Immaturity

Since I was called immature by Ray, and then John agreed, I've been thinking about immaturity. Ray said I'm immature because I get upset about little things. John said I'm immature because I make decisions based on my emotions instead of based on rational thoughts.

In my opinion, I don't think either of those things is immature. I agree that they are flaws, but it's not immaturity, at least at this point in my life. John's reason would be considered immature if I had children, for instance. If you have children, you have to put your children's needs in front of your own. To do this, you would, most of the time, need to make decisions based on rational thought, instead of emotions.

But at this point in my life, I'm not providing for anyone else. I'm trying to figure out how to be happy, and to do that I need to make decisions based on my emotions. When I have 3 kids and a mortgage, then John can call me immature for not using rational thought.

I think that what is considered "immature" changes with your age. Right now I am 23. At this point in my life, I'm learning how to make myself happy. I'm learning how to be responsible with money and time. I'm learning how to set myself up for a successful life and career. Learning how to take responsibility for my mistakes. Learning how to respect other people.

Based on this, I think that Ray is the pot calling the kettle black. Ray just turned 24, so he is only a few months older than me. However, he is failing in almost every regard to the things we're supposed to be learning at this age. I have never met anyone more irresponsible with money and time than Ray. Ray was the type of person who would have spent his entire paycheck on restaurant food, drinks, and drugs two days after he received it. He could not pay his credit card bill, and his approach was to ignore the credit card company every time they tried to call him (at least once a day). He would double-book his schedule and expect everyone to rearrange their schedules to accommodate his. He would not inform people if his plans changed, again expecting them to drop everything to accommodate his schedule. He gave minimal effort for his classes, saying that he didn't turn in an entire term paper because he would still pass the class with a D without that grade. Ray hardly took responsibility for his mistakes and tried to ignore problems in the hope that they would go away. He did not respect me when he was emotionally abusive to me, and also when he tried to walk out on me when I tried to talk to him about things I was unhappy about or upset about.

I think that Ray is actually the immature one.

As for John, it was a dick move for him to tell me that he agreed with Ray that I was immature when I was going to him for emotional support. Then John had to go and also be emotionally abusive-- arguing with everything I said, saying that the ONLY way for me to get better was to go to therapy, and saying that I was a bad friend for "dumping an emotional load" on him and that I was responsible for lowering his grades as a result of these conversations. But at least John admitted that he can be immature sometimes too, so there's that.