Some things I'm sensitive to, others I'm laid back about

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I can be really sensitive if I feel I'm being personally attacked or humiliated, but if they're generalizing I don't take offense at all.

Note: Please don't steer this thread on to men Vs women or anything like that, as that is not the topic intended for this thread and I don't want it to end up getting locked.

For example the guys at work were talking about fat women and how they prefer thin women. I'm supposed to be thin but in the last few years I've piled on the pounds so I now consider myself quite fat. I was the only woman in the room. Some fat women might have got offended when hearing such a conversation but I just laughed as I did find it funny.
Also a guy at work always makes jokes about me being dumb, but because he's so hilarious and he likes me a lot and he's not doing it with malicious intent, I find it so funny. He makes the same sort of jokes to others as well, so I know it's nothing personal. Like when I showed him a picture of my Christmas tree and I said that I decorated it myself, he said "yeah, I know", meaning "yes obviously it was you who decorated it because it looks crap" - even though his real thoughts were "that's really pretty and very well decorated" (because, believe me, I can be really creative when it comes to decorating Christmas trees). He just has to throw in a "you're so dumb" joke in everything.
Or like the time when I said to someone else at work that I have pet rats, and he couldn't stop laughing. Then he apologized and said that he wasn't laughing at me horribly, and I knew that. Rats are quite unusual pets and he obviously had a bit of a fear about rats like most people do, so I can see why he just found it funny at the time.

But I can be SO sensitive to other things, like if someone in authority tells me off I get all emotional and have to hide myself away to cry. Or if someone criticises me or seriously implies that I've just said or done something weird or stupid. Or if I catch strangers staring at me or whatever. All these things can hit a raw nerve, but I don't really get offended if people are talking about a group of people that I might be a part of (unless it's about autism on an autism site, because for me autism is a sore subject but if people at work were talking bad about autism I'd just shrug it off because as far as I'm concerned I am not autistic, only when I'm on WP where everyone knows I'm on the spectrum).

Anyway, sorry about the annoyingly long post. Does anyone know what I mean and can you relate?

Perhaps because people in authority are in a position to cause you actual harm (such as firing you from your job) if they get too displeased with you?