read right as polite, because they get offended easily.
I’m a male nurse in a predominantly female unit.
How I see a job: I’m there to work and go home and don’t want to socialize. Each of my coworkers is welcomed to talk about work with me, but I don’t disclose my personal life, age or life goals with them. Work and let me work. If you need help, call me, we’ll work together.
How my unit works: there is a group that’s childish and gossipy, don’t know boundaries and act like a clique, but maybe 50% of the unit are people that work and let me work, help me and I help them (with the gossip clique this is not always the case).
I was sick for 4 weeks and I’ve decided this is a good opportunity to establish boundaries, something I’ve never done at my current unit. Why now? Being sick I had time to think what I don’t want in my life: faking interest in the sexual life or my coworkers, knowing who started dating who or what they think of Biden or the second amendment ain’t things I care about. I’ve had a coworker trying to find me a girlfriend a week after knowing me. No thanks.
I’m entertaining other job prospects and I still don’t know if I’m gonna jump ship, so for the time being, I’m here. Where I work I’m forced to eat with the rest of the team, including the gossips, so I’m trapped (because if I don’t eat with them they’ll start asking why I’m so unfriendly or if I’m angry at them and feel offended, they simply cannot understand that sometimes I want time to unwind without them).
What I think I could tell them, next time they start with their inquisitive questions:
‘I’ve worked here for a year already. It should be clear by now that I’m not a talkative person. This is a question I don’t want to answer. And I hope that you respect that.’
‘that I don’t talk doesn’t mean I hate you, it means I have nothing to say’ < I find it ludicrous even having to explain this.
‘I don’t see what that has to do with the job’
‘I don’t talk about religion, politics or my private life with coworkers and I hope you respect that’
should they keep pestering:
‘all right, I need time to unwind, which means today I’ll spend my pause somewhere else.’ and proceed to eat alone somewhere else.
And if they pester yet again:
‘leave me alone’
if by this point some of them start giving me the evil eye and afterwards start ignoring me or treat me differently, time to accelerate my transfer to another unit.
If you like keeping boundaries with your coworkers, what do you tell them that works?
Great, so find some people who want to socialise. Having that need does not give them the right to force OP to socialise if he doesn’t want to. He’s not stopping them from doing it, he just doesn’t want to partake in it himself, and he has every right not to.
OP owes exactly nothing to his co-workers other than doing his job and being polite. If you think he does, then you’re the problem.
Why do you think it’s OK to force someone else into interacting with the world the same way you do, just to please you? That’s not what OP is doing.
Nobody is forcing anybody to do anything. And if you believe that people need to owe you something before you can engage with them, your obviously not being serious. Ignoring social interaction in a group is not a great way of going about life.
Especially not when you’re able and your only excuse is that you don’t want to. That’s how a 5 year old navigates life.
The commenter I replied to wants to force OP to interact above and beyond what he wants to.
That’s how 5 year olds navigate life. Adults understand that everyone is allowed to make their own choices.
I can’t agree with this more, thinking coworkers are owed your attention especially during breaks reeks of narcissism. My job doesn’t include or train me for providing therapy to old men who exclusively watch Fox News in the break room and debate which minority is to blame for the world scaring them. Which is why after trying to add reason to these conversations a few times eating lunch in your car can be a healthy option.