Hi, just went to preface this by saying I don’t know if ‘creepy’ is the right word to use here. I just have major anxiety about this trip even though I know I will have FOMO if I don’t go. I work in a corporate environment where a lot of the people that I work with are young (also in their late 20s/early 30s). I am really good friends with a lot of them, and I love them. We hang out every weekend, take trips together, and generally do everything together. I am closest to a group of 3 other girls. We have become absolute best friends. I also dated a coworker for about a year, and he broke up with me at the end of 2023. Just to give some background.
Recently, there has been a weekend trip organized for the coworkers. It’s not paid for by the company or anything, just a friends trip. We did this trip last year as well, when I was dating my ex. It was really fun. A lot of people are attending this year, including my ex, which I already have anxiety about. The part I’m most anxious about, however, is that another male coworker is attending. He joined the company around the same time as me, but he hasn’t made as close connections because when he first got here, he made a pass at almost every young female coworker, including me. It’s not in a malicious creepy way, he’s clearly very desperate (for friends and in general) and lonely. He seems like he doesn’t understand social cues. However, after my ex and I broke up, he has been going around to all our friends and telling them that he has feelings for me. I’ve just recently started dating again, and he’s been going around telling our friends that he’s jealous and sad that I’m going on dates with other people. I never talk to this man outside a group setting, so I don’t know what he even knows about me to “have feelings for me.” Those who he has told have tried telling him in many different ways that I’m not interested in dating anyone else at work. He would be the last person I would ever consider dating, I find him annoying and frankly dislike him. He doesn’t seem to get the message, though because he told them that he would just try to talk to me more and become better friends and then ask me out in person. He told them to keep this a secret, but they told me. A couple of days after they told me he said this, he sent me a rose on Hinge (for this that don’t know it’s kind of like a super like). I rejected it and haven’t brought it up to him. I figured I would just ignored it.
But recently when the friend group has hung out on the weekends, and they ask me about how dating is going, he gets visibly angry and hostile. It feels very entitled to me. He clearly gets upset whenever I talk about going on dates with other people. It makes me uncomfortable. I don’t want to escalate it to HR, at least not yet. I am wondering whether I should tell him that I don’t see him in a romantic way before we go on this trip. The trip involves wearing a bathing suit and the thought of being semi-naked in front of him makes me deeply uncomfortable. I don’t know if it’s appropriate to bring up the rose on Hinge to tell him Im not interested to avoid throwing my friends that told me about what he said to them under the bus. I also have anxiety that I will somehow get roped into sharing a car with him on the 7 hour drive to the trip. Any advice would be appreciated.
TLDR: My creepy male coworker has been telling our mutual friends that he has feelings for me, and it’s made me uncomfortable. I need advice on whether I should tell him I’m not interested before a weekend trip that I’m going on with the friend group, including him.