Okay, so I (45F, happily married and always wear my ring and talk about my Husband) try to be friendly to everyone I work with. If I pass a fellow employee in the hall, I’ll smile and say “Hi! How are you?” or “It’s 5 o’clock somewhere!!” or something similar as I keep walking. One guy would always stop and chat – I always kept it very very brief, never ever personal – just a “glad it’s Friday – gonna watch the game this weekend” thing – couple brief sentences. He started hugging me – I’ve noticed he does it with other females at work – and it never really bothered me – I always made sure it was one of those quick side hugs where you kinda pat the person’s back – I never went fully in for a hug, even from the side – I intentionally kept distance between us. I only know his first name, and I always refer to him as Mr. FirstName. And I know he likes apple pie because he won a pie eating contest and when I passed him in the hallway afterward, I said, “That’s a lot of pie! Does your stomach hurt??” and he said, “No! I love apple pie! It was good!” That’s the extent of what I know about him.
A few days ago, I was sitting at a table in our employee break area eating, and he came over and did the side hug thing, which was kinda awkward since I was sitting and he was standing, but then he kissed the top of my head. I was totally shocked – like had no words, WTF just happened. I panicked and shoved a huge bite of food in my mouth and then said (with a mouthful of food), “Sorry – I’ve got to get done and get back to my desk. Busy day.” and he kinda paused and replied, “Oh okay, see you later,” and walked off. I quickly made myself scarce even though my lunch wasn’t over, because it really felt creepy to me – I don’t think I’ve ever done anything to send any signal to him that that would be appropriate.
Now when I see him coming, my stomach sinks and I try to avoid interaction if I can, but sometimes I can’t avoid him because he services my department and we have to briefly interact while he does his job.
What do I do?? I am normally a pretty blunt person and will just say what’s on my mind, but this has me so creeped out I don’t know what to say. And I also feel conflicted because I don’t want to be a total jerk and cause any kind of workplace drama.