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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I don't have kids. My brother has four. We don't live in the same city but I visited often when his kids were young. I was crazy about them, as any aunt is! In their teenaged years, they were busier and I didn't visit as often, but they each got a phone at around age 14 and I'd keep in touch that way, not too often but to send birthday wishes or memes on occasion. They're pretty typical teens, often just responding to texts with nothing but "ya", which I found amusing. I remember being a teenager and I never wanted to be the weird aunt or bother them with annoying questions. But obviously I love them and want them to know I love them and think of them. 
Now they're in the 18-22 range. They're still pretty uninterested in having anything to do with me, but one of them does not even acknowledge me. The other three are polite, if not warm or forthcoming. I'll get a heart reaction or an lol, which is fine. 
Last week was the twins' birthday. One twin picked up when I video called and said he was hanging with his friends. I said "Ok, have a great time! I'll let you get back to your buddies, but just wanted to wish you a happy birthday!" The call lasted about thirty seconds. The other twin didn't pick up when I called, so I sent a text saying that I was calling to wish her a happy birthday. It's on WhatsApp and appears unread. That's what happens to all of my texts to her. Generally it means that she saw that I texted but didn't click on it. She never will.

It hurts my feelings but, again, I remember being a teenager and I'm trying not to take it personally. But I do think it's pretty rude.

The kids have other aunts and uncles and I don't think any of them reach out to the kids at all, but I'm the only one without my own family.

The whole thing just makes me feel kind of...I don't know. Well, it kind of feels like shit. Any snub feels like shit. I can't say anything to my brother. There's nothing I can do. I'll keep reaching out on birthdays and things because I'm the adult. And I hope that when she's older we'll have a closer relationship.

I guess my question here is: Am I wrong to feel kind of hurt by this? Am I right to think she's being rude?
I know it's not my place to say or do anything about this but keep on as I have. I guess I want to know if my feelings are valid. [/quote]

I’m not saying any of this as an excuse, only to perhaps provide an alternate view / shed some different light on what might be going on here. I do agree college kids are often selfish, busy, self-involved, immature, living moment to moment…etc. But I also recognized a little of college-aged myself in what you described - and I wonder if some serious unrecognized anxiety resulting in dread and then spiraling or similar could be at play. It wasn’t to this extent and I don’t know that I’m even remembering a specific situation with a single relative…but it feels like a familiar pattern. I was probably in denial about how mentally unwell I was at that point, because on the surface I was having a great fun college experience.

But the pattern is this: hear from a relative, don’t respond immediately either because I logistically couldn’t  or because it - inexplicably (for real, this has nothing to do with YOU as an individual) - felt too overwhelming mentally. Promise myself I’d respond soon. A couple days pass, where I’m both constantly feeling the weight of this (admittedly very simple, I know!) task hanging over my head and also feeling worse and worse about how long I’d let it go. Eventually decide it’s just been too long and I’ve been too horribly rude that there’s just no way to salvage it; try to forget it and hope they did too; feel like a shi*tty person and beat myself up. Of course this is only compounded with multiple interactions, because it seems even harder to ‘come back from’ in a socially acceptable manner. Keep putting it off and off and spiral and repeat. How can you possibly pop back in and engage after a year of ignored reach outs and gifts?! It felt too insurmountable. I would find myself just wishing the person would forget about me, because I was such a disappointing and incapable human.

Of course I’ve since learned that there are better and more mature ways to handle these situations, even IF I’ve inadvertently taken too long to respond to someone and feel rude. I’m still working on it, but I’m not like I was in college anymore…I was still learning that the only way to break the anxiety/dread spiral is to actually face the ‘hard’ thing and get it over with, because really it’s just something you’ve built up in your mind. It could be that your niece is just a jerk, but I wonder if she’s not an exhausted depressed introverted person trying hard to cope but not fully compensating. I really don’t think it’s personal towards you, fwiw. Although I do understand why it upsets you [/quote]

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