I think I’m in the wrong here but I just need affirmation because I’m a social anxiety ridden mess of a person. I honestly feel like I’m cursed sometimes because of how awkward I am with confrontation.
I have a co-worker that I *thought* was on good terms with me. Well, turns out she’s been annoyed with how passive I am. I think I should mention that I’m a non-confrontational person who tends to just go with what the other person wants to make them happy. I thought I was doing something okay when I agreed to whatever my co-worker wanted to do on our vacation together, but she blew up at me at a cafe, in front of our other colleague, and said the following:
* I didn’t participate enough in discussions or cab booking – I admitted this and said sorry because it’s true. My only excuse is that I have a “whatever you want” attitude, and thought it was okay to let her do the bookings because she *seemed* fine with it back then. I was in the wrong 100%.
* I wandered off while she was booking a cab at the mall – In my defense, I only did this once and it was because I wanted to use the restroom, and also got an urgent call from home(family issues). Regardless, I can get why this annoyed her, so I was in the wrong.
* I don’t check group messages – Honesty, no idea why she said this. I do check them and reply in time, and she takes her time to reply too so I don’t really understand her POV.
* I sat down while she was ordering coffee – Like I said earlier, not really sure why this alone would annoy her but maybe it’s because I didn’t tell her that I wasn’t going to order before sitting down? Or maybe it was because we were all tired and me making a beeline to the chair just seemed like I was being lazy?
The worst part of this is that I ended up crying. I have social anxiety so maybe that made things worse but I have this tendency to be critically sensitive to how other people think of me and with the confrontation, I dunno it felt like my worst fears were all coming to life. I tried not to. But tears were welling up and my voice was cracking… Needless to say, very stupid and embarrassing. Obviously it wasn’t full-blown sobbing or anything but the floodgates were open and I was doing a terrible job at concealing it. Once she saw me crying, she softened up and said she had to keep her temper in check but I felt horrible because I wasn’t trying to use tears as a way of making her look/feel bad.
Irrelevant but I guess I reacted (more) poorly because I had no idea that she was angry. 2 hours before this, we were shopping and I’d bought her lunch. Everything seemed okay. And the fact that she brought this up in the company of other people. I would’ve preferred to talk privately about the issues she had with me but she did mention that she couldn’t keep her anger in anymore so maybe that’s why? I don’t know.
How should I go about this now? I apologized, she said okay, but I feel weird and can’t act like I used to around her.
4 comments
I can’t give advice but she sounds like a bad friend I hope you will be able to move past this
You feel like you can’t act the same way around her because you don’t want to continue being passive and cryptic. Take more charge of your life.
Booking taxis, picking restaurants, and 100 other boring things are lame, no one likes to be responsible for something that could blow up. Plus it’s thankless work. Start offering to take an equal share of the load not just with her (if you stay friends) but with other friends, at work, and at home. Be vocally thankful when other people do lame chores that you benefit from.
Think about it.
You really don’t need to keep apologizing. I mean, sure, you could have helped out more with the planning, but she also could have easily *asked* you to help her once she started getting frustrated. That’s what mature adults do, not just silently get resentful then humiliate each other in front of their friends.
You say that you feel like you can’t act the same way around her. That’s true, you shouldn’t, but not because you did anything wrong. She’s the one who behaved inappropriately. It sounds like you have a tendency to blame yourself for things. Just remember that it’s not always your fault. It’s definitely not your fault that she has anger issues and poor communication skills. You’re well within your rights to reevaluate your relationship with her.
Try saying things like “should I help you with that”? “Do you want me to come with you”, “I can handle that”. Most likely out of politeness they’ll say don’t worry about it but atleast you show you’re interested in helping out
But it wasn’t proper of her to blow up over such little things, and don’t feel bad for crying it sounds so upsetting <3