Disrespected

I take a 35-40 minute bike ride every day now. This tradition started last week. From 4 to around 4:40, I ride around, going wherever I want, and de-stressing myself. Occasionally, I pass by other people. They usually mind their own business, but I'm sure what happened today won't be the last time it will happen, but it certainly was the first.

Two girls, who I guess to be freshman at Centennial were in front of their house in my street, which is just a few houses down opposite from mine. One of them was a friend, and the other was with her little brother, who was messing with his bike in the middle of the street. I was on my way home when suddenly the sister called, "Excuse me?" I stopped and she asked if I went to Centennial. I said I graduate last May. Then they asked if I went to college. I said yes, I went to GCC now. I didn't recognize them, but I guess they knew me.

What bothered me was how they made me feel.

After everything I said, they giggled to each other and said something under their breath that I couldn't hear. Even before the conversation started, I was just passing by when I heard one of them call to the little brother, "Hey, it's your girlfriend!" They used me as a means of teasing him. 

It was something about them and their bossy attitudes. They sounded extremely condescending when they spoke to me. I should feel disrespected. But I don't. I'm mad at myself, because instead of feeling how anyone else would, I let them make me feel stupid and ignorant. They made me want to crawl into a hole and hide.

They made me feel like I was in elementary school again, where no one bullied me to my face but they made fun of me behind my back, which I think is worst of all.

They talked just like everyone from Harbor did. That's what I recognize it as. They talk in that same mocking way. I didn't feel like a legal adult, just minding their own business and exercising. I felt like a 5th grader being talked down to by classmates. That's exactly what they were doing. 

I thought I had escaped this kind of treatment after I went to high school. People were a little more mature when we transferred schools, and there were a bunch of new people from other schools who I became friends with. People who weren't aware of the 8-year-long shunning everyone from Desert Harbor gave me. Things got better.

And now I feel like this again, when all I was doing was trying to relax and relieve myself of some anxiety. 

Do I deserve this? I don't think so. I don't see why this would be my fault. Am I paranoid? I don't know... the last thing on my mind before they started talking to me was how I was an outcast in early grade-school years. It's just the way they acted... I bet, if they were in my grade back when I was in Harbor, they would have been part of that large, large crowd of "popular" or "normal" kids who never associated with me, talked down to me, and made fun of me when they thought I wouldn't notice, because I'm too stupid to notice.

I hate how I feel right now. I just wanted to have a good day.