TL;DR: Boyfriend jokingly shared my past career rejection with his friends, leading to laughter. I'm feeling hurt, disrespected, and reminded of past feelings of inadequacy, while he claims it's not a big deal. Am I overreacting or are my feelings valid?

I’m(31 F), and I’m currently having a very happy, successful career in the States. However, 4 years back, during my masters, I did not get a return offer from a consulting firm, which was my dream company at that time. It was a difficult market then, and they were informally willing to offer me a full time role in a different country(Asia - where I’m from) but not one of the US offices. The rejection was quite tough for me, as I really wanted that job.

However, a few months later, I found another job with a successful Tech company, and I’m still with them. Every day, I thank my stars, that I am working in Tech and not consulting. And I’m very happy in my job.

My boyfriend(30 M)is currently pursuing his masters, and one of his friends interned at the same consulting firm as me. He got the return offer, but did not like the work culture a lot, and wants to explore career in Tech instead. He asked my boyfriend that he’d like to talk to me, and get my perspective about choosing Tech over consulting. My boyfriend told me that when his friend asked him why I didn’t choose the consulting firm, he point blank told them that I never got the return offer. He said that there were 3-4 of them and they all started laughing. They weren’t laughing at me, but more at the situation, because they thought I’d have a deep answer for my rationale to choose Tech.

My boyfriend shared the story very jokingly with me, saying that something hilarious happened today. I felt quite embarrassed hearing the story, and I told him that when I share this story, I focus on my own agency of choosing Tech over consulting versus talking about never having the option to choose consulting. I told him that it wasn’t his story or failure to laugh at, and it’s not sitting well with me. I even told him that I did actually hate consulting, and even if I did get the offer in the chosen office, I would have probably chosen Tech over consulting. I even told him that I actually had reasons and pros cons of consulting vs Tech that I could have shared with your friend. I told him that he could have just told my friends why I liked tech more than consulting without going into the details of not getting a return offer. To this, he responded that he didn’t want to lie to his close friends.

He told me that his friends loved me, and deeply respect me; and that me not getting a return offer from some firm does not change any of that.

I told him that that’s not the point - it’s just that I feel a bit disrespected, and it also brought back some sad memories for me from the inadequacy I felt when I didn’t get a return offer(because 80% of the people end up getting a return offer).

Can you share any advice or insights to navigate the situation?