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The original was posted on /r/AmItheAsshole by /u/thereckoningfan on 2023-09-01 23:21:55.

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Context: a new colleague (around 30m) joined the company 3 weeks ago (big company, around 1500 ppl at our location alone), and I caught him staring at me (27f) from afar 6-7 times at least since. The first time I talked to him we were having coffee with my team and laughing about losing our jobs to AI, and his first sentence to me was “I know it’s a joke, but I’m sure a beautiful girl like you would have no difficulty getting settled in a different profession.” I’m pretty sure he didn’t mean to say ‘Hey, you’d make a decent hooker’, so I ignored the remark and he seemed to take the hint for a while and left me alone.

Then yesterday we were having coffee again and he came up to us. The conversation went like this:

Him: hey Nina, do you want to grab lunch outside today?

Me: uh, you mean with the team?

Him: no, just the two of us.

Me: oh. im sorry dude, but I’m not looking to date right now.

Him: I didn’t mean as a date! Just a casual lunch between colleagues, of course!

Me: …yeah, still gonna have to decline, but thanks for the invitation anyway.

Him: seriously, I just meant it as a “work date”, strictly on the clock haha. I’m not going to try and hit on you, I promise.

Me: so you don’t mind if Kelly and Ryan join us, then?

Him: I mean, I was really just hoping to get to know you better. I’m new and I’ve had lunch with several other colleagues alone, you don’t have to assume it’s a date.

Me: name three people you’ve had lunch with then, just the two of you.

Him: wow, what is this, an interrogation?

Me: well, since you’re trying to pick me up-

Him: im not trying to pick you up!

Me: and yet I’m still not hearing the names.

Him: …look, I’m really only looking to do a bit of networking here, you don’t need to make assumptions-

Me: come on dude, we’re not VPs here, we don’t *network*. I already said no. Twice.

Him: you really don’t need to be so defensive you know, I’m just trying to build a rapport between our teams, you don’t have to come at me with the ‘I have a boyfriend’ shtick. I didn’t ask.

Me: still waiting for the names.

He got frustrated at this point and left. Now a few guys from my team say I was being too hard on him, either because he was being genuine (come on), or because I could have let him down more gracefully. One of them even said I could have just suck it up and joined him for lunch, it wouldn’t have cost me anything.

I say it would have cost me my time, and that I tried to let him down the graceful way. He chose not to take it.

AITA here?