u/Unable-Street-1216

Cometi o pecado grave de ser uma mulher tímida/introvertida e percebi que, por esse motivo, meus colegas extrovertidos adquiriram o péssimo hábito de achar que podem falar o que quiserem comigo porque sou quieta.

Essas falas geralmente são "brincadeiras" sobre algo que fiz de errado (exemplo: se eu esqueci de fazer uma coisa, e a coordenadora relembrar como um anúncio geral, eles dizem "Isso aí, não façam como a Fulana!" e todo mundo ri) elogios que vem com uma crítica por trás ("Beltrana tirou nota boa com você? Que milagre foi esse, que na minha aula ela não faz nada?!" > a crítica é que eles acham que eu facilito as coisas para os alunos / questionam minha metodologia por que não ser do tipo que grita/ameaça) ou piadas sobre a minha personalidade/aparência (tenho um colega que costuma "brincar" dizendo "eu já te disse, você já não é bonita.." ou "vai dizer que VOCÊ é bonita..?" quando eu falo algo que ele não concorda/comento algo que não acho legal).

Se não fôssemos colegas que se veem todos os dias, eu já tinha mandado os que fazem esses comentários pra vocês sabem onde. Mas, além de ser um ambiente profissional, não quero que percebam que os comentários deles me afetam, então eu finjo que não ligo ou que não ouvi o que disseram na maior parte do tempo (sem falar que com exceção desses comentários que felizmente não acontecem todo dia, mas que acontecem o suficiente pra me incomodar, eu não tenho problema nenhum na escola).

O pior é que essas coisas sempre acontecem quando menos espero, e sinceramente, sempre fui lenta para pensar em uma resposta, sem falar que não esperava ter que lidar com esse tipo de merda na vida adulta 😑, então... algum conselho?

PS: Não sei se isso é relevante, mas é literalmente meu primeiro ano enquanto os colegas têm décadas de sala.

O que gosta de falar da minha aparência "de brincadeirinha" é um homem gay branco de quarenta e poucos anos (eu sou negra, na casa dos vinte) então eu sinto que parece ser uma mistura de racismo com misoginia internalizado (?).

Todos somos contratados temporários, mas eu sou nova na localidade enquanto os outros viveram aqui a vida toda.

Long story short, I (27F, Black) am a middle school teacher in a small village in the countryside of my country. I am new to the city and don't really have any family around besides my parents, who live with me and whom I take care of.

I have this coworker (white male, early 40s, gay) whom I met just before school started. At first, he was nice, but as time went on I realized that my personality seemed to bother him.

The main reason is that I am shy and introverted. It sometimes takes me months, or even years, to feel comfortable enough to talk freely and joke around with people I have just met.

Him? The complete opposite. He is loud, noisy, talkative, and fits right into the stereotype of an ultra-extroverted person who can't stand being around quiet people.

At the beginning of the school year, he started teasing me and pretending I had said things I never actually said just to mess with me. This went on almost daily for about three months before I realized he was using me as the butt of the joke. He would only tease me when everyone around was quiet, and I noticed he would look around afterward, almost as if he was checking other people's reactions.

I'm not that much of a moron, so I stopped reacting to his teasing. Naturally, he dropped the "jokes" once I stopped giving him the reaction he wanted.

Before this behavior stopped completely, three things caught my attention:

I had to take a few sick days, and one day he jokingly implied that "nobody actually believes you were that sick."

We take the same bus to and from work. I would always wait for him out of politeness since we were literally going to the same place, but he never did the same for me. In fact, I noticed he only waited for me when I was already nearby. If it was time to leave and I looked away for a second, he would quickly leave me behind.

One day he flat-out told me, "You're too frigid." As soon as he saw from my expression that I wasn't taking it as a joke, he immediately changed the subject and acted as if he had never said it.

Since I noticed these things, I've become much more careful about what I say around him.

I also noticed that he's always chatting with the female teachers, but whenever someone asks him, he says that his only friends at work are the male teachers. For context, he grew up here and knows practically everyone in town, and everyone knows him. Ironically, the male teachers he considers his friends barely acknowledge him, while the female teachers genuinely seem to like him and praise him all the time.

At the same time, he and another teacher he's close friends with seem to find it strange that some students who misbehave in their classes behave well in mine. They've never said it directly, but they often imply that I'm not strict enough or that I can't control the classroom. For context, this is my very first year teaching.

The main reason I'm writing this post is what happened this week.

We had final exams, and I made a mistake. Each exam is supposed to have at least ten questions, but I completely forgot and ended up making mine with two long reading passages and only six questions. I sent it to the school administration before it was printed, and nobody mentioned that anything was wrong.

My exam was on Monday.

The other teacher I mentioned earlier immediately told me my exam was too short. Then today, this coworker said it was too easy.

I didn't take it personally. I explained my mistake to the first teacher, and to this coworker I simply said it wasn't a huge issue because I was mostly testing the students' reading comprehension and attention.

Later, we were in the teachers' lounge grading exams. He was horrified that I was correcting them with a red pen and went on about how one of his college professors refused to accept papers corrected in red ink. I replied that the professor sounded overly sensitive and that I use a red pen to correct everything my students do. Then I left the room because I needed to grab something.

The moment I opened the door again, I heard him say my name to another teacher. When I asked what he had been saying about me, he replied that I was "too stubborn."

Jokingly, I asked, "What exactly am I doing that's so stubborn?"

He answered, "Everything."

Since we were keeping a lighthearted tone, I didn't push the conversation any further, and neither did he.

At first I was hurt by the comment, but then something else started bothering me.

What if he's been talking negatively about me to the other teachers? He's known them for years, while I'm completely new.

Then I remembered something that happened yesterday on our way home.

The bus driver, who's a really laid-back guy and knows both of us, said he would always defend "his teachers" (referring to those of us who ride his bus every day), no matter what.

My coworker immediately looked at him and said, "Even her?!"

I replied, "What's wrong with me?"

He immediately dropped the subject.

So... what do you guys think? Do I actually have a reason to worry, or am I overthinking this?

My friend told me not to worry because he probably just doesn't like me. But since I know that, in small countryside towns, the longer people have known someone, the more they tend to trust them, I can't help worrying that whatever he may or may not have said about me could affect my reputation and make it harder for me to keep working here. I really like this town and my students.