So I had a pretty liberal, laid-back English teacher in high school who a bunch of students followed on social media after graduation. I graduated several years ago now but she posted a picture of her toddlers in Halloween costumes the other day and I liked the pic.
I have this other app that tells me when someone’s blocked me on Instagram, and a few hours after liking the pic, I get this notification that this teacher blocked me. I laugh about it and bring it up to some old high school friends who follow her, and they confirm that the page is still up (so I’m 100% sure shes blocked me at this point). I thought maybe it was because I’m a dude, but I had 2 male white friends confirm to me that she didn’t block them after liking the pic.
She and I had semi-regular correspondence over the years via email (we talked about Serial and progress made on the Adnan Syed case as more info came out), so I hit her up at 1am via email and write like 2 paragraphs about how im devastated that she would do that to me (the whole email is clearly in jest, but I also wanted to call her out for what I perceived as a slight against me). I ask if she was creeped out that a brown man liked a picture of her children on social media, because I kinda figured that’s what it was? Like I don’t know why she’d feel the need to do that unless deep-down she thought I was some sort of creep even though I had seen 10 or so other likes from students I graduated with.
She replies the following morning denying that she’s blocked me and insists she doesn’t even know how to block someone on Instagram. I’m pretty sure she’s lying but I give her the benefit of the doubt and I just don’t respond, acknowledging that the first email was a stupid thing to send and that she was 100% entitled to block whomever she pleases. I genuinely don’t care that much, despite having written the email. My feelings were a little bruised because a teacher I thought was cool probably thought I was a creep or something, but I quickly got over it and didn’t feel like it warranted another response.
Two more days go by and she follows up *again*, this time saying that she reread my email and that it’s contents was entirely inappropriate, and that I’m a misogynist for sending that to her. For the life of me, I cannot identify misogynistic about my email. She’s always been the type to be outwardly liberal, and I think suggesting her behavior might have been racist upset her.
What y’all think
