I know a guy that has spent his entire adult life in academia, never had a job, not even a part time job, because his father paid for his tuition.

I knew him when we were both in our 20's, and now, 10 years later, he rings me up out of the blue and asks if I want to go for a drink, I say sure.

He's still in college, as stated earlier, but I'm not really interested in browbeating him about that, so I just keep the conversation light, catch up, see what he's been up to.

This man keeps dragging the conversation back to his father.

His father rented his son's room out to a tenant. This is the room in the house that the man in question grew up in, and bear in mind that this man is in his 30's now.

He keeps addressing the father in this condescending language - boomer bitch etc

He's practically frothing at the mouth, and the level of vitriol that he has for his father is very unsettling.

I try my best to steer the conversation away from his father, as it seems obsessive, but try as I might, it always ends up back there, so I decide, fuck it, and ask questions about the father for a while.

As it turns out, the father had kept his son's room, perfectly preserved as it was when he first left for college, throughout the man's entire 10+ years in academia. In those 10+ years, the man barely visited his family home, and when he did, it was to mooch off them and get his laundry done.

As I press further in my questioning, the man reveals to me, to my horror, that the only reason that the man's father has rented the room out is that his wife has passed away. She was his father's lifelong companion and was one of the only people that the man's father really talked to.

It's blindly obvious that the man's father is unbearably lonely, sitting in an empty house, and simply wants some company.

He makes a rational decision to rent the room, that his 30 year old son never uses anyway, in an attempt to stave off his loneliness,

Instead of being there for his father through a desperate time of need, his 30 year old man child son is having hissy fits about his father to anybody who will listen, because he rented his room out.

I finished my drink, told the man how utterly despicable he was, and that if he hasn't grown up these last 10 years, he's not likely to do it at all, wished him all the best and never spoke to him again after that.

Last I heard he's doing something with Antifa now.

I've told my kids since they were little that we're not paying for their college. My wife and I both had to pay for our own college and while paying off student loans sucked, it was my first real, skin in the game, investment in myself and my future... I wouldn't ever want to take that away from them.

I'll do my best to give them advice, but it's gotta be their decision.

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