told me it was just a rumour spread around by some mean kids. I truly thought I was retarded with anger issues and mental health problems my parents wouldn't tell me about, I was in a really dark place. While playing some magic with my friends this weekend my one friend "John" let me know that all those rumours had originated from him. I was shocked, he was a good friend of mine whom I'd become close with in highschool. I asked him why he would spread those vile rumours about me and he just responded with "I didn't like you in elementary and thought you were actually retarded." And then he just kept playing like it was nothing. He wasn't sorry in the slightest, I pressed him for more info and he just told me it was a long time ago and I should just drop it. I don't think he realizes how much those rumours fucked me up, there are still times where I see the parents of old classmates and they talk to me as if I'm slow. I hid a noose in the changeroom of our school gym for over five years, and he brushes this off like it's nothing. So am I the asshole for wanting a little more of an apology from this guy? Sorry for such a long post everyone, this is actually my first post on Reddit and I just needed to rant for a bit so I appreciate all those who read it.

Tldr a friend of mine spread rumours that I was retarded back in elementary school and won't apologize for it now since we're adults and it happened a long time ago. Also got annoyed with me  and told me to drop it when I pressed the issue further.