Thanks! I ended up replying. I turned down his offer and said I prefer to keep things professional. Haven't heard anything back. Hopefully that's the end of it.

I just remembered a weird incident today, thanks to your article. One time, I took a tour of a facility that was owned by my company, but not my primary work location. I met a colleague there and we had a nice conversation about a good book to read about careers. I sent him an email afterwards thanking him for the recommendation. We didn't contact each other after that and I thought that was the end of it. A few weeks later, I get a call from this colleague saying he was at the parking lot of a mall near my workplace and could I go out there to meet him because he has purchased the book we talked about and he wanted to give it to me. His call was completely out of the blue and he sounded nervous on the phone. Alarm bells were ringing in my head. There was no way I was going to meet him. I told him I was actually just walking into a meeting and could he send me the book through interoffice mail. (That way, I wouldn't have to see him.) I still thanked him for the book. He sort of stammered "Ok" and hung up. He did send me the book. After that, I never heard from him again.

I was completely puzzled by the incident. All I can think of is he thought my friendliness meant I was romantically interested in him. Deep down, he probably knew he was going too far which is why he was so nervous when he called me. He could have gone to my desk as he had access to my building. Asking to meet in a nearby parking lot is super shady! I'm really glad I managed to nip it in the bud instead of letting it spiral into something weird. Good riddance!