Did I misjudge her character and intentions?

Simply put I asked a girl on a date and got rejected. Nevertheless, I’ll provide a brief(ish) overview of the context:

A girl (24F) I (22M) trained at work who I initially did not deem a romantic interest asked for my number and we’ve texted like crazy basically every day since and she barely leaves me alone at work (we mainly work from home – she rings me all the time). She also always asks me stuff in the office. In this regard she stares into my soul until I notice when she wants help or will come and sit right next to me with a query. Perhaps just normal stuff for a new employee. Anyway, outside of work the texting escalated to facetiming each other to watch TV series in bed or just generally chatting into the night. We’ve shared TV, film and book recommendations, made a music playlist for each other to share music taste and she also lent me a book she wanted me to read.

I have never before in my life been smothered in this much attention by anyone, let alone by a girl. She is far more intense than anything I’ve ever experienced. It’s not like she doesn’t have other friends (as far as I can tell she has a healthy amount), but I struggle to believe they also receive the amount of time and attention she’s shown me. By that I mean it was to the point where I could not fathom that she could devote much mental attention to other people as it was actually quite exhausting and suffocating at times. Obviously, I could be entirely wrong because I’m personally not like that at all with people generally. I do understand that some people manage to maintain multiple very intense friendships at a time.

Last weekend we arranged to meet for the first time outside of work. We had a picnic at a park and then we went back to mine to finish watching a TV series. Long story short, she got changed into her pyjamas and at the end of the night we ended up lying right next to each on my bed hysterically laughing at the antics of some people camping in their garden next door we could see out the window. Don’t ask lol. Am I crazy for saying I’d be thinking what on earth they were doing if one of my friends that is a girl acted like this on my bed? Or this she just that comfortable around me? I didn’t make any kind of move (the touch barrier was broken however) mainly because I didn’t know what would be appropriate in that situation or how she’d react as it was our first time meeting outside of work, so I didn’t pull anything (thank God I didn’t given what happened later) in fear of ruining what had been an amazingly fun evening in case she didn’t reciprocate. As she went out the door, she hugged me (now I see this was platonic) and said she would message me when she got home which she did.

I did not put a label (aka a date) on this first meeting, I just asked her to go out with me. The day after I basically shot my shot and expressed the above to her and asked if she would like to go on a proper date with me the next time we spent time together. Her response was, ‘I really enjoy spending time with you, and I definitely do want to spend more time with you, but I’d want to just keep it friendly’. I respected her decision and said that sounded good and that I would like to continue spending time with her also. Probably shot myself in the foot with that last part but we shall see.

The only relationship I’ve ever been in the girl showed nowhere near this level of interest and still agreed to go on a few dates and get intimate with me. Everyone’s different, I guess. This leads me to believe I severely misjudged her character and or intentions. Am I to conclude that she is just very intense with her friendships? To me this felt like something more than friendship would come of this situation. Heck I’ve literally never gotten to this point even with close friends I’ve known for years – but like I said I’m not really like that. Is this just friendship on a completely different level I’ve never experienced before? I definitely felt there had been a good deal of flirting. I don’t think she’s the type to keep someone on the backburner either but I’ve already got the wrong of the stick once so who knows. Maybe she’s unsure because we work together? But even then, it’s pretty rare we’re ever in the office on the same day.

It’s completely possible and it would not at all surprise if I completely misread the ‘signals’ or whatever. But this was without doubt the most confident and certain I’ve ever felt about my feelings being reciprocated. It seemed to me she was displaying pretty much every sign you’re at least told is apparently typical of attraction. But what do I know?

Having said ALL that and I appreciate this will seem contradictory, but a part of me always knew this would be the outcome because this seems to happen every damn time with me. Literally the third time in as many years this had happened. Being a rational person, this makes me think me think I’m the problem lol idk.

What do you all think? Was I way off with my assessment of the situation or is there something more going on here that I’m missing? Is it also likely that my approach in any way put her off? Maybe I should have left it longer until I popped the question.

TLDR: I asked a co-worker I occasionally work with and thought I really hit it off with to go on a date and they said they wanted to keep things friendly.