Hi everyone just need some advice regarding a work colleague and her odd behavior.. it's a long one so going to try and summarize it as best as I can.. I am generally quite well liked at work as I am very friendly and pleasant (in fact a bit of a people pleaser which is something I need to work on but that's a topic for another day). Well a new colleague who joined a few months ago has been having issues with almost every second person, reporting colleagues/managers left right and centre, misbehaving with customers etc etc, but at the same time, always been reallyy nice to me. Again it's difficult not to be nice to me considering my personality haha but I have been finding it a bit odd because she's very hostile and aggressive with everyone else BUT me. She has my number because of our work group chat, and has been texting me quite a lot outside of the chat, randomly asking for advice or giving me work updates/gossip I haven't asked for, and I have not once initiated conversation with her myself, but have of course replied, but sometimes even 2 or 3 days later. It was my birthday a few days ago, I happened to ask my manager for the day off in front of her a couple of weeks ago, I mean I asked him privately but she was within earshot but I didnt think much of it at the time. My birthday came and went, and a few days later she showed up at work with a bouquet, 2 cards, a veryy expensive perfume, headphones and a box of chocolates for me!! I was absolutely shocked/overwhelmed and speechless to be honest. I felt and still feel it was too too much for just a work acquaintance and made me extremely uncomfortable.. anyway that night she called me at 12 am (!), I didn't answer of course and then she quickly texted saying it was by mistake. I don't think it was by mistake I think she thought now with the excessive gifting it makes us close enough to be calling each other if that makes sense? Anyway I texted back the next morning saying no worries.
Now this is where it gets really weird. We have a work WhatsApp group, which has been dead for the last couple of months as a lot of people have left/changed departments, and me, her and our team leader are literally the only ppl left on it who are actually on the same department still. I added 2 other new girls to it just yesterday (they joined a couple of weeks ago, are much younger than us and work part time) and she immediately left the group, and texted me very coldly saying I don't want anyone at work who I am not close to/friends with to have my number. Which makes no sense whatsoever as no one from work is going to contact her individually as she hates everyone and they hate her, and she was in this group ever since she started, with everyone else from work on it as well. Why did the addition of two new girls trigger her like this?
I would also like to add that despite how ridiculously childish this whole issue is, we are grown women in our mid 30s 😂
I have never dealt with a person like this in my entire personal and professional life though and I don't know how to distance myself from her. My team leader who saw the gifts and how shocked and uncomfortable I was, and my husband too, have been telling me to return them. I really want to but am scared she will be furious and get as vicious with me as she is with everyone else. Someone from admin also once told me to be careful and not get too close to her. Personally I think she is unstable, and doesn't have any friends, and I'm probably the only person who has ever really been nice to her, and that's what's made her get so carried away with her 'love' for me. One of the cards she gave me had loads of lipstick kisses inside it, can you imagine, and she had sprayed her perfume on it too. Isn't that ridiculous?
I just reread my post again to check for typos and I realize how juvenile it all sounds, but I am feeling so uncomfortable and mainly would just want to ask if I should return her gifts, though I am scared of her reaction, and also how to distance myself, though I'm sure just returning the gifts would be enough to cool off the 'friendship'. It has been totally one sided from day 1 though and I have just been being nice. We have never gone out together or anything even though she is always asking me to. Again I feel bad, and I don't want to be mean or ungrateful but I am not comfortable with receiving such excessive gifts from someone who clearly has issues, and who I am genuinely not particularly fond of at all, have only just been being polite to, and most importantly I don't think I can ever reciprocate, as just don't have the budget to be spending 100 pounds plus on random work acquaintances!
To whoever has read up to this point, I apologize for the lengthy post, and thank you for wading through it and would really appreciate some advice. And please be kind (to my people pleasing self haha)