How do I not volunteer information when asked?

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I have a problem with a customer at work and I'm hoping some of you here can see the situation from my perspective as I don't think my coworkers 'get it.'

I run deliveries part-time for a pharmacy and this customer is paranoid schizophrenic and dissociative... and seemingly obsessed with me. She has recently taken to having her deliveries delayed as much as a week to ensure that I am the one that delivers to her. What's worse is the questions she asks me.

On a number of occasions she has asked me if I'm single. She asked for my cell phone number and my personal address. She's figured out my work schedule and now wants to know more about my personal schedule. She even asked me the last time I saw her if she could call me to give her a ride to the store.

I mentioned a few of these things to a coworker who laughed and told me to tell her I'm engaged and even wear a fake ring.

I hate socializing for the most part, dislike dishonesty, and despise confrontation. Plus I'm supposed to act agreeable and friendly as a representative of a business, right? My dilemma is how to say "No" to her requests for personal information without betraying these things when what I want to do is either hide from her or tell her to f**k off.

It's also difficult that I empathize with how she's practically agoraphobic with almost everyone else, but (obviously overly) comfortable with me.

I have a delivery for her marked for tomorrow, Friday, and my anxiety is already peaking. I feel completely trapped in this situation and don't know what to do, honestly. I've already probably given more information than I should and definitely more than I've wanted to. I think she's probably harmless from a 'stalker-ish' perspective, but she still completely creeps me out.

Any suggestions?

I would talk with your boss about the situation. Maybe you could swap that delivery with a co-worker.
If you don't want to give out personal information, just say, "Sorry, I'm not allowed to give out personal information to customers." This makes it seem like a company rule instead of a refusal on your part.

Yikes that's a bit scary. I'd follow Raleigh's advice. I wouldn't discuss it with a coworker, I'd talk to your manager or boss, or even to the pharmacist who is dispensing her meds.

I overshare all the time and I wish I had some advice on that level. I have a very hard time lying to keep from oversharing, and for some reason I feel like it's rude if I don't answer the questions people ask me, even if they are being rude by asking them!

I look forward to more input in this thread from others, as I have a real issue with this in daily life. Certainly not to the extent of Arcnarenth's situation, but I do tell people far too much and think I owe it to them, and it often comes back to bite me in the tail.

I understand your dilemma. I run into people in my job who ask really nosy questions, and yeah they will want to know if I'm single and what not. I used to just automatically answer whatever they asked. It took some time for me to learn not to do that. I have to pause and think about it. I'm not kidding when I say it was hard to learn how to do that. Now I will just change the subject very abruptly, or if I have to, I will just say I'm really busy and I have to leave. And I just start walking away no matter what they are saying. If you are running deliveries, you have the perfect excuse to be on your way.

Most people back off eventually if they realize you're not interested. This customer may not ever catch on though. If she is really creeping you out, your employer should back you up and do something about it.

I like giving autistic answers:

Where do you live? In a house.
What's your address? It's the place where you live.
What's your name? It's how people know who you are.
Can I have your phone number? No. You need to get your own.
Are you single? I'm not at liberty to say.

There's also: that's confidential/classified/restricted information/on a need to know basis

Love it.

I'm a big fan of 'I can neither confirm nor deny ...'

As far as your situation goes, I'd say take it up with your boss as stalking/harrassment is pretty serious and should be dealt with. You are definitely within your rights to request that somebody else do the delivery.

Just tell her "I'm not comfortable giving out that information to you".

I love these.

This is rather random, but it reminds me of a fantasy series of books I read in high school, The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan.

There were an order of female magic users called the Aes Sedai who were forbidden from lying, yet as long as some element of truth existed in what they said it was permissible. There's a quote, "An Aes Sedai never lies, but the truth she speaks may not be the truth you think you hear." Your "Autistic Answers" remind me a bit of these.

I appreciate the feedback given here. It's reassuring that my thoughts and behaviors are somewhat shared with others here and the advice given is sound. This isn't the first time my coworkers have found me odd, but it helps to know others can relate.

I would do as someone else said and refer to company policy. Even if it isn't "written in stone", like written in the policy, it's part of professionalism, the unspoken rules of professional/client relationship. It would be, as you know, inappropriate for you to give her rides or give her your information and you should tell her so. Also, I would talk to whoever is in charge of you at work because this situation could set a positive precedent where they could decide that no one pharmacist is to deliver to the same house more than once in a succession. Like you do it once, someone else does it next, etc. to sort of support you and other pharmacists in situations like this and to help prevent these situations. I don't know if this would even be possible but there has to be some way for the company to deal with and have protocols for these kinds of situations.

Not to the extent of handing out your personal details to anybody who asks for them, unless it's a pretty weird business.

I like the idea of blaming the employer ("they won't let me tell you"). I think I'd be inclined to try and think of white lies like that as a first resort. If that doesn't work, my excuses would probably get thinner and thinner, or stranger and stranger, but very unlikely to be exactly unfriendly in tone. Next time I pick up my phone and find it's a telemarketer, I'm considering giving increasingly bizarre replies to their questions until they're so frustrated and weirded out that they hang up and cross me off the list. Here's a training video about the art:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpicfnfcEiM

I've always had a terrible habit of feeling that I absolutely must answer all questions properly and completely, but these days I'm copying the NTs and allowing myself to duck some of them. Sometimes it's best to give only a vague or partially-relevent answer, to change the subject, or even to not reply at all.

It's an awful shame that some people are so desperately lonely that they practically swallow anybody who's willing to be nice to them for five minutes. I feel very sorry for them, but I don't know how to help them.

It took me a long time to figure out why people don't like to give much personal information and I used to ask some pretty "nosey" questions of people without knowing how personal or how private it might be to them. I had no intentions of doing anything bad or wrong with it so I didn't know that someone might think I'd use it for nefarious purposes. I didn't form poor opinions of people based on personal mental and emotional things they told me about themselves so I didn't really think anyone would form a poor opinion of me based on certain mental health things I volunteered to people about myself. If I really liked someone, I'd tell them everything about myself without knowing anything much about "moving too fast" and would get hurt and frustrated that the other person didn't tell me anything much about themselves. Why didn't they feel the same way as me, I'd wonder. Anyway, it has taken a long time to get this far in not volunteering information and knowing that I really don't owe the person asking a complete answer. There were lots of times that I knew that I didn't want to or shouldn't answer a certain question and would "lie" in a sideways fashion about it, sidestepping the truth or question and feel horribly guilty for it, that I had lied in some way. I knew not to give my address and didn't have problems with not answering exactly (gave vague answers like "in the mountains", etc). I don't experience as much guilt anymore and maybe not at all.

Anyway, this thread seems to have hit a pretty relevant area for a lot of people on this site.

Is this really an autistic thing? Because dang that answers so many questions for me. If this is an autistic thing, which it seems to be from a lot of our responses here, I think I will have a much easier time avoiding answering these sorts of questions from now on.

Don't know for sure, I think it is. Black and white thinking, "a question is made to be answered?" Pathological honesty? Hard to know how much programming comes into it as well, in my case. I was rather expected to answer questions as a child. I remind myself of a schoolkid, always trying to get the answers right. And it was considered quite rude not to answer. Then there's submissiveness - acting as if you have no right to privacy or to keep a confidence.

Either way, I think a person can be vulnerable if they never dodge questions, as evidenced by the OP's predicament. I had an ethical problem with it for a while, as it's what politicians get rightly criticised for. But I'm not a politician. Good luck in resisting the temptation to divulge what you don't choose to divulge.

I laughed so hard at this. When my nephew turned 5 I called to wish him a happy birthday. My sister in law told him "it's your aunty ******. Do you know where she lives?"

His answer? "In her house." We didn't know he was autistic yet, I thought he was being a little smart@$$, so very proud!

Haha, I had to go to a place where the man would, if he knew I was coming, put off his pants or let his brag open with his thing out, yach, so I always tried to change hours or take someone with me, but could not always avoid it completely. So, at one time, I said to myself: I'm a grown up woman who's not afraid of seeing a thingy, anyway I can run faster, just staying two armlenghts away will be ok. So there he was without pants, 'Look what I have here', 'Oh you forgot to put on your pants?', 'Gimme a kiss?', 'Next time when you have your pants on!'
And then he never did that again.