I (M27) currently work for a small upstart design company for clothes. My coworkers are predominantly women except for one elderly individual in his 70s. I only recently joined the company a little while ago during a time when everything was done remotely. So all of our meetings, brainstorms, and pow wows were all done on Zoom, and sometimes TeamViewer, when I was first starting out. I did not own a webcam during that time, so I never had video on. During that time, I had become pretty close with all of my coworkers and considered us pretty good work friends at the very least associates who like to chit chat.
However, this seemed to almost instantaneously change the moment we started working in the offices AKA in person together. Getting to the workplace, everyone except for the lead and 70 year old man seemed to avoid me. Whenever I spotted everyone gathered around in a conversation and tried to join them, they would immediately disperse, only to come back together a few moments later somewhere else.
This went on for a few weeks before I finally asked the 70 year old man what was going on. Why is everybody avoiding me. He essentially told me it had to do with how I looked. I'm 5'2ft, balding a bit, and have some weight to me, hearing that was actually pretty discouraging. I've begun dreading going to work, I have stopped trying to interact with anyone unless it has to do with work, and I am always rushing home. Working for this company used to be something I really enjoyed, but now it just brings me nothing but stress and discomfort. I have decided to send my application to a variety of different places and to leave as soon as any of these places except me. I do feel bad since business is starting to pick up, and this is all happening really close to some major deadlines, but I don't think I can take this treatment for much longer