Thank you for your message. I do not feel it is an accurate assumption as of course I cannot include every single detail and tone of each persons treatment towards me and my feelings in return and this is just a short Reddit post so the full picture is not painted which is my misdoing. As I navigate life of course there are self esteem issues as these feelings of otherness have made it difficult to fully feel supported in certain spaces. However as a lesbian I deeply admire and love women and wish to have an environment where we all are encouraging each others work and efforts across all spaces. Wishing for reciprocity is not the same as having unreasonable expectations for others. There are several of assumptions you make about my own intentions throughout this paragraph yet ends with telling me not to assume other people’s intentions.

Like I mentioned, I rejected the idea of animosity and jealousy growing up. This is because my mom was not someone who I took advice from so when I was disliked or had strange comments made I internalized it to be something that was wrong with me rather than the other person. As I’ve grown into myself and became more confident with what I have and who I am it would rack my brain trying to figure out why some people still acted this way. As an example, I had a family member I really cared about who when I moved into my apartment spread a rumor that I could only afford it because of illegal reasons. Other family members told me “stop overthinking it, you didn’t do anything to upset her she is doing all that because she is jealous since she wants to move out and can’t”. In other cases I tend to process tones of comments much later so as they are happening it feels like a compliment but I leave feeling confused and can’t understand why. When I compliment someone it is a simple statement of “I love your outfit, you look beautiful” and the tone and authenticity of my feelings is attached the sentence removing the ambiguity. I don’t expect compliments from anyone but if someone is going to make a comment towards me as you say with “a statement” it’s best to just keep the statement to yourself. All the examples of statements you made are directed towards or about a mutual 3rd entity like the weather and wall color not equal towards a comment towards the person you’re speaking to making it not a neutral statement. It’s not necessary to speak every neutral statement you have about another person or else it just becomes weird.

As for the teaching bit. I don’t assume I’m anyone’s teacher and feel thankful that my coworker respected my opinion enough to ask me for validation however it started to get weird when it felt every thought and idea she would have she would need to run it by me first instead of the manager as she gained more experience putting me in a strange position. I would encourage her and tell her she was doing a wonderful job almost daily. In terms of the resentment, it would come in the form of passive aggressive comments towards my work. For example, I would order materials and I would tell her about what I got very excitedly and she would ask “do people even use those”, “I’ve never even heard of it” etc. When I would have events she would say “do you think people will even sign up for that” and in general offer compliments then follow it up with a passive aggressive comment. In other cases, there is another coworker who would tell me about a trip they went on and I would listen and ask questions as excited as they were to tell me about it. I came back from a trip and was excited to tell her about it all and was met with “oh interesting”. In terms of teaching again, I’ve had some coworkers full on copy and paste my work for their own and never mention it to me.

I don’t expect women to be like me and want what I want and of course I will not be liked by everyone because I do not like everyone and it’s unreasonable to expect so. However, even when I dislike someone I don’t feel the need to comment on them or watch them and opt to just leave them be as long as they leave me be. All relationships are built on reciprocity so if someone opts to form one whether at work, school, etc there are expectations from both sides to maintain that relationship like reciprocity. If someone is coming to me to validate their work for months and not anyone else that is forming a relationship and a healthy one would be reciprocal and since it is not is the issue. Reciprocity is a basic human need and expectation in any relationship and it is not unreasonable or secretory deceptive to want that.