Dear Janine:

I went back to your original post to see if I can offer anything useful. These are a few of my thoughts:

You wanted “to make a connection” with this guy, a former classmate, so you said hi to him as you ran into him on the stairs of the student dormitory building that you shared at the time. You said hi and he either didn’t say hi back or he didn’t stop and have a short conversation with you.  Later you confronted him: “do you realize you treat people like sh**..?”, he said F** you, you said the same, and he told you that “he has the right to be selective about who he’s nice to”, and that nobody owes you their friendship, and he blocked you on Facebook.

My input today: he does have the right to select his friends, but he doesn’t have the right to be rude to anyone. Question is: was he rude. If you said hi to him, if he heard you, he should have said hi in return, even if he was in a hurry, even if he doesn’t like you. It is rude to not return that hi.

If he did return the Hi but continued down (or up) the stairs, and you were upset that he didn’t take time to have a short conversation with you following the exchange of hi, then he was not rude and is not responsible for you feeling upset, because.. indeed he doesn’t owe you a conversation.

If in class, he and his friends purposefully ignored you, that is, wanted to hurt your feelings by intentionally and knowingly ignoring you, that is rude. If on the other hand, they were busy with what they were doing and didn’t have an intention to hurt your feelings, then they were not rude.

During the confrontation, if he wasn’t rude to you and you accused him of treating people like sh**, then you were rude to him (to not be rude would have been to ask him an open ended question without an accusation being a part of the question), and the two of you were rude to each other when exchanging the f*** you-s.

When you were on the stairs wanting to make a connection with this man, or in class wanting to make a connection with him and his friends, he and his friends can’t see what you are thinking and wanting. They are busy with their own thoughts and whatever task they are busy with. They can’t see your mind and heart.

It does take social skills (aka interpersonal skills) so to figure out the things you brought up in your thread. It is something that can be taught and learned in a class setting, such as in an acting class where students do improvisations with the help and guidance of a drama teacher. It can also be taught in a therapy group setting, where the group therapist or counselor directs the interactions between the members of the group.

I think it can be an excellent idea for you, to join a drama class and/ or group therapy.

anita