u/Jwynna

I have a coworker, let's call her S (34F) and I (26F) am close to her due to our mutual interests. We are teachers so we are in the same educational institution. She is sweet sometimes, but that sweetness is in fact an attempt to trap me since she's more financially secure so she will give me materials, and in turn, I had to listen to her while she'd react boredly and visibly disinterested when it's my turn to get reciprocality. I ignored some red flags in the past, I'll admit, but it has become apparent after I see that the other faculty members are only treating her out of courtesy (not that I am allied with them since they also like to talk about others as if they don't have any other hobbies to do), and she'll try to probe things from me in order to gather informations rather than truly supporting or engaging.

Examples:

- once I had a fiancé from another continent, and when we broke up her first response is "I'm gonna make a visa", and in another occasion she said something like "how come did you broke up?" and threw me some unsolicited advices like "since you're not a social butterfly, then you should woman up and try to reach for another."

- she had her problems with a student that exploited her financial security and she was going to document her experience to a book. She told me numerous times if she is writing. I also like to write as a recreational activity. And I want to exchange some knowledges with her, but then she responded with awkward smile and headshake two or three times after I asked "Do you want to see my writing?" it left me shaken, and she apologized but didn't know what is wrong— she said she wanted to fix it, I said "It's fine." since I know I will get countered with justifications if I ever speak about things (she backhandedly commented about things as mundane as my social media username, and I fought back then she tried to paint it as praise, telling me that "it's good that you are trying to express yourself").

- Copying gadgets I own, including headphones.

- Once I went to the library and the librarian happily let me borrow a chunk of a collegiate dictionary and S was visibly distraught and repeatedly asked what is it for as if I don't need it. S knows that I am now also attending college in Translation Major.

Recently she tried to escape the problems with that student, who is now attending college in another country, by doing her own attempt of getting scholarships for Masters abroad, and leeching on me only to get tips in learning languages since she is trying to do IELTS. I am fully supporting her but she sees me as threat. For example when she tries to memorize the formula of the 16 tenses, I said she should learn through films and literatures to grasp the easeness of the language usage. She does not even want to consider it while I had similar tests taken in another language other than English too so I know the struggle of learning a new language.

And the result?

Broken English and I don't even judge it. Yesterday S asked me with questionable English if I would like to join her in the library, inside the Teacher's faculty room where some people were there. Since I know she aimed to go to a country where English is the first language of its people, I simply corrected her since I am also qualified to do so. In an andragogical way.

Then at the library she said while pointing me (there were 5 of employees, of us, including her) "You know, you know, she bullied me!"

Fortunately the others retaliated by driving to another topic and completely dismissing her, and the librarian asked me about the meaning of a sentence at some point too.

But it left me uneasy since I don't even wish her harm and I am fully supporting whatever she is aiming.

Another context: She's a performing arts teacher and she likes to tell things irl and in her social media which I have blocked since, deleted her number too. Yet she claimed she never wanted any external validations by "posting sporadically on her second account"... since I am not too active on socials, I also said I don't really post anything and I responded by "I don't really check others" whenever she asked me to read her status, see her post or instagram story. In turn she suddenly said she's now very private and in her second account her bio is "a very private" (????????????).

She also said "why didn't YOU be the target of those people? Why me?" after she confided to me about another coworker that is beefing with her alongside her (the another coworker) clique.

UPDATE after few months: she has mirrored my attempt to consider her as invisible after I cut her access off to communicate 1-on-1. I don't know if she has told anyone about me being cruel to her due to the "cold shoulder" but I don't think people would actually believe her.