Work bestie borderline harassing me

You absolutely can block her and you should! If one person knows what she's like, more will too, so it's unlikely you will be painted out as the bad one. I had a similar situation with an ex-colleague years ago, so I know how you feel about this; but I can tell you from experience you need to take the bull by the horns and block her. Sounds like she might be the kind of person who will confront you so be prepared for that and stand your ground!

"She knows I am relocating to Australia in June and I’m afraid she’ll tell someone out of spite if I block or cut her off which is why I don’t have a backbone, otherwise I would just pull the trigger. I haven’t told work yet and don’t intend to until late April. We were doing the post/coffee run one morning and bumped into my aunty who let it slip and asked when I was off. I feel like my hands are tied because she already let it slip to our mutual office friends and I wouldn’t trust her not to go far as saying it to someone more senior or less trustworthy"

Think logically. What would actually happen if she took out an advert in The Times announcing "roofusdoofus is moving to Australia in June, everybody!" Seriously, what would actually happen? So, your employer would know in February and not April. What does that actually do? It doesn't change the fact that you're going, does it? They're not going to fire you, are they? She's already "let it slip to our mutual office friends" - so what if she went tattling to The Boss? What do you think The Boss/HR is going to do? Look at you reproachfully? Because that's about as much as they can do!

Yes, it sucks that you are no longer in control of that information, it's already out there because she wanted to aggrandise herself by deliberately 'letting it slip'. Pathetic really - a sort of 'look, look, I told you she was my friend, she tells me stuff she doesn't tell you, so there!' - like i said, pathetic.

What exactly is your worry about her 'letting it slip' further? Exactly what?

Hi OP,

I'm afraid this person is not your friend at all. She latched on to you and has called you her bestie to others even though you don't think so, which is "forced teaming'. She's manufactured a bond with you to draw you into her drama.

It's not going to get better because she has violated your boundaries so many times as it is.

She's already lied about major things and have planted seeds in others against you, so that shows she is someqhole who will cause damage to you. The only way to get her to leave you alone is to completely remove her from your life.

Get a new phone number, remove her from your followers and friends list on social media.

People like her are absolutely toxic.

My advice would be the following:

1. Get yourself a new phone number, the sooner the better.
2. Mute/Block her number on all forms of social media. Some she will know that she is blocked on, others she wont. She no longer works with you so if she sees you out and about, just say you were doing a cull of the people you're no longer working with on all social media.
3. Put her on a very strict information diet. Stop telling her stuff that you want to remain private.
4. Set your social media profiles to be heavily locked down. If she asks about this just tell her that you're concerned about identity theft and you realise that you've been very lax about things in the past but not any more.
5. Consider setting up new social media accounts when you move to Australia and do NOT under any circumstances add her or any of your 'work friends' to these accounts.
6. Consider reporting her stalking to your HR and your manager. Show them if needs be. At least you'll be getting your story out to the right audience and then what she says no longer matters.

I had a neighbour who was getting a bit like this. Eventually she ended up never speaking to me again! Greatest relief of my life. Hopefully she finds someone else at her new job and leaves you alone!!

OP if someone invites you out for a walk and you give them a thumbs up, that means "yes let's go for a walk". You need to be clear with her that you no longer wish to be in contact. Otherwise, how do you expect her to know? I think it's unlikely that she'll go to your employers and tell them you're moving to Australia, but anyway getting her to leave you alone is more important. You're being a bit spineless and giving her very mixed messages.

Why not just ignore her? giving her the thumbs up is literally inviting her to continue...

Hope you have a chain for your front door. And get into the habit of using it.

Oh op she sounds absolutely overbearing and annoying! I used to hate work group chats because of silly memes and pictures that a certain person kept sending to everyone in the chat! That was bad enough but I couldn’t tolerate your friend’s behaviour at all! I honestly cannot stand people who make themselves out to be the victim and always seem to have some sort of drama following them about. She obviously has issues.

I would block her, she doesn’t work there anymore. Also I assume your other mutual work friends would know exactly what she is like and probably won’t listen to her when she badmouths you. And even if she did, just ignore it all as much as you can and just be your usual self.

If you feel you can’t block her then just put her on mute and stop replying to anything she sends. Unfortunately unless you do this or block then there is no other way around it.

Then why reply with a thumbs up? You are not helping yourself if you are giving someone like that mixed messages

She will take a thumbs up as a yes. Or imply that's what she thought you meant.
Hopefully your lack of further responses may gay through to her.

You're fuelling this now. You set your boundaries, which she seemed to be ok with and then you agreed to meeting for a walk. You know the walk won't happen but you've encouraged her by doing a thumbs up. Just block her!

It's always useful to think about how often this person has behaved like this in the past?
A grown woman like this will have a long history from schooldays of this sort of behaviour.
100%
She's in her mid 20's with no one else to attach herself too? No other 'friends'?
She's attached herself to you for a reason - because she 'can'.
Nobody else will put up with this bollocks!

How rude, selfish and ignorant she is to completely dismiss your needs for her own!

.. and yes, those people who drone on and on and on about themselves are horrendous.
I cross the road to avoid them, let alone letting them encroach my social media 😂

Scratch the surface and there will be lots of others who have got rid of her - and rightly so.

You can too.

Block/mute her and tell her why. Ask her to stop contacting you.

If she keeps it up, she’s stalking you and you should speak to the police.

Driving past your house is unnerving. It’s stalking.

I don’t think it matters if she tells people about your plans. If work ask’s officially you can say it is a possibility and if it comes to fruition you will let them know and hand your notice in. Don’t let her have the power. You have done nothing wrong.

This^^ wtf? Stop replying at all. She now thinks you're going on a walk together. You are making things worse by responding.

She sounds nuts tbh

block her! This is atrocious behaviour of her.

she said let her know if I fancy a walk at the weekend (I replied with a thumbs up) and she goes “love you talk soon”..

Why did you reply at all? Why did you put a thumbs up?
STOP engaging.

You need to get up to speed with how YOU can be in charge of your social media. People shouldn't be able to add you to groups willy nilly, YOU can choose who to see and who to respond to.
Of course you can block her. If you are not the big bad wolf then you have nothing to worry about.

I get what you mean OP about worrying that she'll tell people about your plans, but actually, if you're not replying to her now, how will she even know you've blocked her?

Just to let you know, you don't have to quote your original post every time you post on this thread.

Slowly back away from her until you have no contact, take ages to reply to texts and when you do give very brief responses, don’t answer all calls etc, cutting her off suddenly could create a severe reaction from her

She will probably move on to her next victim in her new work place though so I presume her attention will be elsewhere in a short while

She sounds completely toxic

I