How to enforce boundaries with colleague

[Hotcrossbun91]

It's a woman I work with, she's my friend and I like her, it's just she can be very overbearing sometimes.
We mainly WFH so it's via work instant messaging, but she bombards me with messages.
I like talking to her and I do message her too of my own accord, however she thinks nothing of sending me 10-15 messages in a row.
The other day I didn't reply and she sent another 'can you just quickly look at this?'
I don't reply immediately, I reply when I am ready to.
I am just finding it overwhelming, and often I feel she just talks at me. The messages are usually her ranting about work or something she's fuming about, and as I say I do enjoy chatting to her but it's too much.
I find it difficult to be upfront about issues with colleagues because you never know well or not people can take things, and if it goes sour you still have to work together.
The other day she mocked me for putting make up on, like she mimicked me doing it. I don't have great skin and I don't think she wears any, but it's up to me really. I just laughed but I should've said something. Not sure what to do? I just feel like a sounding board.

Yes I agree. Bit much. Make a habit of not replying to a few then response and say I'm sorry I've alot going on had a busy day etc so just getting to these. If it's what's app- don't open them until you are ready to do this. She will soon take the hint - if not ..I think you will need to be honest and say you find the constant messaging a tad much. Good luck 🤞

Can you change your IM setting to say you're Offline, or put it on Do Not Disturb? I can do this on our Teams, and do sometimes if I'm busy and don't want to be disturbed, or if I don't want people to know I'm online.

Sadly I have to keep my Teams online in case management message me, I set it to busy but that doesn't stop her sadly.
It's not even that it's also the fact that it's all about her. I sense a lot of anxiety there too
Thanks for the tips, I will just try it.

Set your Teams to 'do not disturb'. I do this when I'm focussing and change the settings so only my manager and my director's calls/messages can get through.
I'd also be wary of bitching about the company on Teams, you never know who could be monitoring it, either now or in the future.

She’s not your friends - she mocks you and disturbs your work day. She is bombarding you with messages to manipulate/guilt you into replying.

I would keep very wide of this woman. Have you bitched about your boss or other colleagues to her? I’d be careful what you say, keep cordial with her but maintain a distance.

Ah I get you! What a pain 😢
You can set your Teams to Do Not Disturb, but allow priority access to named people I.e. not her!
Unless it's a work related question that needs to be answered right now, just ignore until the end of the day.

I would keep it civil and work-related only, but stop replying to personal messages. That's the issue with office attention-seekers, that the person who withdraws attention then becomes the problem. It's toxic and best avoided.

You can also mute specific threads in Teams so you could do that to her messages - that way they'd stop popping up but would be there for you to read when you're ready to do so.

I would ignore the messages and just send one generic reply at the end of the day. If she asks why, tell her you’re busy working.

The other day she mocked me for putting make up on, like she mimicked me doing it

I’m quite sure what you mean here? She copied you? So she put make up on like you?

Maybe if you explain more about what she did, we could suggest how to deal with that

I mean that she mimicked the motion of my applying make up to my face with her hands, as if to mock me for being vain or whatever.
Thanks for the replies re the messaging, I'm going to do it because I seem to attract this sort of person sadly.