I started at my current workplace last year. I met lots of people and it’s been good. I met this one person in particular who we will call Jennifer. Jennifer and I talked and slowly got closer. I suffer with social anxiety, and I am really sensitive to when people act differently around me. Jennifer told one of our other work friends a secret I told her in confidence. I got upset and asked her if she told. She was honest and said that she had. I was very upset and did not speak to her for a little while. When we finally started speaking again, she was acting weird. So I would ask her(more than I should I will admit) if we were okay. If I had said or did anything to hurt her. She would say no. Well she got upset with me for passing her one morning and not saying hello(I was in a rush so it was not intentional). She said she didn’t want to talk about it with me. I left her alone for about 3 weeks. I called her up yesterday to talk. She was being super quiet. Not wanting to talk. She was being weird. So I asked if we were okay. She told, “Honestly no. I don’t have the mental capacity to handle you. You ask how we are all the time. You make me feel stressed. You exhaust me. You’re exhausting to be friends with.”
I am feeling hurt, sad, and not okay. What should I do? Where do I go from here? Am I really that terrible of a person?
3 comments
Believe her. She is not saying that to hurt you, but this is a chance for both of your lives to improve. She does not have the skills- the specific life experiences- to treat you as a good person like you deserves **while** juggling other stuff in her life. That isn’t an a bad thing, it is just life. It is nice when workplace friendships happen, but they are not always possible. The right ingredients for it to prosper aren’t there.
Jennifer comes from a different background and perspective than you when it comes to how to treat people and how to act. There is no bad guy here, let her be “just“ a coworker. You two just have different rhythms. Look at it this way- do you want her to bend herself out of shape to follow the boundaries you have set up? The expectations you have implied as respectful behavior? I think solid friendship should flow a bit more smoothly than that. She is flexing certain social muscles with you too often, or too shakily, or the social dance you two had just isn’t fulfilling her needs. She doesn’t get to choose how mentally tiring it is to interact with people. Someone with her heart set on action movies would not be fulfilled by horror roles.
Just try to keep this example in mind when analyzing or establishing future relationships. No one can be friends with everyone, and any number of factors could stop a friendship from growing mutually, growing healthily.
She’s a shit person for telling your secret and getting mad at you when you addressed it. She didn’t acknowledge that she hurt you.
>and I am really sensitive to when people act differently around me
Fuck I hate that I do this too. I’ll even start to notice and over analyze it like “they act like that around me but not other people. Wtf?”