Had some problems with a coworker, started doubting myself

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So, I can't really figure this out. I asked a friend about it, but I'd like a second opinion. English isn't my first language though, so bare with me.

Couple of weeks ago a colleague asked me to attend an exposition she did for school. I thought it would be nice to bring something, but I didn't want to get her flowers, so I got her a movie and made her a drawing with a bit of an in-joke, completely harmless as far as I'm concerned. In case anyone's interested, she got a kinda disappointing grade for something else, so I made her an award and gave her a better grade. Dumb maybe, but harmless... right?

Anyway, later that evening she send me a message saying she couldn't accept it. I asked why, but she stopped responding to my messages (Whatsapp, Facebook) for a couple of days. When I saw her again I asked her about it, but she didn't want to talk about it.

This really annoyed me. I hate being ignored like this. If you have a problem with me we can talk about it, but she couldn't even bring herself to do that while I tried my best to be there for her. I didn't really want to start a fight with her though. She contacted me a couple of times and tried to make small talk, but I didn't really want to pretend nothing was wrong either, so while I didn't ignore her, I think it was obvious I was agitated.

I started feeling guilty after a while, and asked her if we could talk about it, because I didn't like the tension between us. She calimed there wasn't any. And of course I got agitated again, so nothing changed.

Thing is, I still feel guilty about it. I've tried to fix it, I apologized to her, but Im not even sure what for, and I still feel like I might have handled it badly. Of course, being an Aspie, I'm not an expert on the subject, so I might very well be missing something, and I'm hoping someone here can help me figure this out. I doubt I'll be friends with her again, but I might learn something.

It sounds like she invited you to something because she had to. It does not sound like she was not interested.

When someone starts sweeping problems under a rug and not telling you what's wrong then you have a red flag. I had to let go of a relationship recently that was not too healthy where the person would cling on one hand but would never let me know when certain things bothered them,
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For instance, their parents threw a surprise party for my friend when she turned a mile stone last year and they seemed invited all their friends and family member but excluded myself and another friend of mine who did a lot for their child. I asked my friend several times how they felt, but they would never tell me but rather asked me if we would change the subject. They never told me that they were sad that we were not part of the celebration which was strange for someone who called me their best friend and clung on like that. In my mind, a true friend is open and honest.


Then I had another friend who I went round and round with for a while and I was not at the top of their list either. However, I had called them on the carpet before when their actions bothered me many time, and they hit the roof and left nasty messages on my voice mail. They would them manipulate me by saying "I have problems and if you can't understand that then this relationship is over. BYE." However, then they would call me when they felt better and I would try to talk about it and they would sweep their stuff under the rug. "Oh shhh that's water over the dam let's start over fresh."

I also worked with someone who stood me up at a few things because they didn't care for me and yet had the nerves to call me a best friend and a sister. They didn't like me with a passion either behind my back. However, they would make excuse after excuse that something came up and they couldn't call me because either they left their phone at home or they had a bad signal. Like the other two situations, this co-worker never told me what was wrong to my face but always behind my back.

As for your co-worker, I would talk to her and mention that you really don't appreciate her pulling this on you and that you would like some honesty or you can't be friends. I also would not beat my head against a well either. Let's face it, you were the one who was reaching out to make her feel better about herself and she pushed you away. That is her problem and not yours.

Why is that? Because, she is a jerk- Check.

The vast majority of people are too stupid to understand a gift like the one you tried to give. That's about it, or at least as I have found. I've done things like this a lot, and found that the people that actually accept my child-like gifts are the most generally intelligent people I've met (and either parents themselves or have worked with children a lot). I could make conjectures about about why most people are stupid about this kind of thing, but I really don't have any idea. My response has been to stop being especially nice to anyone, even family, but that is not a healthy response and I would not recommend it at all.

Thanks for the replies!

Summer Twilight:

I don't have too many friends and ran into some trouble with another friend because I've always been the one who had to take the initiative. I've known him for about 10 years, and I think he only called me once or twice to do something in all that time. But that's another story. I guess I just feel sad it turned out this way, making friends is hard enough for me. I don't know what else I can do though, and it's probably not worth my energy.

Seems like you were dissapointed by some friends too a couple of times. It's sad how selfish and childish some people can be. You're right though, they're not really friends and not worth your time. I've wondered for a time if I should adopt the same attitude, kinda only live for myself, but I'm not ready to do that yet. Or maybe I'm seeing things a bit black and white because of the situation.

Merculangelo:

I'm repeating myself, but I consider the gift harmless. I really don't see why she would be offended by it. But I guess she has her reasons, so that's not really why I'm annoyed. I see your point though, and it's easy to get discouraged by these things. Still, if you really like someone I think it's worth showing they're worth your time.

I'm learning not to take life too serious though. Some people might think the possibility of losing face is somehow worse than losing a friend. Seems really stupid to me.

The best way meet people if getting involved in different things outside of work where you have others who share the same interested. You will also make the best ones when you lease expect it. I did.

-I am friends with a woman in her 60's who drove me to school during my Jr. year. This was not long after a falling out with a child hood friend who pushed me away over a year earlier and then a few other people in high school were not good selections for friends. She and I have been close friends since. We still call and write each other.

As for being alone, there is nothing wrong with that. I have done that for years and met other people along the way.

I enjoy being among people me every now and then. I'm never bored, but I enjoy sharing things. As soon as I get my paycheck I'll sign up for art class, maybe make some new friends there. I want to go back to the gym too. Maybe I'll get someone to drive me there.

Co-worker or friend? A lot of this might be to do with how well you know her?

She sounds like she is uncomfortable about something and is dealing with it badly, she seems rude and immature. Don't feel guilty and dont waste any of your time trying to fix anything.

How well do you know her? If you knew her well and you were already friends then a present and certificate would obviously just be a kindness.

If you weren't good friends already, the present might have made her feel you were romantically interested in her. Something home-made says I made a special effort for you, which is lovely between friends. But if you hardly know each other, one possibility is she may have worried you had misunderstood a friendly cue for a "come on a date" cue. Perhaps?

Her not just telling you straight what was wrong, suggests an immaturity. Its possible that the bad grade was a big issue for her. The fake certificate reminded her of something her pride would rather she forgot? And if you were not good friends she might have been confused by the message. She might just be over-thinking stuff herself.

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You make some good points I didn't think of before.

I wouldn't say we were close friends, but she talked to me every now and then on Whatsapp and Facebook. We never did anything together. I gave her some DVD's once when I moved and wanted to get rid of some stuff and she seemed grateful. Someone once mentioned she might like me. She has a boyfriend though, and I wasn't interested, so I mentioned to her I liked someone else. Didn't really want to ask her directly because I didn't want to make things uncomfortable. If she did like me she had her answer, otherwise she wouldn't lose face was my logic. She didn't seem to care though, so I concluded she wasn't interested. Maybe I handled that poorly, but it didn't seem to be an issue. Besides, that was a while back. Maybe I should have mentioned it before. Anyway, I doubt I ever gave her the impression I was romantically interested, but of course I'm completely oblivious in that respect.

She acted like the bad grade wasn't a big thing, but I suspect she was just acting tough. Maybe I offended her. Didn't think of that before.

Again, thanks for the replies!

It could be SO many things! I was thinking that since your gifts were so sweet and well thought out, she may have interpreted them as romantic interest from you and she didnt want that. Just a possibility. I think your gifts were very nice and another person would have simply interpreted them as such.


I too, hate it when ppl refuse to talk to me about what is bothering them and guess what? It seems to be the majority of people! It seems like its therapists who always encourage this whole "open communication" thing and act like its totally normal, but its NOT!! The vast majority of people DO NOT WANT open and honest communication. They are firghtened by it. Lord knows I used to be also. Its not their fault, they were prob brought up that way.

Move on and dont worry about it I say. Accept that people in general will usually choose NOT to talk!

It’s not really her problem that you hate being ignored. If she is uncomfortable and doesn’t want to talk to you about it, just accept that and let it go.



If she’s contacting you, then from her perspective everything is cool – otherwise she wouldn’t be contacting you.



Maybe she doesn’t think there is any tension. Just because you feel a certain way, it doesn’t mean someone else does. Stop feeling guilty. It doesn’t seem to me that you have done anything that would warrant feeling guilty about.



The fact she is contacting you shows she’s not holding a grudge, as otherwise she would be ignoring you. It seems to me that you are stuck in your own head chasing around a problem that doesn’t exist or at the very least over exaggerating an issue. If you keep bugging her to talk about it, then it’ll eventually get on her nerves and that will in itself become a problem!

Bit of an update: She quit... I send her another message before her last day to see if she wanted to talk, but I got no response. Shouldn't have done that, probably. Anyway...

Sweetcake - You're absolutely right. Just because I wanted to talk about it, doesn't mean she does. I'll let it rest. Don't really feel all that guilty anymore. I think I did all I could. Or I tried to, anyway.

BMctav - I thought it bothered her too, but I could very well be wrong. I wasn't really willing to pretend nothing happened, though. We didn't have a fight or anything, it was just kind of awkward, so it's OK.

The mystery won't really be solved, I guess. But it was nice hearing your opinions on the matter. These kind of situations can be very confusing for me, so this is a bit of a learning experience. I'm not sure whether I'll handle these things differently in the future. I kinda liked her (not romantically, but as a friend) and I wanted to do something nice for her, so this is the last thing I wanted to happen. Still, the thought I can't do something nice for someone kinda saddens me. Maybe I'll just keep it small next time.

I sympathise as it's hard to know when the right time and who is the right person to do something nice for. Don't beat yourself up about it, though.

I wonder if it's possible that she shut down from the bad grade she received and wasn't actually mad at you but just shut down.

I've learnt, too late and through tough experience, not to do or say unconventional things unless I know the person very well, we're very close or they're eccentric in a similar way to mine. The reason conventional gifts exist, like any other convention, is so that if the receiver doesn't like the present, they can't get offended or hold it against you, because you gave them what society says they should've liked to receive. For 5 decades I was always the creative one, while I couldn't understand why others were so unimaginative and uniform. Now I know why conventional, uniform is important, especially when you don't know someone that well. It's like when you're unsure what to wear, if you wear a classic shirt and pants, you're always fine enough. You cannot possibly know why she was offended and you two are not close enough for her to open up to you and "talk about it" with you. All you can do is try to avoid these situations, by sticking to the tried and true.

On the other hand, if I understood the situation you described correctly, I (personally) wouldn't have brought, to an unrelated happy moment in her life, a reminder of a sad moment in her life.

Guess you're right. Still think it's weird we can't do stuff for eachother. I already feel quite disconnected from the rest of the world. I thought I could do something nice, it's really weird to me it turned out this way. We got along pretty well. She told me about some personal stuff as well, for what that's worth. We weren't that close, but I thought we were becoming friends.

Don't even really care about that much anymore, it just kinda hammered the fact that I really am kinda limited in some ways. Never thought about it this way, but I feel lost, in a way.

thewhitrbbit - Maybe at first, but she since defriended (is that even a word?) on Facebook. Doubt she would have done that if she wasn't bothered by something. Most people just ignore you.

I've made mistakes before, but normally I can at least learn from it. This is the first time I couldn't figure out what I did wrong, or how I should change how I act in the future. Your replies made a lot of sense though, so there's a positive in all this. So for the third time, thanks again for all the replies! I know it's hard to figure this out when you don't even know the people involved, but your replies really gave me some food for thought.