I was just sitting at the mall taking a break from mall walking. A man walked over to me when I wasn’t even looking up. He said "I haven’t seen you here before. " I said I wasn’t really here to talk to people and got up and walked away. He said he would leave, he may even have said sorry. I said I was ready to leave anyway. In retrospect I think he may have just been slightly mentally challenged so I wish I had been a little softer, he did not turn out to be aggressive. Looking for suggestions on something still clear and firm but more polite? This scared me for some reason, I think how fast he walked up and sat down near me.
Editing to add a key detail, he sat down close to me which is probably what made me more nervous than I would have otherwise been. I appreciate all the thoughtful feedback I’ve gotten and interesting discussion.
Sadly, some of us are unable to ‘take a hint’ as it doesn’t seem like a hint. Not everybody is wired to pick up on small contextual cues and may only notice the big ones; being in a public shopping mall (historically a pretty social location) while not shopping, implies to my brain a desire to be around people, even if you aren’t there for the buildings intended purpose. It’s definitely fine that your intention wasn’t to be social, I don’t desire to be social and try to avoid places with people like the plague.
I don’t think he did anything wrong either though; the few mall walkers I’ve known almost consider it a sport so I get why he would say those exact words (not seeing you during their usual meetup time, he was likely inviting you to walk with their group).