Are you a good judge of character?

When I initially read this, I thought “absolutely!” and then had a sudden flashback to when I thought this girl at my work was normal and she definitely was NOT. She was sort of a stalker of sorts honestly, and sometimes I still can’t help but judge myself when I literally LET HER CAT SIT MY BABIES WHEN MY HUSBAND (boyfriend at the time) AND I WENT ON VACATION. Luckily I no longer have contact with her, however I still recently was shown a picture where I discovered she named her baby boy the same name as my husband… but back to the prompt.

I decided to google “what makes a good judge of character,” and according to the AI generated response, I will still go with my initial reaction, I am very observant, I listen well, I notice when people are inconsistent in their words and actions, and putting all of this together can assist in making a good judge of character. I also need to trust my intuition more, which is something I’m working on in my current life. I truly do feel that I am a good judge of character, I think my issue with the situation I described at the beginning of my post was just being too trusting too soon.

I am a very empathetic person and at points in my life it has definitely been to my detriment- this weird coworker situation being one of them. I was already friends with one of the girls in that tiny billing office (let’s call her Amanda), and had discovered that I went to high school with the other girl, so I was pretty open and friendly in the beginning with everyone in there. I also had already worked for the company before, so I had already met this other girl (let’s call her Bethany) and never knew of anyone having any problems with her.

I had started at that job in September (years ago, but I’m not trying to go into specifics), and by Halloween my friend Amanda and I were celebrating in my downtown area with Bethany and her other friend and husband, Amanda and I had our boyfriends there as well, and everyone had a relatively good time. Since Bethany actually lived in my same town (yup… super uncomfy) we had made plans to go bowling another night with our significant others. When we did, honestly everything seemed normal. The whole forming of a friendship seemed normal…until it didn’t.

We had these weird work schedules and there would be times when Bethany and I would work just the two of us for an hour or so. Suddenly this girl would just start talking about very sexual shit, like girl had zero boundaries and honestly I had no clue where this was coming from. I’m a pretty conservative person and do not discuss that type of thing with friends, let alone coworkers… in the work place! It was so uncomfortable and I felt so awkward and just would try to ignore or redirect the conversation to work.

She also started to seem to like everything I liked and it started to feel weird. I talked once about how I would sometimes hula-hoop because I wanted to learn how to do cool tricks and dances, and the next day Bethany comes into work like “I wanna learn how to hula-hoop, let’s hoop together.” I also started listening to Gabby Bernstein and then suddenly she’s like “Oh I paid for her manifesting challenge, I can print two copies if you want one!”

As I mentioned earlier on, I had let this girl watch my cats when we had gone on a vacation (this was prior to all of the weird sexual talk and copycat behavior). Since Bethany knew where I lived, she decided to show up at my house unannounced one day. I was actually out with my cousin at the time, but my husband (bf at the time) was home. Luckily, he did not answer the door and he was honestly creeped out, as was I! Like bruh, my own mother does not show up unannounced… why the fuck do you think you can? According to her, she just wanted to show me her new scooter she rode over to the house.

So then I had to have an uncomfortable conversation with her at work, which I made sure not to do in front of anyone else, that she cannot come to my house unannounced as we do not like that. She basically kinda laughed about it, which I was hoping was just a cope laugh, but I also had to tell her that we are coworkers and not friends. Like I want everything to be normal at work, but that’s it. I kinda tried to use the boss and company as reasoning like I just didn’t want the drama, because it’s uncomfortable to straight up tell someone that they are weirding you out.

I mean this is something I’m working on with the people-pleasing, because I am very much aware I am allowed to speak up when I’m uncomfortable. I am no longer prioritizing other people’s comfort over my own. I feel like many people do fawn in situations, statistically women do more, and I wish women were just taught to be more assertive as young girls. I should not have felt so weird to just call her out and let her know I’m feeling uncomfortable and do not wish to talk to her.

I did end up going to the boss and letting her know how uncomfortable I was. At this point she kept bringing me my coffee order and saying things like “I had a free coffee! The universe has your back!” which is a Gabby Bernstein book. *eye-roll HARD* Not to mention I completely skipped the part where she was bringing her AirPods into the bathroom, but leaving her phone in the office with the little “ear” device on so she could listen to all of us in the office when she wasn’t in there. Yeah, Bethany really was some sort of wacko I hope to never come across again.

The more I observed Bethany, the more I recognized how all her value came from external validation and attention. She needed everyone else to like her. She made every situation somehow about her, and she’d always make herself the victim. Complete covert narcissist. Literally we had a girl working with us for several months, and during her time there, she had announced that she was pregnant. We were all so excited for her, except for Bethany.

Bethany wanted a baby of her own, and it was not happening for her at that time. Side note: honestly, even though she is not my favorite person, I was so happy for her when I was told that she was pregnant and when she had her baby a couple months ago. I have her blocked on everything so I wouldn’t have known without someone else telling me, and now I kind of wish I didn’t know, because I will forever be weirded out that her baby and my husband have the same name. Especially because she met my husband and also seemed to be oddly obsessed with him too in my opinion.

Okay I got off on a tangent for a second (and this entire prompt that turned into a whole ass story LOL), but Bethany was upset that our other coworker was pregnant. She literally said to me once “I think she’s rubbing in my face” and I said “I think she’s just excited to have a baby girl and a baby she will have all the time” (because she already had a boy and was actively fighting for full custody with her ex).

Our pregnant coworker ended up quitting a couple months before her due date, and in August we got the devastating news that she had actually passed away during childbirth. We were all very shocked and shook up by this incident, but I was also very shocked at what Bethany had to say.

She said, within literally minutes of learning this news, “this really hits home for me dealing with my infertility” ……. WHAT?! First of all, way to make HER FUCKING DEATH ABOUT YOU!! But also, our late coworker didn’t have any “infertility” issues, her death was a rare accident and she was full-term in her pregnancy. Literally what the fuck are you talking about? I was completely confused as to what was coming out of her mouth and was appalled that someone could make this horrific tragedy about themselves.

Once I was truly observing Bethany, I wanted nothing to do with her. We were not aligned in anything, no matter how much she would try to convince me that we were. I have learned a valuable lesson to allow myself time to observe and listen before diving into trust and closeness. I don’t think I’ll let anyone new ever watch my cats again, or know where I reside, and I will be more vocal when I am uncomfortable, because if you have no problem making me uncomfortable, then I have no problem returning the favor. Life is all about lessons, and typically the hardest situations allow for the most growth.