I only get more sensitive & irritable as time goes on.

So a little background—I’m at 25yo male, and I still live with my parents, working from home currently. Honestly my situation doesn’t feel that dire because most of my college friends are basically in the same situation. However, something I’ve noticed in general is that whenever I do actually go out to see friends, I have a tendency to just get picked on for really little things. My biggest problem imo is that it seems like I get worse and worse at just brushing off these comments, which seems strange because most people claim that they become better at this with age. I do a pretty good job of acting unfazed, but WOW if they knew how I felt on the inside.

I guess what confuses me the most about this is that I try SO hard to not roast anyone else, to make people feel welcomed and not judged when I’m around them, yet I always have to prepare to basically get my ass roasted off whenever I’m around certain friends, I guess for just existing basically….? Like it seriously boggles my mind how someone can pick on someone who clearly doesn’t go out of their way to give other people a hard time, if that makes sense. It just literally makes me feel like a walking joke, a complete failure who’s quite incapable of doing anything respectable or productive. (That’s ALWAYS where my mind goes)

So ideally I guess I’d like to get to a place where I can literally just brush off these jokes, because honestly when I’m at my best I CAN genuinely do it. However, if I just happen to not be in a great mood while seeing these friends, a single little hurtful comment can actually destroy that entire time with them. I guess it just seems like I should be better at brushing off this bs given how old I am, and this stuff never used to bother me when I was younger—just seems weird that it gets harder and harder every year.