WTF happened with my co-worker?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Back in March I posted a thread about how wrong it is that males still have to prop up/support etc women in our workplace and how we should be long past this:

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=787520

This was about a specific co-worker, with whom I got along really well and with whom I had some open and honest discussions about various issues. In April, after one such discussion, she had texted me that evening to thank me for being such an honest friend.

We’re both married and there was absolutely nothing untoward going on between us but I don’t like losing friends (I’m not the sort of person who has, or needs, zillions of friends, - I have a very small number of people I consider to be friends and I’m fine with that).

This co-worker has an outward attitude of being “tough as nails” but there is a very nice person behind that. We’ve also been co-workers for about the last three years and worked on a specific four month project, with some travelling, together until last March.

Shortly after that project ended she was assigned to another project and, suddenly, after the last weekend in April, she suddenly became aloof and will barely talk to me. So I asked her if she was pissed off at me about something. Her response was just a very curt “No. I’m busy”, with no other modifying statement.

After a week of this, I decided that maybe I had misinterpreted her “tough as nails-ness” as being pissed off so that Friday evening, on our way out, I apologized for my behaviour, telling her how I regarded our friendship as very important. She apologized as well and everything seemed to go back to normal – but that subsequently was not the case.

Since then, whenever I talk to her I get monosyllabic answers and then disregard.
I have been analyzing this to death, trying to figure out what the hell happened and I simply cannot see anything unique, or any changes, or anything I’ve done that remotely coincides with the start of this. Her behaviour is the sort of behaviour you see when someone discovers something really unsavoury or vile about someone who they previously respected, except I don’t do unsavoury or vile things.

Has anyone else ever experienced something like this? In my entire working life, starting with summer jobs in 1976, I have never had anything like this happen.

Thanks

2

ehh. It doesn’t sound like you need to apologize for anything.

Stop analyzing it. You will just make it worse.

I have a wonderful friend that I have known for 28 years. She goes through these chaotic busy periods in her life when we don’t talk for a few months.

Then we get back in touch, and all is back to normal. :shrug: It’s just the way she is.

3

Looking for shared experiences? Better in IMHO rather than General Questions. Moved.

samclem, moderator

4

With crushes, the only way to get over them is to find a romantic interest that shares your affection OR to remove yourself from the proximity of your crush. Simply to get them out of your headspace.

The problem with work place crushes, is that you CAN’T remove yourself from the person you’re crushing on. Your only option is to become emotionally distant.
I had a work place crush once. It was absolute torture. And the only way for me to resolve the issue was to act, pretty much like the woman you describe in your OP. Didn’t exactly feel great about doing that. She did nothing to deserve that attitude from me after all. But my mental well being was at stake.

Good news is, now that I have a GF that I’m absolutely crazy about. Me and former crush were able to reconnect and are now good friends again. And ironically, my GF and said former crush are becoming fast friends themselves.

Life is strange.

5

It sounds like it’s something else in her life that is causing this, like her marriage perhaps?

6

Sometimes “thank you for being honest” doesn’t really mean “thank you for being honest.”

Is she acting this way with others, or just you? If it’s just you, then it’s just you.

Not that you did anything wrong or anything is your fault, but it’s still you. Probably has to do with whatever she thanked you for being honest about.

7

I have seen occurrences where a coworker would be friendly to me for a long while, then become very cold as soon as they no longer had a work-related “need” for me (in both cases, they were about to leave the company).

8

It’s not just co-workers. My ex-wife once acted like that for days. Eventually it turned out she had dreamed that I had an affair with a friend of hers. Only last week I recounted this story at work expecting the usual incredulous reaction the story gets but one of the young guys said that the same thing had just recently happened to him.

9

Ex GF of mine woke one day all pissy with me. When I asked what the heck her problem was, she told me I had pissed her of in her dream. :rolleyes:

10

Grrr!, regarding your “crushes” comment, I have wondered if she had a crush of some sort on me, and has suddenly come to the conclusion that it is something she has to stop and that this is the only way she can.

levdrakon, she’s just acting this way with me. With everyone else nothing has changed; it is obviously only about her, her issue, and me.

11

I’m with levdrakon, sometimes “thank you for being honest” means " I just heard something I did not want hear from you." Do you recall what you were so honest about?

As for crushes, that is certainly a possibility. It is also a possibility you have a teeny little crush on her yourself or that she thinks you do.

12

I had this same situation years ago with a co-worker. We had been friendly for quite a while, and then she suddenly pretty much stopped speaking to me. I had no idea why.

Several years later, she was diagnosed with cancer and eventually took a leave of absence. And then one day I got a call from her, asking if I could visit her in the hospital. I was intrigued, and I wanted to be respectful, so I went. She was clearly in really bad shape. She told me a long story about some other friend of hers, who she thought was making a play for her then husband, and cut cold from her life. Eventually she had learned that this friend had not done what she thought, and she deeply regretted having ended the friendship. Then she thanked me for coming to see her. She never said anything specifically about what she thought I had done to hurt her (I’d never met her husband or any significant other, so I’m sure it wasn’t that), but I got the message. I wished her well, and that was it. Not long after, I learned that she had died.

I still don’t know why she cut me off so completely, but at least she had the chance to tell me that she was sorry in her own way and clear her conscience. The whole event made me acutely aware that we never really know what is going on in another person’s head.

13

I’ve had this happen many times in my work life.

On a business level, it usually happened when my workplace friend either was promoted or transferred to another department. Suddenly we’re not in each other’s pockets, our conversations suddenly stop, I see Workplace Friend scurrying hither and tither. We may wave hi to each other but that’s it. Workplace Friend is usually so intent on making a good impression AND doing the new job that s/he, intentionally or not, puts on blinders.

I’ve done the same myself, btw.

I’d be the last person to get in the way of Workplace Friend’s success in the new position so I’ve never taken the behavior change personally.

As for the crush part…yep, been there, done that.

If both of you still work in the same area/space the only way to get the other party out of your headspace is to ignore them. It’s difficult! Whatever crushes I had gradually dissipated. But for actual romances? One of us always got transferred so we wouldn’t be working in the same space. It was much easier that way.

14

Is there any possibility that someone/anyone inferred that being chummy with you wouldn’t advance her career?

(Wild Ass Guess!)

15

The thing I was so honest about was her external approach to people. She was telling me that she doesn’t have any close girlfriends in her life. I mentioned that she can come across as being very aggressive and intense, conversationally, at times. That’s what she thanked me for.

The big switch happened a few days later.

As for me having a crush on her, I don’t though it’s possible that she may think I do.

16

She probably has strong romantic feelings for you and is creating emotional distance to compensate. I’ve had to do this before. It sucks, but that’s what loyalty to your spouse requires sometimes.

ETA: I’ve had to do it in much gentler ways. It sounds like her curtness is just an aspect of her personality.

17

Roger Sterling: *Are we actually gonna get in a fight over a movie? You know, Mona had a dream once where I hit the dog with the car. She was mad at me all day - and I never hit the dog. We don’t even have a dog.*As far as I can tell, every man who has ever been in a long term relationship with a woman has experience this phenomenon. I once got a week of silent treatment because the ex-wife dreamed that I left our child on a bus, despite the fact that a) we never rode buses, b) she was always leaving things behind and I was picking up after her, and most critically, c) we had no children.

As for the o.p., trying to figure out what your coworker is thinking is an exercise in futility, and asking a bunch of strangers on a message board to interpret her intent from your description of her behavior is just spreading the frustration far and wide. Smile, say “Hi” when you see her, and move on with your life. Eventually she’ll work out whatever is going on with her. Or not. People are basically big blobs of protoplasm driven by random number generators and occasionally alcohol. It is surprising that our behavior makes as much sense as it does.

Stranger

18

This, and similar opinions upthread, are more or less what I’m doing. What makes it interesting is that a few months ago, before any of this happened, we were all relocated to another part of the building with smaller cubicles (they’re almost not cubicles at all) so I’m sitting about two or three feet from her with no partition between us.

19

It sounds like she has her guard up around you because you made a remark that has now made her self-conscious and perhaps unfairly judged. Not everyone can shrug off feedback like this.

I remember the previous thread you started about this coworker, and I see her in a catch 22. Men in the office constantly defer to you, not her, as if she is not to be seen as someone worth taking seriously, right? So this is a problem she is having to deal with constantly. It chips away at her confidence and sense of belonging. Okay, so that’s happening. You then give her feedback that implies she is too aggressive and intense. Wow, can you see how the qualities you’ve ascribed to her could be perceived as influenced by sexism? And they are contraditory to her professional circumstances, because she is routinely ignored and dismissed in the office even though she exhibits traits that are usually associated with people who are treated as respected experts and authorities. Whats a gal to do with this “honesty” you’ve shared?

She may sees her hard exterior as a way to compensate against the sexist bias that you–a male–don’t have to put up with in the workplace. Her persona probably costs her in the interpersonal realm, but if this is who she is, what really can she do about it? And would her changing to be “softer and less intense” make it better for her professionally? I’m betting she thinks hell no, but she ain’t gonna tell you that because that requires opening up a lot more than she wants to. Putting up a wall means she is keeping you out of a place that is sensitive to her. I can’t say I blame her either.

I’m a woman who sometimes have to go extra hard with being “down to business” because my race and gender make it way too easy for people to prejudge me as a being just a fluffy follower, not as a leader and expert. My humorous, easy-going, softer side eventually comes out but only after I feel people understand what’s up, and that sometimes can take a while. I know this makes me more intimidating than other women, and it probably makes me unapproachable, but I have no regrets about my workplace persona.

Bottom line: she used to think you were ally and maybe even a friend, and now she sees you as someone who doesn’t get her or the biased complexities of her world.

20

you with the face,

I appreciate your analysis of this and I suspect that there could be elements of that as well. Her hard exterior, as you put it, wouldn’t be an issue if it wasn’t for its explosiveness, but then I may not have been successful in getting that nuance across.

And she is highly respected by both genders, except for the instance I discussed in the other thread.