When you change your number, you expect a clean slate. For Christine, her past had other plans. Three years later, she was still getting appointment reminders, family texts, and even messages from her old employers, all meant for the “new” Christine.
One person decided to take matters into his own hands and get her to really change her number. His method? Nothing short of creative and borderline malicious compliance. By the time he was done, no one, not even her boss, was willing to deal with the old number anymore.
Christine’s old number leads to canceled appointments and chaos
In this situation, the OP’s frustration is entirely understandable. Over a period of years, they were subjected to a constant stream of messages and calls for Christine, the previous owner of the phone number.
Debt collectors, personal appointments, and messages from family members kept interrupting their life, and despite repeated requests to update her contact details, Christine did nothing.
From the OP’s perspective, this wasn’t just an inconvenience; it was a violation of their personal space. As time went on, what began as minor annoyance escalated into a larger issue, leading the OP to take drastic actions to resolve it.
From a psychological standpoint, the OP’s response may stem from feelings of powerlessness and frustration.
According to psychologist Dr. Carl Pickhardt, when boundaries are repeatedly violated or ignored, people often experience a heightened sense of helplessness. Over time, this can lead individuals to act out in ways that feel more like regaining control than simply addressing a situation.
The OP’s decision to cancel appointments and essentially take matters into their own hands can be seen as a response to feeling unheard or disregarded. When external circumstances seem to be beyond one’s control, resorting to action, even drastic action, can offer a sense of regained autonomy.
However, it’s important to consider a different perspective. Christine’s failure to update her contact information might not have been rooted in laziness or malice but could have been a form of avoidance or fear.
As Dr. Lisa Damour, a psychologist and author of Untangled, explains, people often delay taking responsibility for things that feel overwhelming or unpleasant. This could be a case where Christine, intentionally or not, avoided confronting the consequences of updating her details, preferring to ignore the issue rather than face the discomfort of dealing with it.
From this lens, the OP’s actions could be viewed as a disproportionate response to what might have been a simple communication failure.
Dr. Damour suggests that when people feel ignored, they sometimes resort to behaviors that are out of proportion with the situation in an attempt to be seen or heard. The OP’s actions, though extreme, are a classic example of how frustrations can build up over time, leading to irrational or revenge-driven decisions.
The psychological theory behind this is aligned with Gottman’s Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in relationships. While originally applied to romantic partnerships, the concept is also useful in understanding boundary violations in other relationships.
The OP likely reached a point of emotional flooding where feelings of resentment and frustration became too overwhelming, prompting a breakdown in communication.
Dr. John Gottman highlights how persistent negative interactions can escalate into behaviors like contempt (seen in the OP’s harsh response to Christine’s boss), ultimately leading to toxic cycles.
In conclusion, while the OP’s response may seem extreme, it’s rooted in a common emotional reaction to boundary violations and the feeling of being unheard.
From a psychological standpoint, understanding the dynamics of frustration, communication breakdown, and avoidance helps shed light on the escalation of this situation. The challenge remains in finding ways to address such issues in a healthy, constructive manner, something that the OP and Christine both might have benefited from in this case.
These are the responses from Reddit users:
This group shared stories of creatively handling misdirected communications
These commenters suggested using misdirected communications as an opportunity to have a little fun
This group recounted their experiences with phone number mix-ups
These commenters highlighted the frustration of dealing with persistent and invasive miscommunications
These commenters expressed amusement and disbelief at how some people neglect to change their information on important accounts
![[Reddit User] − People keep using my email address like this, so I cancelled a dudes return flight.](https://dailyhighlight.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/wp-editor-1763018656109-1.webp "Woman's Refusal To Update Her Contact Info Led To A Year-Long Battle Of Malicious Compliance")
What do you think? Was the Redditor justified in cancelling all those appointments, or should they have just let it go? Would you have done the same thing? Share your thoughts below!
