HauntingParadox

Hi guys, HauntingParadox here, I was told to post this here after searching Reddit and scouring the internet for an answer, but to no avail. You see, my problem is that I created a Minecraft server and felt that I didn't want to stop there. I tested the server and I was able to get on it (I didn't test it with friends) and decided to make a forge modded server with all the fun stuff included. So on I went I changed the eula agreement to true, made sure port 25565 was still forwarded to my static ip address, and started her up. I tested it out, and wanted to surprise my friend with the server. Keep in moind I already spent all night troubleshooting my server and all that jazz (I'm not that tech savvy) and finally got it up and running for me at around 7 in the morning. That's when I decided to surprise my friend with it. So the next day I got off work, bought him Minecraft set up a Dropbox for us, and then told him. He downloaded the 1.7.10 version of Minecraft and forge, and started to play on single player while I troubleshooter why he couldn't connect to the server. It's giving him the classic "connectexception: java connection error:conne connection timed out" or whatever the error says, but it's the timed out not refused error. We've both checked our firewalls, he's got Norton and turned that off, but again, to no avail. And that is where I'm at. I have no idea what to do other than to ask help myself. Any ideas as to how to fix it would be very appreciated. Thanks in advance.