This may be more appropriate for MPSIMS, but since I’m looking for opinions, I’m asking here.
A little backstory, first–
This girl at work about my age, we’ll call her Melissa, has been there about three months. We were fast friends, but I noticed quickly that she’s extremely defensive-- if you have to correct her about anything, even if you’re training her, you have to phrase it VERY delicately and she still might take it as a personal attack. We’ve had several spats about this very thing, as I’m the resident go-to person on what she’s now doing; they’ve been pretty minor up to now, so I usually let them go after awhile (she has never apologized, though I maintain that they were ALL due to her attitude).
Anyway, this morning, I walk in and cheerfully say “Hey, Smell-issa!” My joking way of saying good morning. She doesn’t respond, so after a minute I wander over to where she is and say “Hey, I said hi, what’s up?” And she barks “Yeah, but you called me fucking SMELL-ISSA! You know I don’t fucking like that!” (Actually, she told me some kids used to ill-naturedly call her a meaner version of that in school, and she hated it… however, I have called her that before and since knowing that, with no problems up to now. I guess I assumed she was over her junior high trauma.)
So I’m pretty taken aback, and say “Whoa… nice to see you too, just tryin’ to say hi, guess you’re in a bad mood…” and she starts into some tirade about how she WAS in a good mood until I said that, and why the fuck did I call her that, so I just cut her off-- “Hey, you know what, just shut up. If that’s how you’re gonna greet me, then fuck you.” And I walk away.
I am pretty goddamn offended that she turned a silly little greeting into a fucking attack. I’m trying to say hi and she bites my fucking head off?? I’m pissed. So I don’t say a word to her for a while, and then I notice her quietly crying about it, so I start to feel bad. I feel like I was justified in telling her to fuck off, because her reaction was totally inappopriate, but I figure I can at least say I’m sorry for saying the nickname in the first place, so I do. I say “Hey, I’m sorry I called you that. It won’t happen again.” She doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t even acknowledge that I said a word to her. We haven’t spoken since, and this was at 9 this morning.
I know what she’s going to do; she’s going to wait ‘til tomorrow and then act like it never happened. She’s not going to apologize or even so much as accept MY apology. She’ll just go on as if she never flipped her shit over some trivial bullshit, and I never called her on it. Thing is, I think I’m owed an apology, and I’m not so sure I’m ok with this just being dust in the wind. To me, her reaction was fuckin’ psycho, and I’m not real sure that I want to be friends with someone with such a ridiculously short fuse, especially if they can’t even acknowledge it as a fault. I don’t need that shit.
Now, I’m not totally immature-- if we’re not friends, I’m capable of having a civil working relationship with her, so that’s not an issue. There just won’t be anything extra. I’ll be a co-worker and that’s it. Also, if she apologizes sincerely, I’ll accept. We’ll go back to being friends, but I have irrevocably lost some respect for her, and I can’t help that.
What I’m wondering is, what do you guys think about this? Am I being bratty, or am I right in being seriously offended? How would you react?