Good Morning Ladies,

I hope this type of post asking for advice is welcome and allowed here. I thought about posting this to another popular sub usually used for this, but I actually value the insight I receive and see on RPW more than other subs.

I have a coworker who I considered to be my friend until recently. She is the successor of my most recent position at work, I moved into a higher role and suggested her to management to fill my old role, and then trained her. She was unhappy in her own department at the time, due to their social negativity/gossip. She is 7 years older than me, is more of a tomboy / masculine woman than I am, but we share a few of the same interests/hobbies/attitudes. We also differ on quite a bit.

She openly speaks negatively about women in general; Often saying "Most females are dramatic, boring, girly, and don't want to go mudding/four-wheeling or drink beer with me. I hang with mostly men, they are drama-free and much cooler than most girls." I have had several respectful conversations with her about how these ideas are not completely true, there are loads of feminine women I know who love to do fun outdoorsy stuff and are unproblematic. I've also pointed out that saying "Men" and "Females" in the same sentence is not appropriate, and I asked why she doesn't call men 'males', to which she responded that that would just sound weird. I let her know 'female' is an adjective that she is using as a noun, and she called me a ~grammar Nazi~.

I should also mention a few more things:

  • She seems to become unreasonable when I tell her she has done a task wrong, or when my manager asks me to confront her about an issue. She gets very loudly defensive, and I have brought this to our manager's attention. I have adjusted my training techniques and communication to be less 'blaming', and more about "this is the issue, this is what was done wrong, and this is how to fix it" which has given me better results with her, but I also feel like I walk on eggshells around her.
  • One day last week, I told her she needed to contact tech support for a tech issue, and she told me it's not a big deal. I was like... "What? I never said it was, but IT needs to fix this." She told me I was being unreasonable and should just have more patience. I stopped responding and ended up contacting tech support. I felt that this was a weird interaction, and I'll be honest, it triggered a feeling of being pushed down and being thought of as a 'dramatic female.' I did not bring this up with anyone because I honestly wasn't sure if it was a hormonal response, on my part. It was during my period, and I was experiencing intense cravings while cutting back on chocolate. However, I still feel that it rubbed me the wrong way.
  • I am dating someone I work with. He works in a different department and I rarely see him at work, but last week he had an incident with her in which she got in his face and accused him of not cleaning up an area, citing that it was his responsibility (despite it not being his area/mess) since he is on the safety committee. All three of us are on the safety committee. He responded by telling her, by her logic, it's also her responsibility to clean in that area. Apparently she yelled and wagged her finger in his face, so my boyfriend went to the safety committee manager letting him know that how she acted was wildly inappropriate. She got reprimanded.

I work in a mainly male-dominated field that I truly enjoy at the moment. I work with so few other women, let alone women closer to my own age, so I felt that we could put aside our differences and just be respectful of each other's views. I did not want to hang out with her outside of work, but I did add her on social media (Facebook before I deleted mine, and Snapchat as I use it to message people more than anything else). Yesterday, I saw that she had removed me on Snapchat, and I don't know how long ago that was. I remembered a few days ago she was very quiet/short with me, and I asked if she is ok or if anything was wrong. She told me she is just bummed about being single on Valentine's Day. I made lots of friendly conversation with her and all seemed well afterwards. We've even had pretty in depth, funny, or otherwise engaging conversations consistently for the past few days.

But then I see that she removed me, and I'm wondering if I should bring it up with her and ask her if there was a particular reason why she removed me, if she wants to talk about anything I am here for it, etc.? My boyfriend said it's probably either just an incompatibility for friendship, or that she is upset that he got her reprimanded. He is actually blaming himself, saying sorry for ruining my friendship, which I don't think is quite true. I told him I am actually very proud of him for standing up for himself, and reporting disrespect to someone who can correct her behavior, instead of retaliating or being disrespectful in return. I'm also wondering if I'm reading too much into her removing me. I only remove people I no longer intend to speak to or be friends with, but why would she still be friendly and talkative with me at work?

Advice on how to navigate this issue, and insight on what I might be doing to contribute to her wanting to remove me, is very much welcome. Thank you.