Earlier this year, I was the 'new guy' at my job. It's a working man's job and could easily be considered a prime example of the place where you would find "locker room talk". The guys tend to give each other nicknames and call each other different things, often light-hearted, without any bad intention. We all really seem to appreciate each other there and if there's a problem for some reason, it's public.

When I was pretty new to the job, my co-workers found out pretty early on I was largely an introverted person. I think this has changed a bit, but this make me stand out a lot in the group. 

At one point, my co-workers were calling me the "school shooter" for reasons I could only discern as me being introverted. I'm well past high school age and I didn't even stay in college, and I'd never had the intentions to be a shooter. It was certainly a weird nickname for them to give me, but I never did find the reason behind it.

One day, we were outside in front of customers, and my co-workers were ragging on me as they sometimes do. They were calling me the "school shooter" in front of complete strangers. I really didn't like that, and I already didn't like the nickname at all.

After we got back inside to our 'office' I began telling the guys how I felt about the nickname and I told them, not asked, to stop calling me that. A couple were a bit taken back, with one of them just leaving the room entirely. In my mind, I think I was justifiably mad about the nickname and the incident. After all, who wants to be called a school shooter?! It just seems so horrible in my mind.

Am I the asshole for ruining my co-workers fun? Or am I justified for trying to defend myself and make sure I wasn't associated with something horrible?