Most friends get along with each other, even if they are very different and have hobbies, interests, or careers that don’t match up at all. This is the beauty of good friendship, that it can transcend normal everyday things and bring even the most dissimilar folks together.
Unfortunately, not everyone thinks that way, and one man’s artistic friend made it a point to insult him about his career by saying that he’s a drone in the rat race. Finally, the man had had enough and lost his temper in public, leading to a lot of drama.
More info: Reddit
Friends are supposed to support and boost one another up instead of tearing each other down
Image credits: pressmaster / Freepik (not the actual photo)
The poster shared that he’s been close friends with a group of guys for almost all his life, and that a pretentious man called John recently joined their group
Image credits: freepik / Freepik (not the actual photo)
John would rudely correct people while they were talking or put them down, and eventually, he started picking on the poster for his job
Image credits: freepik / Freepik (not the actual photo)
John, who worked as a barista and photographer, kept putting the poster down for being a Biomed engineer, calling him a “drone” in the rat race
Image credits: freepik / Freepik (not the actual photo)
The poster finally couldn’t take John’s jabs anymore and publicly insulted him at his birthday party by saying he wouldn’t amount to much
Image credits: M0shka
After the public confrontation, the poster’s friends stopped talking to him, and John blocked him, which made him reconsider his actions
Having a long-term friendship with people is wonderful because everyone tends to understand one another and get along well, at least most of the time. What happened in this case is that John became a part of the OP’s group very recently and started insulting people or being rude right off the bat instead of taking the time to get to know everyone properly.
Things became worse when he picked on the poster for his engineering job and called him a drone just because of his career. Unfortunately, as researchers put it, people in white or blue-collar jobs are often looked down upon for working in “boring” professions. Even though a job is simply a way of earning money, it’s often seen as an extension of a person’s personality.
This might become even more magnified by people working in creative professions who, according to studies, seem to be a bit more arrogant about their field of work. It’s clear that John was very high and mighty about his photography skills and felt that people not working in such professions weren’t up to the mark.
That’s why, every time he met the OP, he would keep roasting him about being a drone and putting down his work as something that was very easy to do. This obviously left the poster feeling frustrated, but even when he tried to confront John, the rude behavior would always continue.
Image credits: Polina Tankilevitch / Pexels (not the actual photo)
One of the biggest reasons John must have been ranting about creative work is that he kept trying to kickstart his photography career. Since he was always getting rejected for his photography skills, he had to work as a barista to make ends meet, which must have been tough for him to handle.
According to experts, struggling artists might compare themselves to their peers and feel left behind in terms of achievements or money, which can come out in the form of resentment. It might feel like a zero-sum game to them, where another person’s success means a failure for themselves.
There was clearly some kind of bad blood between John and the poster, but it became even worse when the OP decided to confront him at his birthday party. He insulted John by saying he’d never amount to much and that his photos were not good enough, which is why he had to mooch off his parents.
It’s possible that the OP must have felt a slight sense of satisfaction from finally revealing his feelings to John, but the severe backlash he faced definitely left him shocked. Although revenge can feel good in the moment, it can often create even more negative feelings and lead to pain and hurt.
Nobody needs to accept John’s rude behavior, but it also doesn’t mean that they need to be as mean as he was. This confrontation left a sour taste in everyone’s mouths and broke a friend group that had been together for a long time. Hopefully, the OP can sort things out in the future and win his friends back.
What are your opinions on how the poster handled this situation, and do you have any suggestions on what he could have done differently? Let us know your thoughts below.
Some folks sided with the poster and felt that he had done the right thing by confronting John, while others felt he had acted too rashly
