A delightful school psychologist from Haddonfield, NJ – Libby Falk once shared with me an effective way to get people to butt out of your business.

On personal matters, people have the right to know only that which you want to tell them.

But some people push boundaries.

They pry.

They cajole. 

Some even bully to get access to information and feelings that we are uncomfortable to share with them.

You make the decision of what you want people to know.

Here is Libby’s advice when faced with intruders who want to get too personal:

• Fog the issue by changing the subject or making the request for information appear to be watered down.
• Use humor.  Humor is our friend once again.  If someone says, as one of my “friends” said to me – “How did YOU become a professor at USC?”, my answer was “They ran out of real professors so they called me”.  I never answered and never had to because the invasion of privacy was not his business.  He was probably jealous.

We give social media a lot of slack these days by revealing more information than our parents ever shared in their day.

There are big debates about government snooping into our cellphone calls.

We are routinely asked to trade some personal information when we sign up for something online that we want.

But in the end, what is ours is ours to share as we wish.

Now you have two more ways to push back those who invade your personal space.

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