The following is what happened to me on Sunday. I posted this account on the message board I frequent and just thought I'd copy and paste it here because I'm lazy like that.
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A co-worker who is in charge of the kids' books (we'll call her L.) was knitting at the break room table a couple weeks ago. She was just starting the knitting project and I looked at it and said "It looks like a penis cozy". Everyone laughed. Including L. I wasn't critizing her knitting, just making a joke about the starting shape of the project. A few minutes later she goes into how her fiancee talks about how how he might not be long but he's wide. Remember this statement.
I stupidly repeat this penis cozy comment a couple times because I love making people laugh. Yesterday I said it while other people, including a manager type, was standing there and L. says "Please don't repeat that again. It offended me the first time you said it." Manager type and I laughed, not taking that seriously, for obvious reasons. But a bit later I was thinking about it and decided that L. was serious. As soon as I could, I went into the kids' dept. and saw she was alone. I said something like "I'm so sorry. Sometimes I don't know when to stop." L., stonefaced, said "It offended me the first time." Me, shocked at her reaction, replied "Well, I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to offend you." L., still unsmiling and obviously not accepting the apology, "Ok." while nodding.
I walked away, thinking to myself, "Holy cow." I went back to the managers' office and related this to my two asst. managers. Sat at the desk and worked on the computer and kept fuming about it and then started crying. I had to get myself together and leave the office and went back to the floor. Caleb, asst. manager, came up to me later and said he'd talked to L. and needed to talk to me before I left. I went to the office right before leaving and Caleb let me know that L. was not comfortable with having the apology on the floor and was still offended. I started feeling persecuted, like I'm wont to do, and cried my eyes out.
Poor Caleb tried to make me see that it wasn't a huge deal but I really couldn't see that in my fog. I told him I couldn't apologize then because I would just start crying again. So I came in today(Monday) for work and my boss met with me about my dept. and we discussed the whole thing (my boss has a wicked sense of humor and gives as good as she gets). She was laughing about the whole thing and then I brought up about L.'s previous comment about her fiancee. My boss could see my side of things but I knew I just needed to politely apologize and get it over with. I waited until towards the end of L's shift for the day. I had Caleb in the office with me to witness my polite apology, where I basically repeated what I said before. L smiled and nodded and accepted the apology.
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I can see that my comments can go too far but for crying out loud, tell me to shut up the first time. I totally will. Don't encourage me by laughing the first time.
Anywho..in crush news...Jon is filling in for Rox Monday,Tuesday and tomorrow so he's working pretty much a full shift. So today I went to the back to get a few boxes and let him know that corporate had now set it up so that I can do all my shipping from the computer in my dept. (damn those home office people!!) Jon was like "Oh..." a trifle disappointed, maybe? Who knows!? Later on I went back there and asked where he was and was told he was at lunch. I then went back to my dept. and told Mike that I was taking my lunch now instead of later. Hee. So I went upstairs and sat across from Jon at the big break room table and chatted a bit with him and tried to be Ms. Casual. All the while I feel like my tongue is too big for my mouth. But I doubt it showed.
So I've set myself this tiny goal for tomorrow. Try my damnedest to see if I can invite him to go to karaoke for either Thursday or Friday night. I'd invite him for tomorrow but I've already made plans to meet up with Diane and maybe a couple other people from my old store. He wouldn't know any of them and it would be kind of weird. I completely expect him to say "No, I can't" and have there be some reason why. Because that's how my life goes. 99% of me feels this way. But the 1% is persistent enough to keep hoping for an affirmative answer. I just don't know. If I get my hopes up about anything they just usually get dashed. I really used to think I was an optimist. But I'm not. At least about myself. Which is what my therapist keeps telling me to change. My self-talk is mostly negative. Half of the time I hate myself, a quarter of the time I like myself ok, the other quarter is just ambivalent and not taking sides.
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