Therapy After Nightmare Co-Worker Shift in My New Life

She is incapable of sitting in silence, and allowing others to have their own space void of her energy. She is in a social club, and I am at work. She needs a group for identity. She needs to infiltrate whatever club or group I’m in. The Hell’s Angels come to mind. I have actually re-picked up my copy written by Hunter S. Thompson. Upon reading Hunter’s account, and delving into the psychology; many joined The Hell’s Angels for a place to belong, or a 5 ft. tall man who needed a group or club for protection. I find myself asking myself as I psychoanalyze this head-trip nightmare woman, “Why don’t I need the identity of a group like The Hell’s Angels? I like motorcycles, and may buy one again, but I identify with Bob Dylan, Easy Rider, and Robert Pirsig in Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.” Maybe I am so easily accepted into groups, clubs or Fraternities, and folks who lack that ability find the need to join some club like the Hell’s Angels. I guess I am a Chapter leader in my own club. I have a brotherhood I keep up with spanning the USA, parts of Europe, and South America. But, I don’t see myself as being in a club more than just keeping up with friends, and colleagues because that is just normal to me. You need friends.

Anyway, if I were in a club, she wouldn’t be in it. She is a neanderthal; the type you try to avoid at work as much as possible without being impolite, and the type you hope you don’t see outside of work. I’ve always had the opposite problem with folks always wanting to be my friend, so it’s very difficult for me to relate. I guess I am self-aware, and I correct behaviors that don’t seem to be popular around someone I may be interested in a friendship with, and if I am unpopular, which happens occasionally, I don’t let it bother me. I don’t push for it. And I accept that that particular group isn’t where I should be, or where I can win. I keep doing me, and try to get better at what I do and find people who I have genuine common interests with. She, however, is not accepting my rejection, which is making her case all the worse. She tries to place herself in the romantic category of my relationships rather than the category I want her to be in which is just another co-worker.

Greek, and Russian cultures comes to mind where you have a diminutive name your family calls you, and other versions of your name for other roles you may be playing in other’s lives. Americans are having a lot of problems with that, in my opinion, in at least where I have been the last few years. It really upsets me when certain folks use my first name in a certain way or tone. They say my name like one of my close friends would say it; or in Greek it would be the suffix “-Ike” (eye-key) at the end of a Greek name which is diminutive. It would be a father or brother who would say it. And in Russian it’s “-Ilya”. At the last job I Served at, I actually insisted that this lady (or girl) who was getting too close too fast refer to me as Mr. (my first name or my last name) sternly, but she ran off crying. And everyone was upset and said, we all go by our first names here. The point wasn’t the suffix. The point I was trying to get across was, “please step back; this is too close for me”. And then there was that prick bitch-boy ordering me around with my first name like we were old Pals and it’s all gravy him being a bitch-boy and all. That really makes me angry. I think it’s called a certain type of culture like Low-Contact or High-Contact.

The wild part is that my closer friends know me as a friendly, hippie, surfer dude, but when it comes to business and my professional life I command respect for safety purposes. I learned this teaching Snowboarding: Never. Give. Your. Friends. A. Lesson. They will not listen to you. They will not take you serious. Because they see all the goofy shit you two all have gotten into together before. They don’t see a person in charge of their life and safety at that point. I had or have the reputation of being one of the our best Instructors at our slopes. Once when I was 16 or 17, a family of 5 paid $100 each for them to have a Private Lesson with just those 5 people in it. As it so happened it was a slow day and they all would have had a Private Lesson for free. If it were a busy day, I may have taken groups of 15-20 out, and in that case their payment would have mattered. So, my Head Instructor felt bad they paid so much and he said, “Give them to J_ (me). That way I know they are at least getting their money’s worth.” And he meant it too. A lot of Instructors just get the job for the free-pass. A few years later, I brought a best friend from college up to snowboard, and that lesson was infuriatingly insulting. It really showed me how little my friend respected me. I am a hippie at heart and that’s who he knew me as, and he acted like I was some goofball instructor. So, anyway, there is a reason why I don’t like folks I don’t know that well trying to act like we’re all close, and old friends and all. That is really insulting to me, and my friends.

So, I guess I do have a Fraternity. It isn’t really official, and I guess there are a few Chapters. I have my Greek-American friends who are more like my brothers, and I have my long time best friends, and good friends who have come later on, and I keep up with all of them.

Last updated October 23, 2023