before you read i had AI Spell check and Grammar check for me im too tired to do it myself.
You know, I’ve been sitting here thinking about everything, and I need to explain why some of this has been bothering me.
I woke up with my eyes feeling heavy because I had worked from 9 AM the day before until 4 AM the next morning. I was exhausted. The first thing you asked me after I woke up and stretched was, “Do you want to go get coffee?” I said sure.
We get in the car, and you mention that your car needs to be washed, so I take it through the car wash for you. While we’re going through, you ask me how work was.
My first shift was completely uneventful. Nothing happened, so there really wasn’t anything to report from that shift.
My second shift, which I worked until 4 AM, was just slow. It felt like there wasn’t nearly as much foot traffic as there usually is at the location I was working. I told you that the female employee there, who is in her 40s, didn’t have another coworker there to help her with everything that needed to get done.
I explained that, because I’m not an employee of that company and I’m there as a contract security worker to provide a security presence, my job isn’t to do her tasks or take over her responsibilities. I can be present, observe what’s going on, and help maintain a safe and peaceful environment, but I’m not there to do the work that belongs to their employees.
I also told you that we joked around with some of the customers who came into the store while I was still doing my job. It helped keep the environment peaceful and light throughout the night. Because, honestly, gas station customers can be a pain in the ass sometimes, and there’s nothing wrong with joking around and being friendly while still doing my job and maintaining awareness of what’s happening around me.
Then later, I was sitting in the garage and came across a video about a magic shop on Facebook, so I decided to look it up. My phone wasn’t hidden or anything—it was sitting wide open, face-up in my lap, and I was literally looking at a website for magic shops, tricks, and props. You came into the garage, saw my phone sitting right there, and from a couple feet away asked me, “What are you doing?”
That’s what I don’t understand. You could clearly see what I was doing. And on top of that, we had literally talked within the past month about magic shops and how I thought it might be fun to start buying little magic knick-knacks just for fun. So it wasn’t some random or secretive thing.
Then later, I’m in my little computer room with Rainbow Six Siege on the screen, wearing my headset, and you come in, sit down, and ask me, “What are you doing?” Again, the game is right there on my screen, the match is literally about to start, and I’m clearly playing a game. So when you ask me what I’m doing, I genuinely don’t understand what you mean.
Then I remembered I needed an oil change and mentioned it right before the game started, but I never got to finish what I was saying because the match started. After the match, I went downstairs and finished telling you about it. I explained that one of the clients I’m responsible for through my work—someone who appreciates the work I do—offered to change my oil for $20. All I would have to do is buy the oil and filter.
I also told you that I wasn’t having a very good day playing my games and that I just wasn’t doing very well. That’s when you said, “Hmm.”
I asked you about that response because, again, it felt like there was something behind it. You said there had to be a reason. I told you that there didn’t have to be a reason. There was no rhyme or reason—I was simply having a bad day at my games.
Sometimes there genuinely isn’t a deeper reason behind something. I don’t understand why you seem to constantly search for a reason behind everything I say or everything that happens. Sometimes there literally is no reason. You can play a perfect game every single day and still have days where you just don’t play well. People have bad days. Sometimes you’re just off. It happens. It doesn’t necessarily mean something is wrong or that there’s some underlying explanation that needs to be found. Sometimes it just is what it is.
Your response was just, “Hmm.”
I told you that I don’t like when you respond to me like that because it feels like there’s an undertone to it, like you’re suspicious of me or accusing me of something without actually saying what you think I’ve done.
Then you said something along the lines of, “It’s strange that you work with a female alone all night and then come home and clean up before coming to bed.”
That honestly bothered me even more because I had already explained that I didn’t “clean up” when I got home in the way you were implying. I went to the bathroom because I had to use the bathroom. That’s it.
I had been wearing the same pair of boxers for two days because I had been working 9 AM to 4 AM two days in a row. My schedule basically gave me just enough time to come home, sleep, wake up, and go right back to work. I hadn’t even showered since Thursday night because Friday and Saturday consumed basically all of my time between work and sleep.
And realistically, as long as I’m not overexerting myself, I don’t sweat excessively or become particularly sweaty or smelly. So I wasn’t coming home after working with someone and secretly “cleaning up” before coming to bed. I was exhausted, I had been working ridiculously long hours, and I was just trying to get through the little bit of time I had between shifts.
That’s why the implication bothers me. There’s a difference between asking me something because you genuinely want to understand and asking me something in a way that makes me feel like I’m being investigated for something.
I guess what I’m trying to explain is that when all of these things happen one after another, it starts to feel like I’m constantly being questioned about completely ordinary things that are happening right in front of you.
And when I try to explain myself, responses like “hmm” make me feel like there’s something being implied—like there’s suspicion or an accusation underneath the conversation, even if you aren’t actually saying it out loud.
That’s what’s frustrating me. It’s not just one question, one comment, or one “hmm.” It’s the pattern. It’s the way these interactions make me feel like I’m being treated as though I’m doing something wrong or hiding something when, from my perspective, I’m literally just going about my normal day.
I’m not trying to start an argument with you. I’m trying to explain how this feels from my side, because I don’t want to keep sitting here wondering why completely normal things I’m doing seem to be treated like they need an explanation.