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Hi. I am new here. I joined tonight because I was hoping to talk to someone to get some advice. I hope this topic is ok. But here is my situation and I just don't know what to do.

I work in a small office. There is literally only 15 of us in this area of the building. Me and this guy, are pretty close in age and both single. I've noticed in the past few months he's more talkative with me. And the past few weeks it seems like we have gotten closer. I feel like we have a really good working relationship. He messes with me all of the time. He is always joking and laughing with me. Like it is nonstop back and forth between us.

About 2 weeks ago, my boss was talking about giving out prizes to an employee for doing a good job. I jokingly said why not give out tickets to a sporting event. In my town we have great professional sports teams and I made a joke and said it would be a great first date. Another employee asked me who I would take and I said I didn't know. Well, the guy, I'll call him P, asked what we were talking about and the other employee and my boss told him what I said. He then put me on the spot and asked me if I knew anything about the sport or if I knew any of the athletes. I said I knew the older ones. He said "it was more impressive to a man if a woman knew the sport." He then asked me why I wouldn't ask the guy first. He said I should ask the guy first before getting the tickets. And I said no, because I would still have tickets and if he didn't want to go, I could always ask someone else but I didn't know who. It got really quiet in the room and all of a sudden he said "me." But then he added that it wouldn't be a date. I was a little embarrassed honestly and felt awkward. I just went back to my desk and ate my lunch. He then proceeded to tell me that I had insulted him that day and I told him I didn't know what he was talking about and that I was sorry if I did because that was never my intention. Then he proceeded to tell me that he can get free tickets and to make light of the situation I jokingly said to him that if he ever wanted a friend or company to a game to let me know. And he then told me sorry, that if he ever got tickets he would probably take someone closer to him. That hurt. I didn't really understand what I did to deserve this. I mean, I wasn't even talking to him to begin with. He just cut into the conversation.

There's more and this is why I'm so confused. From that moment, I decided that I was going to take a step back and kinda avoid him. But it was hard because we always sit by each other so if I stopped, people were going to notice and things would be really awkward. So, I tried to act professional and act like it didn't bother me when really it was. The following Monday, I can in and I was quiet. I just wanted to see how things went and how he would act towards me. I'm not going to lie, I felt like he was trying so hard to speak to me. He kept asking me if I did anything fun over the weekend and if I had a good weekend. Then our power went out and the main lady over my boss came downstairs. Me and her were chatting and I told her that now would be a good time to message people whom I haven't spoken with in a while and all of a sudden P said "who? All your ex boyfriends?" And that lady said "ohhh. This took a turn I wasn't expecting." And got up and walked away.

He's always teasing me. And I have even more. Last Friday, I'm not going to lie me and him had a great day together at work. It was nonstop joking and laughing. Like he cracks on me a lot but it's in a good, joking, light hearted way. My boss ended up going to a football game. 10 minutes before we closed, he said he wanted to go to the game. Then he said to me do you know how you wanted to go. They have really cheap seats for tonight. And he kept telling me how much it was for 2 people and the different areas. In a way, unless I read him wrong, I kinda thought he was low key asking me to go. But I didn't want to say anything because of his whole "nothing against you but if I got tickets I would take someone closer to me" and two, my other coworkers were around. I didn't want to come out and ask because if he said no, I would have been so embarrassed. I try to go around it to see if I could figure out if he wanted to go with me or if he was just telling me. I finally just asked him if he were going and he said "not tonight." Walking to our cars I noticed that he became pretty quiet. And I told him goodnight when he got to his car and either he didn't hear me or he just ignored me because he didn't say anything to me.

I'm a very anxious person. And I've just had this weird feeling in the pit of my stomach all weekend and this whole situation is stressing me out. In one way, I feel like there is something there but in another way, his little comments...or I'll call them burns are throwing me off. I just don't know what he wants. Today we worked together for a few hours and again, I sat back to see what would happen and here he came wanting to talk to me. He didn't joke around as much today but he did some and there were a few laughs between us.

Sorry this is so long. I just needed to get this out because I like him. I do. But it's stressing me out because I don't know how he feels. And I don't think I can ask because I don't want to be at work and say something that offends him or sends me to HR. Also, if he says no then I feel like it will be awkward. Any advice or how to calm this situation...well my stress?