A man at work has some sort of crush on me and it makes me so uncomfortable. i feel like im constantly being observed

i am a young woman (under 25). ive been working at an unnamed company for about 6 months. a few weeks in, once i started getting used to peoples’ names and faces who aren’t in my department, i started to notice that one guy in particular would always show up to the break room 10-15 seconds after me and try to strike up a conversation. he’s a nice guy, a little shy and a little awkward, but overall he seems sweet. Our jobs have nothing to do with each other and there is no reason why we should have to talk about anything work related. to be honest, i didnt even know his name until about four months in.

for a while, i would chat with him for a minute or so while making coffee, but it has always just been pretty awkward but friendly small talk. My desk is at the very back of an open plan office that seats about 80 or so people. there is no exit near me, so he never has any reason to come by my desk, but i have to walk past his department in order to get to the break room, restroom and exit. at least 85% of the time i go to get some water or go get coffee he shows up and tries to talk to me. whenever i work from home on office days (hybrid workplace), he’ll make a comment about how i wasn’t in the office (my desk is not at all visible from his. you would have to go out of your way to see whether im at my desk or not.). one time i literally jumped and screamed (startled) on the way to work bc i looked up from my phone and he was standing less than a foot away from me, ready to walk to the office together.

its gotten to the point where i feel like he’s watching me all the time when im in the office. sometimes i think im crazy and just being vain and presumptuous, but i can literally see his head turn to watch me walk by every time i walk past his desk. i cant really say anything about either because he only ever says “hey, hows it going, how was your weekend, looks like they got new coffee pods”, etc. For all intents and purposes, we’ve only had completely normal (albeit really awkward and increasingly non-reciprocated) conversations. ive started speed running my water breaks in the hopes that i manage to leave the break room before he gets there (i rarely do). i was trying to be friendly and professional at first but now i just want this man to leave me alone. im considering keeping a ledger of every time he’s followed me to the break room just so i can have some objective measure of frequency in case this ever becomes more of a serious issue. ive become increasingly colder with him and ive even started wearing big headphones around the office so i can pretend not to hear him when he comes up to me. i have given him no reason to believe that im interested. i have never given him any encouragement and yet he keeps following me around the office.

again, hes never actually said anything creepy or done anything i could actually confront him or complain about. its just enough to make me constantly uncomfortable while still being subtle enough to make me feel like im crazy and overreacting. i just had to complain about this. i understand that he’s probably well intentioned and just wants to get to know me. but for the love of god, if anyone reading this has a crush on someone in their office, do NOT do this.