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.

  • Repple (she/her)@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Most of what I’m seeing here sounds too confrontational or passive aggressive to me. What I would do personally is wait until he asks you if everything is okay again and then say something like this:

    “Yeah, all good here. So you know, I’m not quiet because something is wrong in my life or between us, I’m just very introverted and my natural state of being is not to open up”

    Most people tend to assume other people’s internal state is works similarly to their own, unless it’s an aspect where they know they are far removed from the norm, so for an extrovert, they equate you being quiet to what would cause them to be quiet. Without telling him the reason you act differently, he will continue to assume this.

    By wording it as an FYI, you give the opportunity for him to understand the difference and change his behavior without telling him he has been doing something wrong, because best as he knows he hasn’t been, and so you hopefully prevent him from getting defensive.

    If he continues, then maybe you can go to a more confrontational approach. That’s how I would handle, at least.

    I am also a woman and I’m guessing you are not from your username, so ymmv with communication like this.