judgment day

My first semester at college I roomed with an old friend of mine. We were really good friends, but as the semester went on, he began to grow distant and somewhat ignore me and wouldn't treat me with much respect, and for a long time I was perplexed at his behavior. Eventually it got so bad he would act like I wasn't there most of the time, and when he did talk to me he was very condescending. Finally I found out what was bothering him so much that he was treating me like that and found out that it was me! Which at first baffled me because I'd never done anything to him and never treated him with anything less than the utmost respect. He explained to me, also in a condescending way, that I was not making the most out of my first semester at college. I'll admit, I had bad study and sleeping habits, I would stay up late playing games and then often sleep in and miss class the next morning, and so far that's been a recurring theme in my schooling. I recognize that's something I need to work on but what I didn't understand was this: how do my decisions (poor or not) concerning personal matters that shouldn't affect others, do in fact affect others, causing them to judge me and/or look down on me, like I'm insulting them or something. Even after I talked to my friend about it and found all that out, and rebutted with this same argument, he continued to treat me that way, which is sad because we didn't end the semester as very good friends and ever since have never been as good as friends as we were before that semester.

That's not all though, it's just always that harsh. I've experienced the same kind of behavior with other people I've lived with, but its a lot less severe. They may not treat me like they despise me, but I've had people tease me about it, seemingly because it bothers them. I'll take the teasing over the down-right judgmental behavior, but essentially they are the same; negative reactions to decisions and behavior that shouldn't affect them. I guess I don't feel like anyone has the right to judge me over something like poor sleeping and/or study habits, which again, SHOULD affect only me.

Is it entirely their fault? Would someone do it on purpose? Maybe not, maybe for some reason they genuinely feel like it's a personal attack on them having to live with someone who doesn't have the same personal standards of achievement as they do. Maybe being witness to my poor personal choices genuinely affects their mood so they retaliate, perhaps subconsciously, with judgmental behavior and subtle underlying attacks. I don't know. If that's the case, who is wrong in this situation? Me, for indirectly affecting the moods of those I live with by making choices that aren't in accordance to how THEY would live THEIR lives? Or them, for allowing my personal decisions affect their mood or more specifically, retaliating, either consciously or subconsciously, with judgmental behavior and the like? I just don't know, I certainly don't feel like it's my fault. I guess ultimately I could shape my own solution and just try and condition myself not to feel bad about the poor choices I make so I won't feel bad when I get singled out for it.

For example, if someone is teasing you for wearing glasses, and you DID wear glasses and were already self-conscious about it, you would certainly feel even worse about it if someone teased you, right? Or even still, maybe you weren't already self-conscious about it, but if someone keeps pointing it out, you might develop a complex, and then maybe you would begin to feel bad about it whereas you might not have otherwise.

Now if I made a B in a class, and someone tried to make fun of me for it, I wouldn't feel bad because, in my standard of living, a B is still pretty good. It's not the best, yeah I could've worked a little harder and gotten that A, but an A is a standard of excellence and I may not have achieved that excellence, but a B is still above average, and I'm okay with that, so I wouldn't feel bad if someone tried to make fun of me for it. Yeah I missed some classes this last semester, yeah I could've gone to bed earlier each night and gotten up earlier, I could've spent a little more time studying and a little less time playing video games, but I still got 3 A's and 2 B's, and to me, that's still pretty good, so why do I feel bad if someone, more or less, makes fun of me for missing classes and having poor sleeping habits? Clearly I'm that person wearing glasses in the example, who is already self-conscious about it and additional teasing is just going to make me feel worse. However, on the other hand, when it comes to being somewhat teased/ridiculed about something you CAN change and maybe SHOULD change, such as poor sleeping and poor study habits, perhaps that ridicule will cause you to increase your own standards, making you an overall better person? Why would someone work hard to improve if they felt good about where they were at in life? Only if they or someone else were to create a feeling of inadequacy in them. So then is it right to create that feeling of inadequacy in someone when they feel good about their life? Is it right for us to say what personal choices are good and which are bad? When it comes to choices that affect others, sure, but I mean personal goals and achievements. I think that right there is the real question. Perhaps my roommate, and others I briefly seen this behavior in, are consciously or subconsciously, trying to create that feeling of inadequacy to cause me to improve my life. But why? Is it because they want the best for me? Or because of what I said before, that they are somehow offended by my behavior and want to fix me for their benefit? So again I ask, who is wrong in this situation?

Wow, that's already digging way more into the matter than I had intended, maybe I'll revisit it if I have any epiphanies.