Have been put in a really uncomfortable position.

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We're on the brink of landing a huge contract at work.

I don't normally meet our customers face to face but as it's a government contract, our customer requested a visit to warehouse they're being supplied from.

Customer rep visited with me, and our sales guy. All fine, no issues. The rep then emailed me asking for various information and procedures. He replied saying "thanks, I owe you a drink!". Thought it was a bit clumsy on his part, but I emailed back "haha sounds good", then moved onto another work-related topic in the same email. He ignored the work related stuff and replied back "I'll definitely take you for a drink, it would be my pleasure. No backing out now!" I didn't respond.

3 days later, I got a Facebook friend request from him at 1am. I spoke to our sales guy about it, and we had a nosey through his profile. He has hundreds of friends, and his wife and kids are all over his profile. He's also the type to post pictures of his dinner, so assumed he's maybe just likes to add people on his socials.

I accepted, and you already know where this is going... I've managed to swerve his flirty messages up till now, while still keeping things fairly lighthearted, but now he's messaged saying he's coming back to the warehouse to "have an excuse to see me", and has pushed why I haven't responded to his messages.

I'm furious that this married man has put me in this awkward situation where I can't tear him a new one due to this huge work contract. I'm going to HR on Monday but how do I politely fob him off over the weekend?? I'm thinking I'll just have to block and ignore.

You're being sexually harassed. You're right to involve HR. You'd also be right if you were to say to HR 'this man is sexually harassing me.' Assuming you're a woman, you're protected in law from sexual harassment. This is not your fault.

Yes, do this. It rejects him without any personal criticism. I don't think HR is a smart route to take

Not RTFT.

But I’d like to address the ‘this is your fault’ bullshit.

Being a woman is a complicated and shit version of Choose Your Own Adventure.

A married man in a contract negotiation with you asks about a drink. YOU CHOOSE.
a. You laugh it off, go to page 20 where you’ll be told you didn’t discourage him
b. Tell him off, go to page 35 where you’ll lose the contract and your job
c. Say yes, go to page 44 where you’ll be the bitch other woman
d. Say you have a husband, go to page 55, where you’ll be a terrible woman who can’t stand up for herself.

These men know there is no right answer and that’s why they do it.

At first I assumed you have been messaging on Teams and he had written the drinks comment and you responded in a light way without much thought (totally unprofessional regardless). But no, you responded via email. Email takes time to write and review before sending.

Why did you respond to the drinks? Why not ignore it fully and just type up your work agenda. Doesn’t make any sense. Then to continue it, the guy sent you a friend request and you accepted. You had a search through his profile. Sending screenshots and whatnot and looping HR in is very over the top.

Maybe change up your email communications to not include social stuff. In person, if he pushes for drinks then decline. Only if he persists and it is one-sided then that is a different story.

If I was the manager seeing a ‘haha sounds good’ by my staff member accepting drinks invite, in one of the first email communications, I would think you are both mixing work with social and would not be too happy about it taking up work time.

Precisely this. And hopefully it goes without saying that I gave this man nothing during our face to face meeting. He knows what he's doing.

I'm usually the first with an LTB and think very poorly of men, but I don't see that OP was the victim of anything other than a bloke testing the water with take you out for a drink comment. Even that could have been a figure of speech. I don't understand why OP didn't just ignore the mention of a drink completely, to give clear message that not appropriate. Or if it's something that is common practice in her industry then say something along lines of yes let's all go out when me and sales manager are both free.

Because she responded to the drink comment, like many blokes he's thought his lucks in and pushed further. He must have thought he'd won the lottery when you agreed to be in contact outside of work, by accepting the fb request.

OP, is this your first job?

Oh sorry I thought you said that you and sakes manager looked through his FB? That you’d accepted his friend request? Surely that’s only to see into his private life?

Don’t have to justify yourself to me, seriously. 40 years of this shit and it hasn’t stopped yet.

You don’t have to give them anything.

He sounds like a creep, but you could have handled it differently.

“I owe you a drink” - ignore.

Facebook request - ignore. If he mentions it, you say you’re hardly ever on there. There is ZERO reason to accept.

He messages you on Facebook - ignore.

Says he wants another excuse to see you - ignore.

These blokes are so embarrassing. I worked with a man years ago that said he always cast his net out as far as he could would always get a bite. He was also married 🤮 You weren't to know he'd get weird with it, it usually goes south very quickly with these types.

I do think the Manager that told you to accept the friend request needs to give their head a wobble as it is not professional to mix personal socials (meaning fb/insta/X) with potential business contractors.

Send it all to HR op, ultimately they will look at and decide what action needs to be taken and hopefully put a stop to it

Why can’t you say ‘You are married,
I’m in a relationship, sorry this isn’t appropriate ‘ and ignore his messages ?

Yep, I thought most women learn this pretty quickly. The conditioning to please and appease clearly runs deep though.

HR might very well have a word with OP about assertiveness and boundaries.

Tel him you have a boyfriend and he wouldn't want you going for a drink with another man.

This might be the road I need to go down. It's astounding though that I need to invent a man so that another man will respect my reason for saying no.

Have you said no yet?

Why oh why didn’t you just say to the initial drink request “Oh haha, I don’t think my boyfriend/husband would approve”?

I used that as an excuse for years, in and out of relationships, before I married.

Because like I said, "I owe you one / I owe you a drink" is a very common thing to say in my industry. 99% of the time, it's never meant seriously!

It wasn't even an invitation for a drink, the initial comment was a very ignorable "I owe you a drink" 🤦 Absolutely no need to respond in any way to that!

I can't see any point at which op has actually communicated to this guy that she wants a strictly professional relationship. Yes he's a creep but OP hasn't shut it down. Now planning to invent a boyfriend who wouldn't like her going for a drink just continues the nonsense!

He is married

At no point have I communicated that I want anything other than a professional relationship with him??

OP a lot of people have told you that you could have handled this a little better and shut it down, at this point it seems like you’re just purposefully ignoring that.

Its not your fault he’s a cheater, its not your fault he’s invited you for a drink and that’s inappropriate in a work setting (in terms of he wants to take you out - it’s not a ‘networking’ drink with the whole team which is of course appropriate), but you’re refusing to accept you indicated to him that you were interested, he then added you on Facebook which he probably thought he could do because you’d expressed an interest in the drink and he’d get away with being able to contact you through your personal social media rather than work emails, and not only that - you accepted the friend request which further cemented to him that you were interested in hearing from him. When I’ve had work contacts add me on social media I’ve ignored the request and blocked them.

He's inappropriate, no doubt about it, but you’ve led him to believe you’re interested and ok with his communication. And now you’re trying to complain about it to HR! And people are telling you to block him now or to respond and say you’re not interested and you’re still not doing it.

I agree with this. I think op needs to have boundaries and communicate better rather than trying to please others which has now landed her in this situation.
The “thanks, I owe you a drink” comment is neither here nor there and very easy to ignore. Or if you must reply just say “you’re welcome” then bring the topic back to work again.

I think him sending op a friend request is very weird and unprofessional on his part. But again op seems to have displayed very few boundaries and appears to have accepted his request in order people please him! I don’t feel it’s an uncomfortable situation, I think it’s quite un-doable and could have quite easily being avoided. I’m not sure what HR will say to her accepting the offer of a drink and his friend request. It does seem rather unprofessional of the both of them

FFS men!
I used to work in The City millions of years ago and there is a massive drinking culture. So of course I was often accepting invitations to go out drinking, totally the normal thing to do with clients etc. I’d buy drinks, they’d buy drinks just like they would with any male associates until they came up with some fucking bollocks like “I’d love to take you away for the weekend”. Er!!!! Are you fucking kidding?

Just bloody set him straight OP. It doesn’t have to be awkward for you. He probably does this all the time so will have experienced a knock back. Unfriend him. Tell him he should only be contacting you through official routes and you don’t become social media chums with associates through work. Tell him your team have a budget for drinks with clients and you’ll look forward to you all celebrating once the contract is signed etc. Or something like that.

Lastly, stop being such a push over. I can see you’re keen to get this deal signed but you don’t have to be such a walkover. Set your boundaries and if something thing feels off, call it.

You said him buying you a drink sounded good. You accepted a Facebook contact.

If you don't realise those communicate interest in a relationship outside of work then you are very naive and need to work on your boundaries or people pleasing. Sorry, OP, you're clearly feeling very much the victim of someone's actions but you need to take control.