Do not disturb

This may sound like "AITA" forum of Reddit but here it goes.

A couple of days ago one of my classmates created a WhatsApp group. The purpose of this group to facilitate the upcoming reunion of our batch. However the purpose got immediately diluted after the members were added. The group became nothing but chaos and noise. After seeing the condition of this group I did what any sane person should have done - I muted the group and silenced all the notifications for it.

Fast forward to Wednesday of this week. It was my birthday. I had received messages on this group and someone asked me what was my plan for birthday. I thanked everyone and mentioned that I would be working. I believed this indication was sufficient enough to understand that I would not be checking texts regularly and would respond to them towards the end of the day. I also thought that people would understand that I would not be available to chat. It had to be obvious when I said that I was working. But unfortunately logic and common sense are not to be found in today's world.

One of my friends whom I had not met in last 20 years decided that it was a good day to start conversation with me. She texted me 1:1 wishing me happy birthday. I thought maybe she is one of those people who prefer to wish personally instead of on the group. I appreciated her sentiment and I thanked her. Immediately after that she asked me how I was. I felt it was polite enough to respond to that text. I did respond. Then she asked me what I was going to do today. Now I presumed that she had not seen the text on the group so I politely told her that I was working. Being an intelligent student in the school I presumed that she would get the signal to not continue to chat with me and end this conversation.

But I was wrong. She continued to ask questions such as what have I bought for my birthday, was I planning something big, have I met anybody after school, those questions were never ending. I decided to leave her texts unread and unanswered, I felt it was a way to show her that I was not available. I put the screen of my phone down so that I could concentrate on my work and finish the work faster so that I can log off early. I decided to completely ignore her text till I was on my lunch break.

When I saw my phone at 1 O'clock while having lunch. I saw that she had sent me over 30 texts in 2 hours. Her last text read "why are you not responding? Are you ignoring me?" Just by reading that text I got furious. How difficult it is for people to read between the lines? Still I decided to respond to her. I text it her back "I am working, busy, have no time". I felt that this direct text would at least make her understand not to disturb someone then they are working. After that text she simply replied okay. I was relieved because of not getting flooded by her text any further.

This morning I received text from another friend asking me that if I ignored the other friend on my birthday. I felt no need to justify. I simply told her that some people do not understand the meaning of "working day".

This is how it is difficult to set boundaries.