Thank you for your reply, I found it very helpful. There's a lot of validation in that 1st medium article, I relate a lot to what she wrote. I am an agreeable sort of person, and in customer service roles its even more so, we can be scored by mystery shoppers on our friendliness. I've had to deal with some obnoxious customers and the onus is always on us to handle that gracefully. So that's where I'm coming from.

As the article says men tend to over estimate a woman's interest in them, that's something I maybe need to bear in mind. Thing is this man isn't young at all - he comes in with his grandchildren, I am middle aged - I guess I thought this wasn't something that happened in my or his age groups. But may be this is something ingrained long after fertility is a consideration. Honestly half my shock in this is I thought I was done with that part of life!

Yes the embarrassment thing I think is because I didn't know how to react. I wasn't mentally prepared. Maybe he's embarrassed too, it's possible he may avoid going in the store or at least when I'm working. I doubt he'll say anything but if he does I will explain my unavailability- I make myself sound like an out of stock product, but hope you know what I mean.