Name changed for this.
I recently have changed jobs and I got invited out for a meal by a woman on my new team I’ve got friendly with but haven’t yet met in person (not been into the office yet but have been chatting remotely)
She was going out with a couple others from my workplace last night but she’s the only one in my team and so asked if I wanted to come.
I was nervous as I didn’t know anyone else but pushed myself to go and be social and they were all friendly enough, but one woman just made me feel really uncomfortable. She was quite overbearing and I just got the impression she didn’t like me from the beginning.
She was the story teller of the table so everyone would be listening to her stories but when I had something to say she talked over me constantly. e.g she’d ask me a question and then either just talked over me or stopped listening half way through me talking and start talking to someone else. Once she just brought her phone out during me answering her question and started texting, so I stopped talking and then when she’d finished and I started talking again she said loudly ‘fucking hell this is taking a while!’ and roll eyes her eyes at the woman opposite. I thought yes because you keep interrupting me!
Then I noticed her screwing her nose up at things I said throughout the night at the woman opposite when I was speaking and when I asked certain questions I felt she laughed at me and brought it to others attention in a ‘look how stupid she is’ sort of way.
Also she kept forgetting my name or saying it wrong and she’d say (loud) sorry I’ve forgotten your name again and laugh.
I’m a fairly quiet and introverted person and to push myself out of my comfort zone like this was a big thing for me, but now I keep thinking over the night and how I don’t want to socialise with them again and put myself through feeling like the outsider.
I have always had a couple of close friends in life but always seem to be treated this way by other people. I was psychologically bullied by a group of girls in school and then was the ‘hanger on’ in Uni. I would always be talked over/excluded in groups and then in my last job I was in a lovely team and now I’ve moved on I just feel like the excluded girl again. I’m starting to think there’s something about me and who I am that makes others respond to me this way.
People say I’m friendly and bubbly and kind, so why then do I always get treated like I’m an after thought or just not worth people’s time? I keep feeling really teary today, I think it’s brought everything back. I keep asking myself why am I so worthless in people’s minds.