the "real world"?

Please indulge my self-righteous ranting for moment. I just got an e-mail from an old friend, someone I was really close with in junior high and still close with in high school but have really lost touch with since college. We used to be best friends and not just in the slumber parties and passing notes way; we really had a close bond and did a lot of our growing up together. My 10 year high school reunion is coming up, and apparently that motivated her to get in touch, because today I got an e-mail from here. I literally have not seen or talked to her in at least 2 years, but I give her credit for extending the olive branch. She misses me and wanted to get in touch before the reunion so it wasn't awkward, and that's thoughtful.

However.

It's the end of the e-mail that gets me:

I hope you're doing well. I think you're still at NYU. If you are, I'm totally jealous- the real world sucks.

I'm not sure what she means by the "real world." Don't I live in the real world? It's not like I've spent the last 6 years on some fantasy island. Why don't people think graduate school is real? There was a similar incident right before I left for Cambridge. I was having dinner with several friends, and one girl's beeper kept going off for work. At one point she tossed it on the table and said, "Ugh, don't ever get a real job." What do people think I'm doing in grad school, playing dress-up?

Now, I'll be the first to tell you that there are a lot of cushy aspects of graduate school. I love the flexible schedule. I really enjoy the fact that, at least 3 weekdays a week, I can wake up and think, "I don't actually have to get out of bed." I like that I can do my laundry and grocery shopping at odd hours, that I can work from home if I need to wait for the cable guy or the super, that I can cancel my class because my friend's husband scored us tickets to the So You Think You Can Dance Tour (sooo excited!!). I love that I get to work with my friends! I enjoy the free tub of peanut butter filled pretzels we have at the front desk and that when I feel like I can't keep my eyes open I can go in the lounge of our department and take a nap. Who else gets to nap at work?

Now let me tell you what I don't like about being a graduate student. I don't like the fact that it makes me feel like less than a full adult - which is apparently how other people see it as well. I don't like that my boss is also my co-worker is also my advisor, and she can call me at 10pm on a Saturday to talk about her boyfriend but then expect me to defend my academic career goals in the same conversation. I don't like that I'm constantly feeling like I can and should be doing more, but the lack of concrete deadlines means I've got to figure it out on my own with very little supervision and even less feedback to let me know if I'm headed in the right direction. I don't like that as a teaching assistant I'm part-time, highly exploitable labor. I don't like that I have a base salary of $22,000 a year - before taxes - and that I have to babysit, adjunct, and - still, as I'm approaching 30! - take out student loans to make ends meet. I don't like that I haven't been to see a dentist in almost 7 years because I don't have dental insurance and can't afford it. I don't like that next year, when I go on the job market, I'll compete with about 450 other PhDs and roughly 200 equally qualified job applicants for each position, many of whom will be friends, and that it's going to be just as hard to get a position at a small teaching college as at a larger university. And I really don't like that I'll have to spend the first 3 or 4 years of my career worrying about getting tenure, that is if I'm lucky enough to get a tenure track position.

Now maybe I'm just being defensive, I'm sure she didn't mean anything by it. But somehow that's almost worse. Why do people feel like they can make comments like that? How do you not recognize the implied condescension?