Did your 'friends' stop being your 'friends' after they lear

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I was wondering if it has happened to you guys that when you were younger you were good at something and your friends seemed to be under the impression that you'd be a great successful man one day and then when you met them again years later they seemed disappointed at how you ended up and sort of shunned you from that moment on?

It has happened to me. For example, a few years ago I visited a former high school teacher. When I saw him he remembered me by name, invited me to his office and asked me in a very cordial manner, in that tone of voice you'd expect from a well-educated man when he is addressing another well-educated man, what I was doing for a living. When I told him I was looking for a job his demeanor changed and it's like all of a sudden he forgot I had been an A student in his class and relegated me to the level of the typical high school dropout.

It's sad how hypocritical some people can be, isn't it?

Nothing surprising. Males are judged based on the status of their jobs just like females are judged based on their looks.

That's a fundamental goal of feminism, replacing one set of utterly superficial values with another.

There is a sense of judgement about things like this. If you're not doing anything with your life, people will look down on you. They'll sometimes discuss it with others: have you heard about so and so, he STILL hasn't got a job.

Unfortunately they also don't understand these conditions, and never will. You can't blame them. They only experience empathy through the eyes of others like them. You've got to judge your life by your own standards, and discard the opinions of people that judge you for it.

This is why I'm afraid to talk to anyone or seek help these days.

It's just a never ending vicious cycle of burn-out; my work never being up to everyone else's unrealistic standards; people moving too fast socially and being too nosey; and being judgmental.

They're all so judgmental and have worries of their own or are too busy.

Lots of social effort with no return or even thanks.

I can never talk to anyone because they want to cover everything up, but still selfishly want to know how I'm doing.

It makes me really want to live as far away from civilisation as possible.


This is coming from a former grade A student as well.

I wish I hadn't grown up.
It's too hard to talk to people.

They all talk too fast and move around in little groups.

I really don't get it.


I've noticed that it's a trillion times easier to talk to the other person if you're both doing well and are both happy. If it's blazing sunshine and you're sitting out on a roof terrace watching the scenery without a care in the world, then it's even better!

I don't like to put a damper on things or be a "party pooper", but I feel right now that I would be. If my situation changes considerably though, I might think about it...

This has never happened to me, as I haven't seen my old school friends or teachers since leaving school. However, I've been beating myself up a bit in recent years, and saying to myself: 'Wow, if my old friends from school would see me now, they'd be so disappointed.' Because I, too, was a grade A student, and now at 22 I don't even have a real job, and I'm not in university yet. I feel as though I've been unable to fulfill the promise that was present in myself, and also the expectations of friends and relatives.

My relatives still see me, and I sometimes think that they're disappointed in me, because they figured I'd be well on the way in getting my degrees in biology by now as well as being a great artist... I also think maybe they feel sorry for me, and see me as a failed person. But I've never talked to them about it, so these are just assumptions. And you know what they say about assuming (even though I disagree with that).

Haven't noticed anything like that here. I think I must have learned to keep anybody even vaguely judgemental out of my world. I have little interest in "mainstreamers" - when I do make contact with people I go for unusual types, travellers, hippies, alternativists, eccentrics, amateur musicians, volunteers in worthy ventures such as running a small music club or maybe a left-wing activist group. I've never known any of them give a damn about how well or badly I've done in the world of work, and if anybody should ask me I'd feel vaguely embarrassed that I hadn't dropped out and gone backpacking to the Himalayas or squatting in Amsterdam. I don't talk about my income or my position in my job - in fact I'd have difficulty remembering what grade I'm on without looking it up.

I've always just assumed that anybody into careerism has left the path of wisdom. Work for salary is for me a necessary evil that gets in the way of life, and it's kind of humiliating to have to admit to having a boss.

So basically my value system is so far removed from that silly old "keeping up with the Joneses" thing that its followers have no impact on me, rather arrogantly I see myself as one of the enlightened few, as remote from the materialist majority as a Buddhist monk. The views of materialists about me are simply not important.

I'm so used to having those attitudes that it's all second nature. It's my values that matter in my life, not theirs.