I'm a slightly unusual person. I've had a lot of experiences in my life. I've worked in a few gay bars, and been hospitalised a few times for mental illness, and this year graduated from an undergraduate degree in literature. I have an unusual appearance which definitely attracts attention but not in a mainstream way (I don't tick all the boxes - just some of them). I'm gay and in my late 20's and although I have a lot of drive and ambition in my life, at this point I probably appear to be a bit of a loser from the outside, as I work in a bookstore and live at home. I'm proud of who I am and the things I've achieved but I don't expect anyone else to be. I'm a pretty introverted and quiet person and mainly keep to myself.
Over a period of about four months this year I was the target of some fairly intense flirting from a customer in my store. This particular customer seemed to always be around in the store, all the time. He was tall, muscly, handsome, and dreamy looking. When I first noticed that he was always there I felt annoyed by it, but afterwards I realised I liked to see him there. He wouldn't pay any attention to me, he would just browse the books, but there was a nice feeling about him. After a while he seemed to be always in the area I was working, almost as though he was following me around. He was there regularly on the days I worked and usually would be there at the time I arrived at work.
One day he wasn't there when I arrived at work as I had come to expect him to be and I was disappointed but then I found a long pink rose in one of the areas where I often work and also a long synthetic poppy smelling strongly of perfume in one of the areas where he often would stand. He came back ten days later and I felt happy. He was standing behind a fixture and I looked away, and when I looked back he was standing there staring at me. I broke into a grin and looked away and he left the store.
He came back the next week and there were two more unusual items in the same area where the pink rose had been. One was a rusty blade that had been snapped off a pen knife apparently an age ago, blunt and couldn't hurt anyone. The other was a stainless steel swizzle stick in the shape of a long flower, with scratches on the handle and of no actual monetary value but strikingly beautiful.
After this I felt overwhelmed. In following weeks I found a few other smaller things in the store that seemed to also be similar tokens as these. I didn't expect to be shown this level of attention by anyone in my life. It seemed very romantic to me. I wasn't afraid of being stalked by him as he never appeared anywhere else in my life but in my workplace. I was fairly preoccupied with these matters. He would come to my work and always be near where I was working, never looking at me, but following me around. I had this extreme feeling when he was around like I was this very special person. One day I looked at him and he looked up and stared at me and then literally chased me across the shop floor and then disappeared.
After that I decided to talk to him. I had to really work up the courage to do it. I went up to him and said "Hi, how are you?" He said "I'm well thanks and you?" I said "I'm good. I noticed you like our non-fiction sections". He said "Pardon", and I had to repeat this three times, because I was talking too fast the first two times. After I said it the third time he said "Yeah," as though the store was awesome. I said "Let me know if I can help you with anything". he said "Thanks". He stayed for 20 minutes more looking at books and then left. He didn't come back. After three weeks I went on annual leave. I'm still on annual leave.
I don't really understand why this happened. I don't expect to understand why these things happened, but I wondered if anyone on this site might have behaved to someone in the way he behaved to me, and whether they might be able to tell me what was going through their mind when they were doing it. I don't expect him to come back again, I'm just very curious as to why he made all that effort to get my attention and make me feel special about myself, it seems like a very strange way to act.
Thanks
