What prevented you from making friends at your non-elite college? And that you are still hurt by this so many years later reflects poorly on you.

(Unless you're the troll that keeps trying to convince us that where you go to school has life-long social consequences.)

"Let me make your current experience all about me."

Also good lord, this was decades ago and you're still hung up on this? Get therapy.

Kids don’t want to hear about your old time-y experience. They are simply not mature enough. Instead, be sympathetic and suggest he become more involved in clubs (both academic and social). Tell hm you care for him and KNOW he will get thru this.

I’d guess he was offended because you 1) said you understand exactly how he feels, which you should strike from your vocabulary because that’s never the case (and those situations are not comparable) and 2) made it about you.

He sounds a bit socially immature, which can happen when skipping grades.

But you also handled this so wrong. 1. You somehow made it about you 2. The situations aren't the same at all. 3. You kind of discounted how he was feeling.

Anonymous wrote:Maybe his friends are ditching him because he’s a jerk.

+1 I find it strange that he's in his fourth year of college and all his friends are 21 and he can't seem to figure out how to make new friends.

One has nothing to do with the other.

Do you have issues with socializing? Your response was completely stupid

It is rude to bring everything back to you. As if you are not listening to him at all. While he was talking you did not show empathy, you just wanted to push your own experience to the front.
You showed no empathy, you only showed sympathy, which is wrong. And then the sympathy was for yourself, to add to the insult.

Those situations are not even remotely similar. He is physically alone in his room because all of his friends are doing things he isn’t allowed to do, through no fault of his own. So he is actually lonely - no one around to hang out with.

You weren’t smart enough to get into a fancy school, so I’m sure you were jealous of your friends who worked harder and did get in. But presumedly you went to some other college or got a job and made friends and could do things with those people.

It’s like telling a hungry kid who can’t eat the birthday cake because they are allergic to it that you understand hunger because once you spent all your money on burgers and didn’t have anything left for ice cream when all your friends saved and got it.

Hanging up on you was kind of a jerk move. He should have just rolled his eyes and said thanks. But you probably kept bringing up your own stuff, which isn’t even remotely helpful. But he is still learning social norms and you’re an adult, so give him grace and stop trying to one up him. He needs compassion, not ‘back in my day!’

If the turn of conversation was as quick as you state- that there was that exchange and a hang up- I think he has problems. Not sure why he is this immature at this age, why you have not noticed before, or how often you talk but I'd distance myself and let him be his parents problem.

I find often very bright young folks have a kind of superiority from their mastery of the tools for modern age (digital natives) that they come to any other discussion with serious chip. Other societal values are minimized (like family history)

Think about it: in no other time did experience and years on earth not relate to an advantage older adult.

Digital tools level the field - and my take is he had no sense of history - specifically yours - that mirrored his (felt narcissistic hit/cognitive dissonance/hung up).

Anonymous wrote:Not getting into an elite college is nothing like being dissed by your friends. College acceptance is based on your performance. By comparing the situations it’s like saying being dissed is his fault.

+1

Not getting into an elite college is nothing like being dissed by your friends. College acceptance is based on your performance. By comparing the situations it’s like saying being dissed is his fault.

I have a bright nephew who skipped a grade in elementary school and is now a 20-year-old senior at a top university. We spoke over the phone the other night and he confided in me that he’s been feeling very lonely these past few months, because all his friends are 21 and have going to bars without him every weekend.

I told him I was sorry to hear that, which I truly am, but I also feel I can relate. I was the only one of my friends from high school, as well as among my siblings, not to get accepted into an elite college. I can understand exactly the feelings of jealousy and loneliness my nephew is experiencing. When I pointed this out to him, he told me I can’t possibly know how he feels, and immediately hung up on me.