you don't need to provide any reasons to him. This is a boundary you are setting. "Please stop asking me if I'm okay" or "I do not want to talk with you, please stop asking." Short and sweet. The more you give reasons, the softer the boundary.
Thanks unchien. It doesn’t really feel like I need to set a boundary here—-if he wants to, he can ask til the cows come home. I still won’t open up to him, and it’s no skin off my back. It’s more that I feel like I want him to know the reason that I’m not talking to him about my feelings. I don’t expect to get any kind of reaction from it. It just seems like he doesn’t get it. And seeing as its inevitable he will try again to see if I’ll talk to him about the way I’m feeling, I’d like to use the opportunity to let him know why I won’t. In part, it feels like a temp check. And I don’t want to give him anything. I’m thinking something like:
“I appreciate that you’re concerned, but you can’t be the person I open up to at this point.”
