As some of you may know, I recently started working at a new job, a library to be exact. I truly am enjoying my time there and there is less toxic people and drama. The people I work with are really nice and welcoming, but I do feel like an outsider most times. I always feel like if I butt myself into a conversation or something, it’s weird… They do sometimes include me in things, like one of my co-workers bought some of us Starbucks drinks and cake pops. Or recently, we had a staff training day and during lunch, one of my colleagues invited me to eat with her and some others because I was sitting alone at a table, eating.
But there’s times when I don’t feel like I fit in, you know? Why is making friends so hard?!
And there I am, making conversation with others, talking about our lives and getting to know each other and it makes me think we’re on that friendly note. So, me wanting to connect a bit more, I try to add some people to social media, starting off with Facebook. I only added a couple people I could find and wanted to be friends with most. This was at least a week or so ago. Recently, now, I’ve started adding people to Snapchat, mostly because they never use Facebook. I have a few people on there, too who added me back.
But then there’s this one girl, we’ll call her Annie, who I can’t figure out. Annie can come off as a bitch at work, but we’ve had a couple good conversations and have been on that “friend” border. But sometimes I just don’t know. She accepted my request on Facebook, but when I went to add her on Snapchat, it seemed as if she blocked me… (don’t exactly know if she did, but I can’t really find her anymore on the app) which makes me wonder if she thinks I’m taking it too far like I’m a stalker?
Am I? Am I being weird and taking it too far? I don’t know. I haven’t tried making friends since middle school (the age of eleven, to be exact—last time I ever did) and now I feel like I’m a complete mess at all this socializing business and trying to make friends.
How long have you been working there? In my experience, it can take a few months to get the lay of the land and start figuring people out. Hell, at my old job it took me almost a year to make friends with the old timers, though I did begriend the newbies who joined at the same time as me during training.
Honestly, one of the first things I’m asked about after becoming even slightly acquainted with someone is my instagram or Snapchat. So I don’t see it as an issue and just see it more as that this person actually wants to be my friend and is willing to put in some work to be my friend.
I definitely agree with her possibly posting stuff she doesn’t want coworkers to see. That’s pretty normal with Snapchat.
Oh then you’ve barely scratched the surface, give it some time, I’m sure they’ll come round Your first point of contact will be whoever’s teaching you the ropes and then eventually the others will warm up to you as well.
Some people like to compartmentalize their lives, and maybe she’s one of those? I know I hate mixing friends, relatives and coworkers together. I like to keep them in separate compartments. (♯^.^ღ)
I start new jobs a lot, so I’ve definitely been in your position a few times. (Not a bad worker, my skill set just lends itself better to contract jobs.) A job like a library seems like a pretty solid/permanent job, so it’ll probably take people a little bit to warm up to you—not because you’re doing anything wrong, just because you’re new!! Don’t worry about it. And as for Snapchat she could just be posting personal stuff to her story that she doesn’t want any of her coworkers to see, like some other people have said already.
Stalkerish is then proceeding to go through their timeline and history online, commenting on everything.
If you treat it like it’s networking, you stay out their personal business with anything that might be controversial. If you post strong opinions on your personal sites, then you’re already going to be bombarding them with things that they have to handle via merely friending and algorithm.
That being said, I never made a habit of finding people on FB (or any big platform) and adding them. I have storing opinions that AI would take far more time to explain in person, which would mitigate half the fights it causes.
But also your coworker likely doesn’t want to share Snapchat with coworkers or maybe with people she doesn’t know well enough. Don’t read too much into it. Let her keep her privacy.
Your first point of contact will be whoever’s teaching you the ropes and then eventually the others will warm up to you as well.