Just venting

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I know this sounds dumb like, genuinely stupid and I know I shouldn’t care this much, but it still got to me.

For context, I’m 23, studying abroad. Every Friday, I usually have a call with my brother and my cousins. The older group is me (23), my brother (20), and another cousin (19), and then the younger ones are 17, 13, and 13. This time, I was the only older one who picked up, so I was just talking with the younger ones. At some point, I mentioned that I bought myself a PS5 with my own money. Then my youngest cousin, the 13-year-old, kept questioning it like, “Why would you buy a console for yourself? Don’t you already have one at home?”

Then they kept going, saying my 20-year-old brother is the smartest, that he knows everything, and that whenever they need help, they go to him. And honestly, that part hit a bit, because they’ve never really come to me for help with anything like homework.

So I tried to change the subject and keep things light. I said something like, “Can you imagine some families aren’t even close with their cousins? I feel like we’re all practically the same age.” Immediately, they started arguing like, loudly “No, we’re not all close in age!” Even the 17-year-old jumped in. I tried to explain that I meant the older group are practically the same age like me (23), my cousin (27), another cousin who’s also 23, and then the others who are 25, 22, 21, 20, and 19. We’re all in our twenties, so realistically, we’re close in age. Then they kept going, saying my 20-year-old brother is the smartest, that he knows everything, and that whenever they need help, they go to him. And honestly, that part hit a bit, because they’ve never really come to me for help with anything like homework.

But they kept pushing back, saying things like, “No, you're old ,” and that 20 and 21 are basically the same as them. I even said, “Just calculate the difference between 21 and 22,” but they wouldn’t drop it.At that point, I just left the call. I was already a bit bothered by the whole “favourite” thing especially because they know that’s something I’ve been insecure about since I was younger and then the constant comments about age just made it worse.They called me back asking why I left, and I told them, “I’m not going to stay if you’re going to make me feel bad.” They said they weren’t trying to, but still.I know I probably overreacted, but at the same time I always tried to make them feel included in everything and this is how they do me.