Asklemmy

43945 readers

629 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
!lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

202

dear introverts, what can I answer to a needy and clingy coworker who believes not talking means something's wrong (with me), so he leaves me alone? (programming.dev)

submitted 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) by dennis5wheel@programming.dev to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

69 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I go to work to work because I need a paycheck, not to make friends.

Where I am there is a new coworker that to me acts needy (think of Slow Horses's Struan Loy), tries befriending me, but he invariably asks if everything's ok. I don't care about this person's life.

The first 2 times I didn't think anything of it, but he asks that every day and it's becoming tiring.

I feel mobbed and stalked, mobbed because he keeps insinuating there is something wrong with me just because I don't ask him about his private life and do my job, and stalked, because he is so fixated on me.

going to HR over this seems ridiculous, but I'm starting to hate his voice.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] jbrains@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 weeks ago

It seems to me that by speaking up when you're still calm, you can avoid erupting at an inopportune moment and causing the huge scene that might worry you.

I used to feel terrified about how people judged me--for good reason, based on how people treated me when I was young. Eventually, I grew utterly exhausted from trying to please everyone, after which it became much easier to speak up for myself.

Now I find it easy to offer a cheery "No, thanks" while acting like it's perfectly normal and leaving the other person to be confused and to deal with it.

I wish you peace as you work towards finding your voice.