I've noticed as I myself get older that a lot of things that older people used to say, which seemed particularly out of touch then, are actually starting to make some amount of sense to me. I even find myself repeating some of those things. However, I try to be careful to temper that with my memories of hearing them from older folks when I was young. I think part of the disconnect is/was that older people actually do forget what it was like to be young or how they thought/felt when they were young. I'd suspect that's what's going on in OP's mind - he's mostly forgotten the trials and tribulations of youth (maybe even defensively blocked out some of the traumatic memories) and to him it doesn't even make sense for an older person to remember how important social interactions are to teenagers.