I won't go into all the details - just the highlights. I met a woman a few months ago, she seemed kind of intrusive with her personal questions, that really had nothing to do with my interacting with her (I sell products). Sometimes I would evade answering her personal question, but
she would kind of firmly repeat her question. I found myself feeling kind of
intimidated by this woman, who seemed inappropriately pushy. She also
seemed kind of guarded in the beginning. She tells me all about her health problems, and I don't like this being dumped onto me, but don't know how to stop her from dumping. So, I saw her yesterday - more
dumping, so I courteously listen for a few minutes, wishing to get out of
her apartment and I make a few comments to acknowledge that I heard what she had said, while remaining pleasant. So, today she phones me and states that I am violating her boundaries, and getting my roles mixed
up, and she continues to say that I insinuated that she was being critical of someone (I don't know where she dreamed that up). She goes on like this. I concluded that she is probably getting paranoid, and twisting things because she doesn't understand herself really about how she brings this stuff on by her own questioning and flow of monologueing about things that concern her. What I am asking - what are some courteous
things that I can say to her, to exit from future interactions with her, without getting her feeling defensive or insulted (because that'll just make things worse, and then she'll start accusing me or more and more)? Thing is that I don't need this kind of pathology in my life right now (or ever), and it just starts reminding me of my paranoid mother (who created a bizarre ongoing story of accusations about me - none true of course). When they get like that, they cannot be reasoned with. And I don't need that kind of stress in my life. Any ideas?