Blocked someone today - on Pinterest of all places!

Hello all! I'm lonelydaydream as was - I'm afraid I deactivated my account during what can only be described as a "funny 5 minutes", but I'm feeling better now and am back with a new account. I'm still an Avoidant lol!

Well, I finally blocked a guy on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. I gave Twitter the boot several weeks ago & don't regret it, but he was one of 2 people who "followed" me from there on to other platforms - he took to messaging me on Pinterest. We had been in contact daily for the best part of a year - purely platonic; in fact he never talked about himself at all and to this day I don't even know if he was married or single! We just exchanged silly pics with daft captions. Every day. It started to get to me a bit - well, quite a lot, actually, always feeling as if I had to reply to him & find a picture to send. But I have weak boundaries, I'm afraid. In an effort to establish some boundaries, I messaged him to say that I was only going to check my messages every few days, as I was finding social media and messaging in general overwhelming. He replied "No worries!" "Phew," I thought. Unfortunately he then proceeded to keep messaging me - at 3 am... Today I conceded defeat and blocked him. I actually feel surprisingly little guilt too.

What I do feel guilty about is the lady who likes to message me on WhatsApp 3 or 4 times a day. She followed me over from Twitter as well. I like her, but she's very lonely and needy, I think. We've never met, probably never will. She messages me "Good morning", "What are your plans?", "How's your day going?" and "Good night" - Every. Single. Day. It's doing my head in. It also reminds me of the constant, love-bombing texts I used to get from my ex-narcissistic boyfriend (not that hers are lovely-dovey, i hasten to add - it's the constant checking in - it comes over as controlling tbh!) I know I must sort it out & I don't want to block or ghost her, so tomorrow I'm going to put on my Big Girl Pants and ask her if we can cut the messaging down to a once a week catch up. Fingers crossed for me!

I am never getting so heavily involved in social media again - i feel like I've barely escaped with my sanity! I get so obsessed with things at times & it isn't healthy! Plus I need to work on my boundaries.

I know how you feel being bombarded like that. I was in a similar situation with a friend who would text me too much. Once i got the nerve to tell her it was too much for me she slowed down a bit with her texting. Good luck with your lady, hopefully she is as understanding as my friend was.

CelestialFlame wrote:I know how you feel being bombarded like that. I was in a similar situation with a friend who would text me too much. Once i got the nerve to tell her it was too much for me she slowed down a bit with her texting. Good luck with your lady, hopefully she is as understanding as my friend was.

Thanks CelestialFlame! I'm glad it worked out OK for you - that gives me hope! I'm nervous about it, as I genuinely don't want to hurt her feelings and also, due to my upbringing, I'm scared of making people angry. But it's important I learn to set boundaries.

anotherfinemess wrote:

CelestialFlame wrote:I know how you feel being bombarded like that. I was in a similar situation with a friend who would text me too much. Once i got the nerve to tell her it was too much for me she slowed down a bit with her texting. Good luck with your lady, hopefully she is as understanding as my friend was.

Thanks CelestialFlame! I'm glad it worked out OK for you - that gives me hope! I'm nervous about it, as I genuinely don't want to hurt her feelings and also, due to my upbringing, I'm scared of making people angry. But it's important I learn to set boundaries.

Its all about the wording, just have to make sure she understands that you aren’t rejecting her and that you don’t hate her. Thankfully you are communicating through text so you have plenty of time to figure out how to say what you need to.

CelestialFlame wrote:

anotherfinemess wrote:

CelestialFlame wrote:I know how you feel being bombarded like that. I was in a similar situation with a friend who would text me too much. Once i got the nerve to tell her it was too much for me she slowed down a bit with her texting. Good luck with your lady, hopefully she is as understanding as my friend was.

Thanks CelestialFlame! I'm glad it worked out OK for you - that gives me hope! I'm nervous about it, as I genuinely don't want to hurt her feelings and also, due to my upbringing, I'm scared of making people angry. But it's important I learn to set boundaries.

Its all about the wording, just have to make sure she understands that you aren’t rejecting her and that you don’t hate her. Thankfully you are communicating through text so you have plenty of time to figure out how to say what you need to.

Thanks! I was thinking of saying something along the lines of "Hi there! Hope all's well! As you know, I do enjoy our chats but I was wondering if we could catch up say, once or twice a week as I'm finding social media and messaging a bit overwhelming at the moment. Thanks!" How does that sound?

It's true - I do find social media very overwhelming - I've now got literally a few hundred messages on Twitter I can't face looking at - it really is triggering my anxiety. I'm also not the kind of person who likes to feel connected 24/7 - it's just too draining. I can't talk to a person I've never met multiple times a day - I don't get to do that with people I actually love! But as I say, I don't want to upset the lady!

That sounds perfectly fine and not aggressive at all
Yes i also find social media to be overwhelming sometimes. I find it helps to only keep a few types of social media sites. I only have three and it works out perfectly. I only interact on one of them regularly while the other two i interact with monthly or on holidays. I used to have a lot more (around but all the traffic and juggling gave me stress. Do you have avpd as well? I typically do not see posts on this particular forum so having you post here is nice

CelestialFlame wrote:That sounds perfectly fine and not aggressive at all
Yes i also find social media to be overwhelming sometimes. I find it helps to only keep a few types of social media sites. I only have three and it works out perfectly. I only interact on one of them regularly while the other two i interact with monthly or on holidays. I used to have a lot more (around but all the traffic and juggling gave me stress. Do you have avpd as well? I typically do not see posts on this particular forum so having you post here is nice

Thanks so much! I will send the message if she WhatsApps me today - if she doesn't, I'll let sleeping dogs lie for the time being!

My psychiatrist mentioned Avpd, but I've not been officially diagnosed - I just fit the profile! I have been diagnosed with anxiety, depression & OCD.

No problem

Well, it's 17:08 hrs and I haven't heard from WhatsApp lady yet today, which is most unusual! Now I'm worrying that she's OK lol! I'm just going to leave it though - let sleeping dogs lie, so to speak!

I spoke too soon! WhatsApp Lady has messaged again with "Good evening, I hope you are OK?" There was I hoping for a gentle drifting away. I honestly don't want to just block - we've got some mutual friends & the fall-out will be most unpleasant. Looks like it's time for the polite-yet-firm message after all... gah!