I wonder if I screwed up this guy's life back in third grade

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

In third grade, my best friend found a very powerful magnet laying on the road, and took it to keep for himself.

Later that day, his teacher took it up and put it in a drawer in her desk.

Later on, I snuck into that drawer, and grabbed the magnet.

My friend said the teacher claimed the magnet had gone missing, but he knew she was lying and actually she’d stolen it. He was super pissed off about this. I never told him I was the one who’d taken it from him.

I moved away a few weeks later and we never spoke again, until about a month ago. I found him on facebook and friended him, and he accepted.

Now, back in third grade, to my recollection, we were the two hopeless slobby nerdy emotionally immature kids in the class. And as far as slobbery, he was much worse than I (and I was pretty bad). We were both the type who self-identifies as “smart”. He was in to Dr. Who. We both liked computers. Those kids.

He was in trouble for not completing his work or paying attention more often than I

Anyway, in our facebook interactions, he seems to have a serious and severe problem with academia. He has a thorough and vocal distrust for education. He mocks me for having a degree, much less an advanced one. He himself is a computer tech, self-employed I think, and I have the impression that he’s successful and secure. But he never misses an opportunity to bring up the superiority of the common working class man when compared to the effete liberal academically inclined one.

No well-developed views here, just gut reactions and reflexive remarks.

And so, I idly wonder, did I instill a deep distrust for academics when I made it seem to this kid that his teacher stole his toy from him? He was already perhaps prone to be pissed off at them for being mad at him for not “doing his work” but I kind of wonder, half-seriously but at least half, whether the magnet incident might have had something to do with it as well.

No way to tell, and I certainly won’t be asking him about it.

2

That was the whole basis for the TV show My Name is Earl. I am afraid you are going to have to add him to your good karma list and find a way to make him feel confident in a classroom again.

3

OTOH, it was the basis for an episode of Psych and it might have been the best thing that ever happened to him.

4

Sounds like he’s the Steve Jobs (self-taught, no college) to your Dr. Sheldon Cooper (credentialed out the ying-yang).

Odd to say, but over the years (at high school and college reunions), I’ve made peace with virtually all of my school tormentors/bullies. I don’t have a Facebook account, but I exchange emails on a regular basis with several of them; one even worked for me at one of my businesses years ago. I think you might be surprised if you were to come clean about the magnet incident with your former friend; he might very well laugh it off and turn it into a good memory of your school days. The worst that could happen is that it would confirm his apparent opinion that all academics are amoral slugs who would step on their own mothers for a buck.

5

I seriously doubt this single incident was a turning point in his life. And had it been, he should thank you.

6

I don’t know about that–on facebook at least, he seems bitter.

7

But he despises academia. If not for your larceny he might have ended up enmired in the very institution he despises.

8

Understood, but I’m patriarchal enough to think sometimes I know what people should despise better than they do. :wink: Probably part of why he hates academics.

9

How old are you guys now?

10

Mine was a sin of omission, which I don’t really beat myself up over because the action in question would have required me to be a much more proactive kid than I was, involved a girl whom I was certain I’d start seeing in movies when she got older. She did a fantastic job (5th grader) of playing Helen Keller in a school play-and she was a knockout brunette too (yes I had a terrible crush on her-can’t you tell)?

But the idiot nuns thought having her perform for the 1st graders was a brilliant idea-of course they couldn’t grasp that she was blind and deaf, and thus the 1st graders thought this was the absolute height of hilarity. She must have been so shamed by this that she totally gave up acting afterwards-yeah if I wasn’t so shy I would have gone up to her afterwards and told her that it wasn’t her fault, she had the talent and shouldn’t let those dumb nuns stop her.

11

27th grade.

12

Well, stealing is a crime and a sin for a reason. People don’t just lose their property, it can change their opinion about what kind of world this is and sow the seeds of distrust and grievance.

That said, it seems a little too petty to make such a difference. Quite a lot of things happened in this guy’s life before and after. We might expect this person to be more rational about stereotyping academics based on one event in the 3rd grade. And- even if you miraculously showed up and wronged this kid at his most vulnerable tipping-point moment and set him down a different path, why can’t this guy find a way to be successful on his own terms? He could shun academia, work like the devil and ride around in a sports car picking up hot chicks or something on the weekends. Instead it sounds like he isn’t happy/successful, which has gotta be his responsibility at some point.

And, c’mon, childhood is chaotic even if you did wreck this guy’s life. It is the true state of nature before the social contract if you know what I mean. You get off the hook for most ignorant/wrong things you do in the 3rd grade, even given that life is still for keeps from the word go. I wonder if this didn’t have a bigger effect on you. Did you start to see yourself as some kind of a mastermind? Did your early life of crime set you on a path to get that Ph.D. in philosophy?

13

There’s really no way to know. It’s possible that if he had been able to get the magnet back after school, he would have decided to use it to commit a prank of some sort, which could have led him down a slippery slope of unacceptable behavior eventually leading to prison time years later. You could have saved him a lot of grief. Can you prove that this would have been the case? No. Can you prove that it wouldn’t? No. Don’t beat yourself up over this - there’s nothing you can do now except perhaps confess what you did. He might not even remember it.

14

There are only so many degrees of responsibility when can assume before our heads implode with the knowledge that each of us is responsible the Great Pacific Trash Spot, dead kittens, and starving orphans. Try to limit yourself to just the immediate effects. Tell your buddy, get it off your chest, and let him make of it what he will.

15

I’m responsible for dead kittens??!??:eek::confused::frowning:

:Begins to sob uncontrollably::

16

Do you still have the magnet? Maybe you could ship it back to him.

My brother-in-law had his class ring returned to him 20-something years later when he befriended some old high school girlfriend on Facebook. He claims that he forgot he gave it to her, and that she probably should have kept it since, by taking care of it for so long, it obviously meant more to her that it did to him.

17

Bolding mine, you sure you want to be friends with this guy ?

I think you should tell him you took the magnet just for shits and giggles, it sounds like he doesn’t like you anyways.

He sounds like a 911 truther friend of mine who became obsessed with all things 911 and would react angrily and insult me If I dare debated him on the subject. After 25 year friendship I had to tell him have a nice life. I didn’t want to put up with the abuse any longer.