Okay, I need a sanity check because my work life has become remarkably strange over the last few months,and I am trying to figure out how to interpret these interactions. Have any of you ever had a similar experience with a workplace relationship shifting gears so drastically?
For context, I (31F) had an assigned internship advisor at my company last year—let's call her E (35F). E is a Senior Director here in the Midwest (she's a colleague currently, not my direct supervisor, but a senior leader),highly competent, and an upper-management type. For our 6-month formal advising period, she was the picture of corporate professionalism. Standard Zoom grids, lower-case polite emails, zero boundary slips.Perfectly normal, consistent executive energy.
Then our formal advising contract ended. The exact moment that structural boundary wrapped up, her professional demeanor changed entirely. I CC'ed the internship program director on an email thread as colleagues, and her behavior shifted.
Here is the actual chronological order of events:
1. The LGBTQ+ Film Festival Collab Pitch Right after our formal advising ended, E pitched a joint coverage collaboration for a local LGBTQ+ film festival as a way to keep working together. On paper, it was presented as a strategic initiative, but the approach felt unusually focused for a standard post-advising project, setting the stage for everything that followed.
2. The Heat, The Red Lipstick, and The Coffee Session During an outdoor corporate press event in 90-degree July heat, E showed up in a sharp suit wearing bright, theatrical red lipstick (which she never normally wears). I was fanning myself with a schedule, made a casual comment like "brutal heat today, huh?", and E visibly froze. She stared at my face, jaw clenched, and let out an abrupt, low vocalization before muttering "Ugh, it's so hard" under her breath and walking quickly toward the shade.
By 4:00 PM that same day, the red lipstick was completely gone. She turned a canceled team check-in into a 1-on-1 coffee session with me in a quiet booth. She sat there biting her lip, removing her glasses, sitting quite close, and talking at length about how she works through strategy ideas completely alone in her car before driving home. While she talked, I took detailed, meticulous research notes right in front of her.
3. The Mom Incident My mom attended a public industry panel that E was also at (I wasn't even in the building). My mom and I look very similar—same features and facial structure. My mom politely walked up to say hello and offer E a spare event pin. E startled, swatted my mom's hand away in mid-air, said "I don't need one!", and walked rapidly toward the exit. My mom called me afterward, quite taken aback by the abrupt reaction.
4. The Avoidance, The Hype-Man Behavior, and The Zoom Call Following the panel incident, E shifted into avoidance mode, often looking away or turning around in hallways to avoid direct eye contact. I kept things neutral and maintained my own routine.
However, whenever an audience was present, her demeanor flipped. At a post-event mixer, I made a dry,casual comment to a bartender who didn't react. E, standing nearby, immediately jumped in, laughing loudly and drawing attention to the comment to amplify it in front of the group.
A week later on a 30-person Zoom call, I made a brief, standard remark about local sports fans on public transit, and E, in her video grid, reacted with loud, sudden laughter that caught the attention of the meeting leader, who paused before moving on.
5. The Notes, The FAQ, and The Stairwell Interaction Most recently, during our division wrap-up meeting, E took those exact detailed research notes I had taken during our earlier 4:00 PM coffee session—the ones she spent an hour watching me write while biting her lip—and incorporated them into a full company-wide FAQ document. During the meeting, she publicly called me out and gushed about the quality of my work in front of the entire team.
After the meeting adjourned, I packed my bag calmly, said goodbye to a colleague, and walked past the stairwell landing. E was sitting on a bench set up for her next call, leaning back against the wall. As I passed,she turned her head and gave a slight, asymmetrical half-grin.
I maintained my composure, met her eye contact briefly, offered a neutral, polite smile back, and continued down the stairs without stopping.
TL;DR: My former internship advisor (35F, currently a colleague) went from standard professional interactions to pitching LGBTQ+ film festival collabs, reacting intensely to casual weather comments, abruptly swatting my mom's hand away at an event, alternating between avoidance and loud public support, adapting my coffee notes into a company FAQ with public praise, and exchanging subtle smiles in stairwells.
Seriously, what is going on here? Has anyone ever dealt with a professional dynamic shifting so unpredictably,and how do you usually navigate it?