I hate personal questions at a work place?

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It annoys me when I'm in a place like work and people ask me personal questions about myself, what do you do when you're not working, Do you have a BF, married, have kids? ---- Does it matter? Who cares? It annoys me so much that sometimes I resort to ignoring some of them when they asks.

They're even couple of ladies from work who periodically ask me if I found a boyfriend yet and when I'm getting married? Like wtf, why do you want to know? I'm unclear why this is any of your concern

Furthermore,I like to keep my personal life private and don't like to discuss it with colleagues or people I hardly know. Anyone else feels the same way?How to shut them up without being rude?

You like controlling your life. So do others—they like controlling your life.

I've always been unable to understand why people want to know things like that while I'm at work. surely it makes no difference to what we're doing anyway? the worst is things like work parties or social events- I can't do them at all since they're mostly where people like to have small talk and exchange useless irrelevant information. I feel like it's like that anyway, I start to feel more and more alienated as i look around and see that people actually enjoy that situation. I cannot imagine how most people's brains must work, to enjoy and look forward to something i dread. i haven't been to anything like that for years as I find it's better to avoid it and people think I didn't go rather than going and feeling horrible/not speaking to anyone. can't avoid those situations in work though unfortunately:(

Personal questions are just one of the many problems with the "small talk" that I find so irritating. Small talk can be broken down into a few simple groups; asking stupid questions of no value or purpose, sharing pointless little facts that no one cares about, telling people about yourself whether they asked or not, and basically stating the obvious like commenting on the weather or something mildly inconvenient that happened just now.

NT: "Typical, the trains were running late again."

Me: "...OK." While wondering to myself, "what was I supposed to do with that useless information?"

Argh, I hate this, too! I have nothing helpful to say, I was just glad to see someone else also hating the same thing, lol

I also dislike when people from my personal life ask about my work like.

Personal questions also help them gather ammo to use against you later.

Now there's some food for thought.....this is how it feels to me, invasive/violating. This is why I struggle with establishing social bonds, period, because most people seem to want to get a toe in the door and then start telling you how you should be doing things differently, or critiquing/judging in some other way.

I also agree with your later post that it can often be used as ammo. In fact, I would EXPECT any details I let out to be repeated, often times for the sake of gossip, amusement, low-level social warfare (or large scale, sometimes), and perhaps even more annoying than having your privacy violated, it's usually distorted to suit their purposes. I think that gossip and private ridicule are ways that NTs amuse themselves and establish illusions of hierarchies and exclusivity for social bonding purposes.

Blech!

Easiest way to get rid of people who ask these kinda questions "why do you care?". They'll either lay off you or get into some kinda confrontation though. Although since they can't really do anything to you at the work place they'll mostly just be thrown off by it and generally leave you alone. One thing that also sucks is when people working at a store or something will ask you something like "so who are you getting this for" or something like that. Once again WHY DO YOU CARE???

At the workplace, they can get you fired.

I don't mind people asking me personal questions. Even though making friends isn't the first thing on my mind when I go to work, it does help to make connections and to be friendly with those you're working with. Though a certain amount of discretion is required in terms of how much you share and who you share it with. I've made friends with some great people at my job, but I also don't share with everyone.

If you really aren't feeling like sharing with co-workers, you don't need to be rude or disrespectful. You can say something to the effect of "Sorry, it's nothing personal, but I'd just prefer to keep my private life separate from my work life." Most people will understand.

Wow. So correct. At my old job the HR lady would always ask me personal questions (and I would answer like a chump) and then when I least expected it, she would bring it up several weeks later, almost as a shaming tactic to get me to do her bidding. I feel like people want more knowledge about you not because they generally care about you or your life, but so they can use it in a manipulative way against you later on for their own purposes. Evil.

I don't mind people at work asking me questions about my personal life if I like them. I still don't really share anything important very often though.

I have two non-confrontational methods for deterring people from asking too many personal questions.

1) Block their questions with lots of personal questions of your own. Showing a sudden unhealthy interest in the minor details of their lives will probably make them uncomfortable and/or suspicious. This discomfort will cause them to avoid you. Sometimes the questions need to get pretty strange to be effective.

2) Give long, boring & repetitive responses to all of their questions. It's takes some time & effort at the start but it pays off long term. Duration is key. Try not to accidentally say anything 'interesting'. Frequently losing the point of the conversation entirely seems to help as well.

I hate personal questions as well. I have a coworker as I’m a cashier and she is extremely rude and nosy with her queries. She will ask many different customers about what they’re wearing, and ask where they work etc. she’s one of the worst people I’ve seen when it comes to being rudely nosy. Most of the customers we will likely never see again so I don’t feel she’s doing this for any reason other than it makes her feel powerful to make others feel they need to answer her intrusive questions because they’re put on the spot randomly, don’t expect it etc.