Navigating Boundaries at Work: When Helping Becomes Harmful

I feel really guilty. Anyone down for a tea spill? There’s a guy at work. He said he plays the drums and I got excited, so I got his Snapchat. The plan was that I’d get a few people together and we’d play together. It was already outside my comfort zone, and he said hey at one point and I held a convo with him for a while. The next day he asked me for money. I asked him why, and why wasn’t he at work. The response was that he only needed $20 for a bus pass. I told him to talk to my boss, and I just figured, “$20 lost, so what” and asked him to pay me back. He said he’d pay me back when payroll came along. It came along, no payment, and he asked for $25. He said he needed to buy his kids food, and when I told him about other employees (who are parents) where I work talking to my boss (he does make it work, we have kids babysat here at work, he gives raises, always forgiving with the schedule, etc, and I’ve heard this from coworkers who communicate with him, never from my boss), he just kept listing reasons why he needed the money. I said no, and didn’t answer him. And he spam called/messages me all day at work today. Apparently he no called no showed for a whole week. I have social anxiety. I understand, but I can’t fix that. I’m not sure if he’s an addict. Most people at my work are addicts/mainly alcoholics, so I’m very suspicious. I feel awful that I had to draw the line. I had to block him after 7 hours of regular messaging. I know, just another $25…but if he actually couldn’t feed his kids tonight, it feels like my responsibility. Even though it’s outside my control, that can be such a slippery slope to try and ‘fix’….I just like…I don’t want to be pulled down and hand money to someone I don’t even know. I don’t even know if he has kids. I’m just some random girl who wanted to play music 🤦‍♀️ One side of my head is like, ‘good job for drawing the line. He _did_ say he’d show up to work again if he only had $20, him needing money from someone he’s only known for a few days is suspicious’ And the other side of my head is saying, ‘you’re starving children and forcing them into the foster care system for the next decade’