#screaming. yelling. catholic high school bully Ryker

[canisonicscrewyou]

coworker butted into a conversation one day MONTHS AGO where I was telling someone else "yeah, one of my friend groups in high school were all really mean to each other, because we were all repressed queer teens in catholic high school, we were all biting each others' heads off" <- they missed all of the actual conversation so that they could say "I never had the energy to be mean, but okay." whenever me and my other coworker were talking.

Cut to today. They are talking to me about the environment at another store. They then say out of left field "Oh, it's like that thing where you... Oh. Well. I guess you were the one who was the bully growing up, right?"

Readers. Besties.

The way I stared at them for a solid minute of confusion before finally, awkwardly saying "... I was bullied growing up for being autistic and queer...?" because like. I'm. What??? How the fuck am I supposed to respond to that??? How does one respond to that??? (Also. The fact that I needed my partner to look at me and go 'they said you were a high school bully to be mean to you Ryker'. Sometimes you cannot take the autism out of the boy even a little even if you try really hard.)