Not everyone's rooting for you. I didn’t expect old friends to pull away when I shared good news, but it taught me people don’t always react positively to success.

I reconnected with some old friends from elementary school on Facebook during the pandemic. I expected nostalgia and maybe catching up on where life had taken us. Instead, I stumbled into a strange pattern I didn’t see coming. With the first couple of friends, we swapped life updates, and when I shared some good news about how things had turned out for me with my small online business, the conversations just… fizzled. They stopped replying, or in some cases blocked me completely. It felt weird because I wasn’t trying to brag, just telling them what I’d been up to. That threw me off, so with the next people I found, I downplayed my life situation and kept things simple. Suddenly, the conversations flowed and we stayed in touch. In fact, some of the people who ghosted me originally became cool with me again after I told them I’d “exaggerated” my story the first time around. It made me realize how unpredictable people’s reactions can be when you reconnect after years. I thought sharing positive news about business success would be encouraging, but in reality it sometimes made old friends uncomfortable. On the flip side, being more low-key has kept the door open. I guess the lesson I learned is that not everyone wants to hear about your successes, even if you’re just trying to share your story. Sometimes keeping it simple and focusing on old memories is the better way to reconnect. This kinda reminds me of how some lottery winners have stories of suddenly finding a few of their friends and family members to be resentful of them after winning. #Edit: I run a one man web design business where small mom and pop shops and blue collar businesses pay a small fee each month to manage their company websites. I don't see how any of these guys would've thought I was trying to pitch them an MLM when the conversation of what we do for a living came up.