me?

I am processing something that is hard for me understand.  Today I asked my team of counsellors not to take their lunch breaks all at the same time so that we wouldn't leave the office unstaffed.  I expected this to be a fifteen second thing (silly me) and it wasn't at all.  It turned into a large conversation about values (apparently we don't all value accessibility the same way) and process (can't we all check in with each other before we go for lunch to coordinate our plans?  can't we have stickers on our doors to indicate we are taking lunch breaks?  can't we please make this as complicated as possible?).  And it devolved into me pointing out (somewhat sharply) that it is difficult for me to want to talk about things with someone who keeps interrupting me.  It turned into a half hour of nonsense.

Later in the day I went back to the Interrupter and asked to speak to her.  I was planning to stick to my guns about the interrupting, but wanted to make some sort of peace because I recognized I said it to her in front of everyone, which may have been offside.

She burst into tears immediately, but not because of the interrupting thing.  She owned that completely and said she was going to work on it.  She was in tears because she said I am intimidating.  I'm intimidating because I don't invite her to eat lunch with me.  I'm intimidating because I'm always on time (???), I'm intimidating because I don't stop by her office to invite her to walk to meetings with me rather than walking down the hallway all by myself.  And so forth.

It's hard for me to process this because, a) I think of myself as a somewhat mousy person and can't fathom anyone being afraid of me in any way, and b) I think this woman is bizarrely oversensitive, and c) I don't like her and I don't want her to want my friendship.  I just want her to do her job.  I'm struggling to process the possibility that I am intimidating.