AIBU to tell an odd neighbour not to contact me on social media?

[LittleMy80]

I was on my front garden weeding a few weeks ago, when an older man who I'm on nodding terms with, stopped to pass the time of day. I seem him dog walking occassionalky so assume he lives on my estate. Fine, I've no problem making chit chat & talking about summer holiday plans for a few mins. My dog recently died, so I asked if his dog was friendly and if I could pat it. Dog was lovely, had a little scritch and off they went. 2-3 min conversation tops and I didn't think anything of it.

Since then I've had a FB friend request from him about 2 weeks ago which I ignored and then another from his business account over the weekend. Started to feel a bit uncomfortable as I've no idea how he's found my name or why he'd do this. Its all locked down though so didn't think anymore. Yesterday though, I started getting lots of random "likes" on my Instagram profile on really old pictures and a couple of messages asking how I am and commenting on my photos. Although this is open, I use a variant of my name on there, so no idea how he's found me.

I was just going ignore, but I live on my own and no longer have the dog to see weirdos off and something feels off to me. Aibu to send him one message telling him not to contact me via social media and its unwelcome? Or ignore completely? I'm normally pretty relaxed but there's something about it thats made me feel really unsettled.

Block them all and lock down your profiles.

Yep block him. If you bump into him and he mentions it, just say “oh sorry, I only add family.” I’ve had to do this myself in the past.

Trust your gut. Set your profiles to private and deny all requests from him. If you bump into him again, tell him that you only have family on there - if he tries to argue then make out you are a crazy conspiracy theorist about social media and scare him off that way!

Just block him

If he can find you on FB it's not locked down.

If he can send you a friend request it's not locked down.

Remove yourself from the search function and change your settings to 'only friends of friends' can request you.

That's if you actually want it locked down.

Personally I'd just ignore as it's not a big deal but that's up to you.

I'd just block him to be honest. If you're genuinely feeling unsettled then put up a ring doorbell or similar.

Likely he is lonely and speaks to anyone he can, perhaps he has got your name from another neighbour and looked you up? If this type of contact is unwelcome then do properly adjust your social media settings so that people with no connections to you can't source you, see photos or make contact going forward - it's not 'locked down' if he is able to interact with you on facebook in this way.