On mobile, sorry about formatting.
TL;DR How do you politely let someone down when they're asking for friendship rather than a date? It feels more difficult.
Full context: I worked with my colleague "Tom" for a year and a half, he left our workplace last month.
I had a difficult time working with Tom due to behaviour on his part that frustrated me (such as constant insecurity for which he would regularly try to get hours worth of validation and reassurance for) as well as his poor work performance (which impacted on me and the other people who had to fix his errors). It strained our relationship which could have been friendly otherwise.
He was not good at judging social situations so even though I knew he wanted to be friends, I made a huge effort to assert strictly professional boundaries and make these clear (with the help of my boss, who knew about the difficulties we were having) and I always told him when he'd crossed a boundary.
When he left I thought that would be that.
However, Tom has begun texting me asking to "catch up" as he wants us to "remain friends". Cold-hearted as this sounds I have no intention of seeing him again as I am not his friend and I don't want to be his friend. I do feel sorry for him as he's overall a nice person and I know most of his problems stem from some deep-seated anxiety. Even a professional relationship with him drained me too much, though, and I'm not willing to keep myself in this situation.
Is there a way to tell him that we're not friends and I don't want to be friends that doesn't make me sound/feel like a bully as I know he looked up to me? Ignoring the messages does not work as he is very persistent and follows up if I don't reply.
EDIT: Thanks everyone who's given advice so far. It seems to be fairly mixed - blocking him, telling him a gentle version of the truth, and telling white lies to brush him off.
I'm still not 100% sure what to do as these were the things I was going back and forth on before, but I feel a little better knowing that it isn't straightforward and other people might be conflicted in this situation too!
One thing this has made clear is that I'm working myself up and stressing so that I can avoid hurting someone I don't even really like anyway, which is something I need to work on.
Submitted September 07, 2019 at 02:07AM by T--rexcellent https://ift.tt/2Lt1twA
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