Hi everyone. This is my second time posting here. The first time I got some good advice, so I wanted to come again and once again ask if I am overreacting.
I (35F) work in a clinic at a front desk. My main job is the greet everyone who comes in, direct them where they need to go, look up appointments, and answer the phones. I've been here for over a year now and I love it. I work evenings and weekends, which isn't ideal for most, but for me the hours are perfect.
In the evenings we have a security guard who comes in around 6pm and works overnight. Their desk is in the ER, so I usually only see them when they are doing their rounds inside and outside of the building. Most of the time we exchange a pleasant "Hi, how are you?" "Everything going well up here?" Simple and quick.
Recently, there has been a couple new security guards brought on. One of them is a cool guy who is kind but understands he has a job to do. The other... he is a bit chattier.
Now, I usually don't mind if people stop at my desk and chat with me for a bit. As long as it doesn't interfere with my job. There are evenings I have a bit of down time where there is nothing to do. But this one security guard has started to linger every night that he works.
At first, I thought he was just an awkward dude who didn't have great social skills. I am generally a kind person and engaged in conversation with him at first. But as the weeks have gone by, I am starting to become more and more uncomfortable with how long he stays at my desk. There's also been moments where I am a bit creeped out by him.
For instance, one conversation we had turned to vehicles. I mentioned that my car didn't have a backup camera and he said "Well, you know those older Buick Enclaves..." which is the car I drive. I never mentioned what car I drove. Although, I do park in the lot that can be seen from the security desk so he easily could have seen me get in my car. But it still made me super uncomfortable.
He has also made various excuses to come to my desk. For instance, he handed me a printout once with "updated information" regarding something with security and he said he had to hand them out to everyone. I had asked my boss about it and sent her a pic of the printout. Turns out that was not a thing that he was told to do and no one else got that print out. Just me. I don't know what his goal was with that, but it was around this time I really tried to not engage in conversation with him.
Unfortunately, he is not easily deterred. He will spend anywhere from 10-30 minutes at my desk. I have tried different tactics to get him to go away, but he seems to always have a reason to come back. The latest odd interaction was when I was on the phone when he first walked by, he came back later because he had a "question for me" and said that security was doing this survey and he had to ask one random person during his shift every night if "there was anything that happened today that made you feel unsafe?"
If I was quick witted, I would have told him "Men" or "this interaction," but my wit always comes later when the conversation is already over. So, I told him there was nothing today. He then let me know that unfortunately he could not ask me again because it had to be someone new every shift (what a bummer, right?). I brought this up to my boss given what I knew now about the printout he gave me before. She's looking into it, but she's fairly confident that it's another tactic he's using to chat with me.
I have been trying to be firmer and there are some projects I've been working on for my boss, so I try to tell him I am not able to chat because of the project I'm working on... but he hasn't gotten the hint. It's hard for me to be firm and assertive, but I am getting so tired of these conversations. But he's also the person I would need to call if there was a security issue, so I still need to have some sort of a professional relationship with him.
But then I also am wondering if I am blowing this all out of proportion and maybe he's just an awkward guy and I'm just overreacting. So, I have to know... AIO here?