i guess im very pedantic - i don't want to make a rule to delete a email. i want it to bounce and never see my inbox and have the sender see that it bounced.
Fastmail has first-class support for exactly what you want. Settings > Users & Aliases > + New Alias > "Show advanced preferences". There's a checkbox that says "Disable - Reject (bounce) all mail sent to this address (disable the alias) Disable a specific address when you have a wildcard (catch-all) alias."