O/T Need Advice

I have been posting on WSO for almost a year now. To start, I'll reiterate that I have grown up in a smaller town, humble beginnings, not rich but certainly not poor, and about as far (mentally) from Wall Street and finance as it gets. I have decided that I would like to mix my economic studies with some form of investment management, whether it is working in research at a global macro hedge fund, rates trader at a bank, an FX prop trader, etc. If any of my neighbors asked what I wanted to do once I finish school, and I gave a response where I said something along the lines of the three careers I just mentioned, the reaction I would get would be a blank stare. I can't blame them, because, so far, there has been no need for any hedge funds, traders, and investment bankers, and life has gone on just fine for many people for a long time. There is almost a peaceful ignorance about the functions of people who work on Wall Street. I have no problem with this. It is actually kind of nice that I grew up around people who could not care less about setting up a DCF model or determining sovereign default risk and hedging fat tails.

However, there is this conception amongst family and close friends that I am basically pursuing a career as a gambler. I should start by saying that I am not a gambler, nor do I have any related addiction of any sorts. I do not play casino games (I hate poker), and my personal FX account only has $200 in it, because I know that putting in more would compromise my ability to pay tuition. That is not enough to dissuade most people that I am not seeking out a higher stakes form of going to Las Vegas. I hear all the time about how "things will catch up to you eventually on Wall Street" and so on about how exchanging the rights to pieces of paper barely provides a societal function. In a way, I expect this, as a lot of retail investors got their asses handed to them after the tech bubble and the housing bubble, and the idea that the little man cannot win prevails pretty quickly.

After hearing about how I am playing financial roulette for the 14,342nd time from my girlfriend's father the other day, I had enough of just folding like a lawn chair and I have decided to verbally defend myself. The only problem is, I can't articulate much of a defense, other than I am different (which I know is a bullshit reason, because everyone thinks they are different and most results end up the same way), fuck you, and the classic, "you don't want to know all the things I have done to your princess". Citing things like quantitative risk management (VaR, etc) don't count because I don't think anyone would listen to me about VaR, and when shit hits the fan, it doesn't work anyway.

If anyone is still reading this, did you/are you going through a similar situation, and how did you handle it? I'm not going to say I don't care what other people think of me, because in this case I do, and I would really like to defend myself from a verbal ass reaming about how I am falling into a fools trap. I must say that regardless of what people think of me, I still would really like to work in a FICC macro investing setting, and I am willing to let my friends and neighbors think I am a degenerate gambler for a chance at a career that I really want.