I'm not comment OP, but you literally said "I was like, um, I’m not sure I knew I was for SALE?"

A women for sale is pretty much a whore, so it doesn't seem they read into rather than taking you literally.

But even regardless, the fact that you took his word 'taken' in a literal sense rather than the compliment it was intended as, and here your defending it again rather than reflecting.

If your crossing off guys because they compliment you with common colloquial phrases that you take literally and negatively, well, you will indeed have a short list of suiters.