When Do We Finally Put Away Our Propensity For Childishness, and Become the Adults We Are?

I'm afraid this is another venting post, but bare with me.

So, there is this male individual, that I have known off and on for many years. He is a year or two older than I am, but I'm beginning to think that perhaps he's received a blow to the head in recent years, since I saw him last, and now possesses the mind of a 12 year old, at best.

Without reveiling too much about the identity of the individual of whom I speak of, I will do my best to describe the circumstances of which I find myself of late.

The last time I saw this person, other than recently, was nearly 8 years ago. At the time, we were perhaps more than mere aquaintences, but certinaly not bosom buddies. Our final adieu at the time involved, in part, him stating that he hoped we could begin hanging out sometime in the near future, and I agreed.

Fast forwarding to a little over 6 years later, we cross paths again. This time, he does little to procure any sort of connection with me, in fact, he acts as though I'm completely invisible whenever we get within 5 feet of each other. One day, we were walking towards each other and I knew he knew I was there, so in an atempt to make my presence known to him, I decided I would do my best to say hello, desipte his apparent apathy towards me. As I came within a few steps of him, he still hadn't looked at me, but I offered a hearty "Hello!" anyway. He looked up at me with a look that could only be read as, "why are you talking to me?" and gave me a simple nod of the head and a quiet hello, then proceded on without further interuption. I rolled my eyes as I walked away, and tried not to think anymore about it.

A few months later, I had occasion to see him, nearly alone, one more time, and once again attempted to engage him in conversation. This time I had a little more success, but his demeanor was still that of someone who did not wish to be mingling with one such as I, so I cut the seemingly intrusive conversation short on his behave, and resumed my journey past him.

Nothing has changed since the nearly year and a half since my first new sighting of him, as far as his lack of interest in me as a sorce of human interaction goes, but I can't help but feel that perhaps I've opened the flood gates to something more, and I don't like it.

This individual is often in the company of one or two other specific individuals, and the male of those two individuals and he are often, seemingly, making jokes about me... it's hard to explain, but I will try. I don't mean to sound paranoid, but in close proximity, there is no atempt at eye contact with me, whatsoever, but at a distance, there is often occasion that I catch one or both of them looking at me, then they turn to each other and have a laugh... this is not a rare occasion, in fact, it happens far too often for me to call it a coincidence.

Then one day, to my discomfort, as well as his own, he and I were subject to a group interaction in which neither of us had too much control over, without putting out other members of the group. In this situation, he amazingly shook my hand, addressed me by name, and did so while maintaining eye contact, both at the beginning and the end of this short interaction. In between both cordial handshakes, he made multiple atempts to make eye contact with me, but acted as someone being dared to touch a dead mouse would act. Imagine if you will, reaching for the carcass of a dead mouse; you reach for it, then you recoil in fear or perhaps disgust, hesitate, reach again, recoil, hesitate, repeat... His eyes would seemingly make an atempt to turn to me, but then would bounce away just as he came inches from looking me in the face, reapetedly, and he never was able to successfully look at me again until he shook my hand in farewell.

I've seen him only once since then, and he again, could only look at me from a distance, and then would make it painfully obvious he was avoiding eye contact with me, as though he did not care for my interacting with him.

Why do I care? I don't know... I shouldn't. I mean, I guess I know why... I care because it bothers me that we could be friends once, and part on good terms, and then suddenly when we find ourselves in a situation in which we have the opportunity to be freinds again, he is beyond disinterested. I think if he was just a nobody to me, with no prior history of association, I wouldn't care, but since that isn't the case, I do care. I try not to care, I tell myself not to care, but I'm slightly offended, and he doesn't help matters by appearing to have jokes at my expence. I can't allow myself to put myself out there for someone to mock, so I won't take things into my own hands anymore, but it chaps my hide, and I want it to stop.

So that's my vent, I feel like he is clearly being childish, and I am curious when the creature that has taken over his body will vacate, and allow the real perosn back in.