'My coworker is obsessed with me and it makes me dread going to work'

When I started my new office job six months ago, I was really happy. I'd recently left a pretty toxic work environment that seemed to be full of "mean girls", as well as a few "mean men" too, so it was a relief to get a new start with a new bunch of work colleagues.

They were all very welcoming, took me out for lunch in my first week and were generally really lovely.

There was a man called Gaven* who was really sweet and very attentive. He seemed a little bit of a lost soul, though, as he told me he'd been single for a decade and that his family had little to do with him. He lives alone, loves gaming and has several rescue pets.

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I paid him quite a lot of attention as I felt sorry for him, but it seems to have backfired on me because now he is quite obsessed with me.

I made the mistake of letting him have my phone number and he is constantly texting me asking how I am. At first it was sweet, but now I just can't handle it. I told him I'm going to have to block his number unless he stops texting me three times a day — sometimes it's even more.

One of our colleagues told me Gaven has said we are in a relationship, which is an outright lie. When I confronted him over this, he said we do have a relationship but it's just a platonic one.

I had to explain it's just a friendship, nothing more — and if he tells people we are "in a relationship", that is telling them that we are sleeping together, which is absolute BS.

He apologised and said he'd tell our work colleague he had made that up. It's been a week and he still hadn't corrected his lie, so I'm pretty angry because now our work colleague actually thinks Gaven and I are together. I'm not sure how to handle this.

I've gone to HR to explain, and they said I can be moved to a different department. I think that's the only way to handle it.

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My brother said he would have a word to Gaven and tell him I'd escaped a toxic workplace, as well as my previous partner who was emotionally abusive, so I'm pretty fragile right now and just trying to heal from a few bad experiences.

Yet I don't think it should come from my brother — it needs to come from me. I don't know exactly what to say as I don't want to upset him, plus I do feel very sorry for him and don't want to have any bad blood at work. But I'm now dreading turning up to work all because of him.

I would leave, but it's very hard to find work at the moment so I'm stuck here for now.