How to politely ignore a message

[seasmussealife1]

I have a mum friend who I've politely stepped back from for my own reasons, which she knows but I guess doesn't understand I don't want to engage with her.

She's how ever indirectly and now directly asked me about my son's injury, it's just a small scrape on the face he did at nursery. I just don't want to tell her. It's partly me stepping back and also because she tells a lot of things about other people to me, I don't want the same happening. And also because she may use it for wild stories she tells.

I don't want to be specific but the best part is that she exagerates.

How do I politely respond without giving her details?

Clearly I feel there is, which is why I'm not going to divulge on here.

Im asking for ways to respond to her

so then why cant you just not reply?

If you say she is a gossip then why do you feel the need to reply to her at all?

Just ignore. If you see her in real life and she mentions it just say what a PP suggested "haha! I'm useless with checking my messages arent I?" then carry on ignoring her texts.. Rinse and repeat over and over again.

This woman isnt going to to turn up at your house and demand an answer from you so just continue ignoring.

If she’s describing a scrape as a head injury I can see how she might embellish things! I would do the slow disappear which was suggested up thread.

Just block her and stop with the drama.

Ah, that changes things a bit I think. She may not understand the social cues well enough to know what is appropriate to ask about and/or she needs the answer to close the query in her head. She may not be able to forget about it until it is resolved.
As others have said, just say he’s got a little scrape, like young children do, and leave it at that. She gets an answer and hopefully can file it away as finished.
Is she actually a malicious gossip, or just doesn’t know what should and shouldn’t be shared publicly?

Be polite but direct.

Harry is fine. As you know I am stepping back due to x, y, z so I won’t be able to reply to future messages.

That's what I'm not sure about. I'm not sure about autism

She is autistic but I meant I don't know as a NT how a ND brain works and how to respond. All ND are different

Please do this. The slow fade is awful when you're autistic. So many people have done this to me and I wish they'd just had the confidence to tell me outright instead of leaving me guessing. I hate when advice on here is to not be open and honest with people. It hurts way more to be slowly faded out than to be told politely outright

Ok but NT don't like that, so who gets their own way?

Still ‘He’s fine, thanks.’

How can a very minor injury to a small child be a hot topic for gossip?
I can't think of anything more mundane.

How about you just ignore her.

Then, if she messages you again in a day or two, tell her you'd already answered her thoroughly tedious question once.

How about I don't need to disclose my child's medical conditions or accidents? Or an update, because I don't want to.

But also not to her as she has a weird fascination with everyone getting injured at nursery

I feel rude. I used to constantly message her and we would see each other etc until an incident

I’d just ignore her if she’s a gossip. Get comfortable with not pleasing others and it’ll serve you well in life.

But if you must reply, say, ‘I replied to your last message to say he’s fine, maybe you missed that, it’s easily done’.

Then you can miss any other messages from her as it’s easily done when busy.

OP- not really sure what you want then- you asked for suitable responses and people have given you a wide range of appropriate responses and suggestions of how to respond (including non responses) but you have a reason for each one why it wont work 🤷‍♀️

Just don't answer .. who cares if you're rude? She doesn't care about being rude.

🤷‍♀️

You've replied twice that he's fine

Now..... ignore her on WhatsApp. Mute her. Keep archiving her. I'd also turn off read receipts but that affects all whatsapp contacts, so you might not want to do that. Turn off 'last seen' for her too.

If you see her f2f just say "he's fine" over and over

It sounds to me that she's just using the scrape as a conversation opener. She wants to engage in chat, unlikely for the malicious reasons you have assumed. I reckon you're overthinking. If you don't want to talk to her, just be very brief or don't reply.

I think you're going to have to get over feeling rude. That feeling is not your friend when you're trying to ease someone out

I just wouldn’t reply. Sounds like she’s using it as an excuse to make contact that you don’t want.

I don’t really know what you want us to suggest, OP. You’re only giving us half the information. We don’t understand what you think she’s going to do with this “gossip.” So many people have given you suggestions of what you could say back to her, and you’re fighting against each and every one.

I don't need to explain

No..she wants to know about his injury. She could have asked me "have much planned for the weekend...."