I was messing around with people from work, when one of the guys called one of the girls a 'geek' as a joke. Carrying on the joke, I laughed and said, "It's because she wears glasses isn't it?"
At that moment, the whole atmosphere changed. The jokey, lighthearted mood suddenly became hostile and cold.
I had unintentionally made the girl cry, and all of my colleagues suddenly turned on me. Except they didn't just turn, they literally started screaming at me and telling me how cruel and out of order I was.
I thought their reaction was way over the top for a throwaway remark and tried defending myself but they were having none of it. One colleague even yelled at me, "You of all people shouldn't talk about wearing glasses when you need them too!"
I agreed with her and tried to explain, but she whisked the girl away so I couldn't even speak to her or apologise.
I felt so powerless to defend myself. I knew that if I could get the girl on her own and explain, I could clear this whole thing up but everyone was making it impossible, including the girl herself.
Feeling very sorry for myself and like I didn't deserve the treatment I'd just had, I hung out by myself for a while, to calm down.
The girl then came through by herself and was no longer crying or upset and finally I spoke with her alone.
She listened to my apology and told me that she agreed that everyone's reaction was over the top and that they shouldn't have screamed at me like they did and she wasn't that upset anyway.
I became very angry at that point and wondered why she hadn't stepped forward and defended me at the time. Now, no matter what, my image had been tarnished and there was nothing I could do about it.
The only thing I could do was to become good friends with her, even if it was a surface friendship, just to prove to everyone that they were wrong about me.
