Friendships with diverging livestyles

[Pakman]

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Let me start this with a little background. I am 24 years old. I graduated college with a bachelors degree in Computer Science. I have a good job in my field. In May, my brother and I bought a house in a good neighborhood and are now paying a mortgage. I have an awesome girlfriend and am generally very happy with where I am in my life.

Ok with that out of the way, let me paint the picture of a few of my friends. Because of the horrendous public schools where I grew up, this group of friends didn't go to college. They have been working decent jobs for people with only a high school diploma. They either live with their parents or in one case my friend's father is dependent on his sons.

I love my friends and wouldn't trade them for anything, but as you can tell our lifestyles are diverging from each other. It makes it very hard to relate. I find myself falling into a sort of elitist smug persona with them sometimes and this is the reason I needed to post this blog. I am having trouble viewing some of my friends as my peers and that really bothers me. Sometimes I feel like I need to teach them responsibility, when that is pretty much the most arrogant thing I can do. When they do things like prank me, I get offended much easier then I used to. I feel like I am maturing when they aren't, but that isn't the actual case. What is really happening is that I feel like what I accomplished should allow me some degree of respect from them. But when I think like that, I am holding them to standards that they can't ask of me. How do I keep myself in check from this kind of behavior?

They are the kinds of friends that will be around forever, so I have to deal with it rather then ignore it.

 

[CT Chia]

It's a tough situation. I've gone through similar things, though not quite to the extent that you are, but either way unfortunately I don't have an answer for ya. People will have standards whether they try to or not. Yours have just naturally gone up considering your success. If you find that you can't relate to some, then you just can't, there really isn't much you can do about it. Try hanging out with them maybe a little less, or avoid talking about certain topics that might bring up mixed feelings.

 

[El Nino]

I've never been in your position. If anything, I would relate more with your friends than I would you.

For example, in a recent conversation, I told a couple friends that I had lent out some money to someone who had trouble making rent and that I knew I wouldn't be seeing that money back any time soon. They asked me how much. I said a couple hundred. They said, "Oh," like it was nothing. "We thought you meant something in the five figure range."

Funny thing is, I don't know if my bank account has ever had five figures.

I'll keep it brief. You seem to plan on keeping these friends. That's good. I'll spare you the standard, "People change" speech. You also seem to view yourself as a more responsible and mature person. If that's true, own up to it and stop comparing yourself to them.

I sometimes want to lay into my friends and tell them to stop flaunting their successes in my g*dd*mn face. But I don't. Because I know they're not flaunting. They're just doing their thing. If they want to go to dinner at a pricey restaurant I can't afford, I politely decline. If they plan trips I can't afford, I also decline. I don't ride their *sses for having the audacity to be able to afford it.

I also want to ask you, how did you afford college? Was it a scholarship, a loan, or your parents' income? Did you graduate at 22, work for two years, and earn enough to buy a house? Did you do all that on your own? If so, that's an impressive achievement.

But if your parents paid, in part, for your college tuition, then this feeling of superiority that you seem to possess may be built on a fallacy. Unless you supported yourself through college, then your achievement is shared with those who helped you pay for it. In short, was it all you, or did you have help? I have to ask because most people I know in your position had help in that area.

You may be entitled to respect and recognition for your accomplishments from someone like your boss. But you don't work for your friends. They're not paying you for your time, and all that you've earned so far, I presume, has been for yourself and your family. Your friends are not entitled to give you respect for something that hasn't affected them directly. I'm sure they respect you for the other things that you've done for them as a friend in the time that you've known them, but since you didn't buy that house for them, I don't see why you deserve recognition from them for that or other things of that nature.

Maybe you could make more friends who are more in line with your kind of thinking and where you feel you are in life. That way you could divide your time between some loose acquaintances, who are in the same lifestyle situation that you are in, and your close friends, who can't relate to where you are right now. You could hang out with your close friends just to hang out and have fun, but go to the other group if you need to discuss something your other friends wouldn't know anything about. I think what you're feeling right now is a sense of not fitting in with your inner circle, and you may also be looking for an ego boost in the wrong place. If you had two circles of friends with different interests or lifestyles, I think you could probably bounce back and forth between them without expecting one group to accommodate all your expectations on its own.

 

[Pakman]

As far as college goes, I graduated from Drexel university, which is a pretty pricey school. I received an academic scholarship for a nice chunk of the tuition but I am currently paying off about 25,000 dollars in loans.

As far as college goes, I'd like to think I did it myself, but there are other factors that added to it. Yes I am paying for my own school, but I cannot take full credit for my entire education. The main reason I received the scholarship was because my parents sent me to private school. Like I said before, the public schools in my area are horrendous. I made the sacrifice of commuting to school my last 3 years of my 5 years of college to save some money. (Drexel is a 5 year school if you take the co-op program).

I bought the house with my older brother.

I do kinda of have those two friend groups. I have friends from school and from smash who are successfully working on their future but some of these people I don't see them as "forever" friends. A few of them are, but the majority are going to move on someday to bigger and better things.

The purpose of writing the blog was to write how I feel. I realize that I basically got a break that my other friends didn't when my parents sent me to private school. I rode that advantage to where I am now, and it wouldn't be fair for me to demand respect from my friends who didn't get that kind of help. In fact, it might even be more impressive at how well they are doing without a college degree.

Anyway thanks for the input fellows.