In abstract, your former self is a different person. You have changed as a product of your environment and you will never again be that person you were in the past.
Emotional intelligence lacks any meaningful specificity and comes across to me as an insult, which is the antithesis of the intent of he post question. Semantics often lack substantive utility, especially within the subject of psychology.
Sorry for another waste of time thing to explore here on Lemmy. I always end up regretting and then deleting this type of good faith post.
Yes, depending on the tone, I would either confront the perceived slight or avoid talking to you all together.
The last bit about the post, no, I would not say that out loud but would internalize that the group I am in has incompatible abstractive thinking scope for such a casual conceptual subject of interest to me.