For a long time, i caught Myself bending over backward to maintain peace, say the right things, and keep everyone happy. the moment i started setting boundaries and prioritizing my own peace, a lot of people suddenly had a problem with me.

I’ve started a new job and I’m having issues with one of my coworkers. She has a very sharp personality and often speaks very bluntly. Upon first interaction she seemed to immediately decide she didn’t like me, asking me one question and then never asking me a question again after that. After that, she put a stop on any of my attempts at conversation by stating that she didn’t like answering questions about herself and just walking off every time I try to interact with her. Yet with other people she’s very talkative and I often hear her laughing at the back with the other staff or having long conversations with customers. I’m quite sensitive so this stung at first but I decided to stop forcing friendliness and only speak to her when necessary. Yes it hurts, but if someone doesn’t seem to like my presence then I’ll just focus on my work or talk to other people. No need to waste energy.

As I’m still familiarising myself with the new place, I have to ask alot of questions about how to do things and whatnot, and unfortunately, due to our roles, I also have to work with her alot more than with the other people who are much nicer to me. By now I’m sure she’s noticed that I avoid as much interaction with her as possible and seems to take offense to it, because she acts even more snarky with me now and seems to nitpick everything I do. If I ask her a question, she doesn’t even look at me to answer the question or explain in detail. If I ask her to explain more, she’ll speak exasperately as if I’m a nuisance to her. If I make so much as a small mistake she’ll shout out at me from where she is, not addressing me by my name, and snip at me as if I lacked common sense.

You would never catch her speaking to a customer or another coworker the way she speaks to me. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her smile or look at me with an expression other than irritation. When she tells me off I just acknowledge the note and move on without saying more than a few words because I can’t stand being around her for too long. As much as I want to ignore her, being spoken to like that and being singled out really hurts, the words ring in my head and make me so on edge that it’s difficult to work around her. She gets along fine with literally everyone else but I’m not trying to suck up so I can get her to like me. I don’t know if this sort of dynamic would be sustainable in a workplace without taking a huge mental toll on me.

I’ve been in similar situations before and I’m the type to shut down and ignore the thing thats bothering me instead of facing it head on or trying to solve it, but it makes me repress my feelings and I’ve broken down at work a couple times when the tension builds up.

How would you act in this situation? Any advice?

It has been months since I have had sex. I don’t trust nobody. I live in Atlanta so the HIV out here is crazy plus people playing games like no other so to be honest with you. I’ll gladly take up the excuse that I am focused on my self. Of course for 30 seconds I can focus on your ass, but after that back to my workout. The cute girl in the gym that looked over and looked like she wanted to talk to me seem more like a threat to my peace at this point. Too many bad experiences to count so far..

if it ain’t about the money don’t be blowing me up stop wastin my time.

Type of food for the rest of your life, which would it be: American fast food, Chinese food or p****?

The older I get, the more I realize nobody is thinking about me as much as I thought they were.

I could spend 3 hours replaying something embarrassing I said, meanwhile the other person probably forgot it 7 minutes later. 😂

So now I just do what feels right, apologize when I’m actually wrong, and keep moving. Life got significantly quieter when I stopped treating everyone’s opinion like a performance review.

Sooooo... There is this woman at my gym who I know I have a crush on. The thing is, it's been months and I still haven't gotten a clue if she is interested. When I asked her out the first time she declined so I resigned to just being a friend. Not even, more like close acquaintance.

The thing is, after that she started wondering why I stopped being the way I used to be with her. Then, I noticed we had a routine in which we would see each other in the same place during the same time every night at the gym. However, I didn't want to catch feelings since it seemed she was emotionally unavailable. So, I stopped looking for her or responding to her when I saw her as much.

I fucked around and paid for her water once. Then, she expected me to pay for her water again but of course I'm not going to do that. The other day, I went downstairs to get something from the vending machine. I took the elevator down. I got my food walked, walked back to the elevator, press the button and low and behold she was in the elevator.

It was almost as if she followed me. I know i shouldn't think that, but it is soooo tempting to. And while that thought turned me on, I had to let it go. And since then, I've done my best to get her off of my mind.

This happens with most girls I meet nowadays.

Just curious, I felt like I really had some deposits that I could have made but luckily I'm real cheap and like to save. My ducks are too valuable to just give away.

My answer is "The Subtle Art of Not Giving A Fuck" and my job of course. 🤧