My girlfriend is a doctor and she's just started her residency training in Italy. There are 2 other male doctors who started with her as 1st year residents.
Usually their working day is 10-12 hours per day and their contacts with the attending physicians are limited.
There's an attending physician (70 year old, male) who's been known for a long time to be authoritative, misanthropic, unfriendly and cold. Older residents told my gf he lost his wife recently (2 months ago, befor my gf started residency). Since then he completely changed his way of interacting with 1 year residents, being friendly and helpful (leaving speechless older residents which are still getting the old treatment: all but one). This behaviour has been particularly directed towards my gf.
After this introduction three things happened:
He was talking to one 2yr resident (who's vegan like him) and my gf was in the room; he then invided them both to go out for dinner with him the following week in a vegetarian restaurant. The invitation was then extended to all the 2yr and 1yr resindents (apparently because he felt them to be a little bit uncomfortable with the idea). He paid for everyone.
One afternoon he asked my gf for her cellphone number. She was working as usual, he walked to her and explained some work stuff that happened in the morning. Then he told her if she ever needs anything they could give each other their number.
That night my gf received this message from him: "Hello. How was your working day? Are you tired? If you ever need my help while working or in any other circumstance don't hesitate to call me. Good dinner. His name". At which she responded: "Thanks for your courtesy. It was a calm afternoon. See you tomorrow".
- The next morning they meet at work and worked together as usual. At the end of the day he asked her which were her plans for that night. She told him that she was going out with me (her bf).
- Next day he sent another message: "Hi, how was the weekend. I hope you enjoyed it and didn't miss home. See you."
My gf is unconfortable with this situation, also because he showed this behaviour with her only. He has not asked for anyone else's cellphone number until now. Having said that, she didn't notice any flirting intention at this time. But at the same time she is uncomfortable with the idea that she's the only one receiving messages from him. Which to her is totally unnecessary and awkward.
She asks how can she manage all this?