Work bestie borderline harassing me

[roofusdoofus]

I work a corporate job for a relatively big company but my onsite office is quite small with less than six staff in total. When I started in September one of the girls similar in age befriended me immediately because everyone else was older, married, or had kids. I tried to establish boundaries because I had heard stories about her but also wanted the space to form my own opinion. I’m 23 and she’s 25.

Within a month of starting she added me on all social media I had and was frequently texting me outside of work. I would wake up with at least five different notifications from her across three platforms, and eventually this amounted to more when she added me to groupchats with other colleagues from other offices (without my consent). The groupchats were chronic, if it wasn’t pictures of work related memes, it was five minute long voice notes of people complaining about our job. It facilitated negativity so I left every chat.

The best way to describe her is friend of many but friend of none. I thought originally she had a lot of friends but realised they were just people she got pictures with.

She left on Friday for a new job after accusing the manager of bullying her, which was a completely false accusation. She made a lot of big mistakes that costed the company money, lied about miscarrying, and was overall really problematic and made the office a very negative environment. She has a very big victim complex. The reason I can say this is because her life outside of work mirrors it, her housemates are the worst, or her childhood friends are, she’s always the victim but never the actual cause.

We went for drinks Friday to say goodbye (the whole office) but everyone left around 830pm. I stayed until her friend came, but she started crying saying she doesn’t want me to cut her out and she knows she can be self absorbed and only talk about herself but “she does listen”. I think my jaw is still on the floor of the bar!

Since then she’s been texting me non stop to the stage I have had to delete Instagram, Facebook, and Linkedin (leaving snapchat and messenger). She just won’t stop and I have told her to stop sending multiple messages, one is fine, and I will reply when and if I can to her. She just won’t stop. I am on the verge of a breakdown over her.

The problem is I can’t block her because we have mutual work friends, and she will paint me out to be the big bad wolf. She already told one of my work colleagues I’m being super off with her (who knows exactly what she’s like so passes no heed). My only option is to set her a message explaining but I don’t know how to word it.

AIBU? I feel exhausted day in, day out, I’ve started using my phone less, removing apps, just to try free myself from her.

You have received very good advice, OP, implementing it will ultimately work even though she will take a while to get the message.

There is an invisible click running with these kinds of people. It resets every time you let them contact you or respond to a contact. You absolutely have to go radio silent and ignore all contact. She will ramp up (google “extinction burst”) but eventually give up.

If you run into her again (not that you have the brass to do this) don’t play nice or act like this is a conventional relationship. Be brutal and abrupt and if you have the courage be overtly cruel. She will only stop hassling you when the very thought of your name makes her shudder.

You need to very firmly disabuse her of the notion that you are her friend. You have already told her not to send you these messages so I agree you need to block her, not respond to anything more and consider reporting her if she harasses you further. Let her do her 'worst' - most other people will probably have the measure of her.

No more mixed messages. It is hard when you want to be kind to people but she is not a person you can afford to be kind to. You don't even like her, and in the long run you are actually not being kind at all if you do not give her a clear message that you are not her friend.

@roofusdoofus

As far as moving to Aus, I have a feeling that cat's already out the bag. I think your work probably already knows about it, even if they haven't said anything. You told her, she told 'work friends' in your current workplace, who knows who they've told and how likely is it that someone hasn't spilt the beans?

Since you haven't told them personally, they probably can't ask you directly and may be treating it as gossip.

With kindness, OP, you are overthinking this. It really doesn't matter if she sees that you've blocked her. It really doesn't. Do you think anyone is going to believe her version of events with her track record? Furthermore, does it matter? No. It's an essential skill to learn to be able to separate your own actions and boundaries from the "what ifs" around what the other person might do. Blocking her and putting her out of your mind will be a fantastic life lesson and learning experience for you, and stand you in good stead.