To not want to socialise with my work colleagues?

I worked in a call centre many years ago. The job itself sucked, but I am still friends with some of the people I met there. I was hassled to go on team-building exercises by my supervisor, and told him that I would consider it work and would expect to be paid - otherwise I would choose when and where I socialise, thanks. He then organized a paintball day out annd I emailed back stating that I wasn’t interested. A few days later he asked me to pay “my share”. I told him that I had never agreed to go to this event and wouldn’t be paying. He then tried to guilt me because he had “factored me in” when working out each individual’s contribution. He kept coming at me saying “Well now everyone’s going to have to pay more because of you…” and I suggested to him that maybe it should come out of his own pocket as he earned more and had nominated my personal time and money without my permission. It ended up going to HR and he was most surprised to discover that I had emailed HR the chain of emails and he was told to pay it himself. Idiot.

I don't blame you, I wouldn't want to socialise with my colleagues either.

Many of my friends are ex colleagues. I go out when I enjoy their company, not because it's expected of me. Where I currently work it's a two hour commute home and I'm often just knackered by the end of the day. Plus, I have nothing in common with any of them, although they're nice enough. Go if you can see any of them becoming friends, don't go if not. It's your free time.

And that's up to her isn't it. What's that got to do with me?
FYI - yes I went to uni over 100 miles away and lived there for 3 years. Yes I made friends who I still see seven years later.
I also worked abroad for two summers and made friends who I still keep in contact with too.
My point wasn't ''dont have work friends'' my point was the push and pressure to socialise outside of work is annoying, not everyone wants to do it! I spend ten hours a week with my son roughly excluding weekends as by the time I'm back from work he's in bed 2 hours later. We spend too much time working as it is, I have no interest sitting in a pub with Barbara from HR who is twice my age who I share NOTHING in common with.
Hope that helps.

Bingo!

Such a typical MN response. Do you have a cap on the number of friends you want to make? Have you always lived where you grew up and went to school?

Did you not move away from your home town to go to university/work?

DD lives over 100 miles away in the city where she went to university. She is friends with her workmates. She doesn't want to live a solitary life.

It's not just social events with him that you should be avoiding.

One of my good friends once said ‘I don’t have enough time to see the people I do want to see let alone the ones I don’t’.
It fits nicely here I expect!
I find ‘I’m busy’ for stuff I really don’t want to do!

I hate the push to make friends with work colleagues. I'm there to earn money not to make new friends. Yanbu.

I don’t socialise with colleagues, hangover from having to dash off to sort out horse/dogs and because I just don’t want to. I find it fake, I don’t want to sit talking about work. To knock it on the head, you give them the dc as an excuse ‘must dash, Layla has a thing at 6’ or be quite blunt and tell them you don’t socialise. I do that and if I’m asked about attending something, I just laugh disbelievingly and remind them ‘I don’t socialise’.

YANBU. This is why I am so glad to be self employed for the past 10 years. No office parties, no socialising with work colleagues - 90% who I dislike - and no spending money on shit I don't want, when I could spend it on my family, and my hobbies and interests.

Don't know whether it's me being an old gimmer now, but I have such LOW tolerance for people now. I just CBA to speak to most people, and dislike socialising. I CBA to even speak to most neighbours. In any given group setting, there is always someone who is obnoxious, loud, and rude.

I am pleasant and courteous to public service and retail staff, and I love my close family (DH and DC,) and 2 very close friends, but everyone else can fuck off frankly. I just CBA to speak to most people. I have very little family - parents and parents-in-law died some years ago, and both DH and me have no close family in this country. So no annoying extended family. Just me and DH, and our adult DC and their partners. (And, as I said, my 2 best friends.) Small circle but top quality.

Quality is better than quantity.

This is a tough one for me. I don't think anyone should feel pressured to go to every single one, but you I do think going to the odd one here or there is actually really great for you relationships with your colleagues. And you do have to work with them multiple times a week.

I work somewhere now, where I get on with everyone and genuinely like them, but we are never gonna be friends, I go to a good chunk of the drinks/events and I feel it really does help build relationships. I also don't drink alcohol. Maybe if you went to a couple a year? It would stop them nagging you and you might enjoy.

I always turn down after work social events, I really do like most of the people I work with but I find things awkward in an out of work situation and find social situations hard in general.

I also spent years working part time in a team where everyone else was full time and would arrange outings in expensive places then complained when I wouldn’t go. I remember one Christmas outing someplace that was something like £90 per head, for a shit meal on a Thursday evening then having to pay into the drinks kitty while I only had soft drinks and everyone drank expensive cocktails and all of this two weeks before Christmas. No thanks.

YANBU just do what you feel comfortable with OP. Your own time is valuable don’t let work dictate what you do with it!

I find the I never go out people also don't tend to have many friends and as they get older and the kids leave home and DH dies/leaves they are the most lonely. Sad but true.

I don't go out with my work colleagues, but I have lots of friends outside work. My work colleagues are the ones who seem not to have any friends outside their 2 or 3 work buddies. Then when said work colleagues retire, they gradually stop getting invited to stuff because eventually they have nothing in common with those still in the workplace, and end up alone. Sad, but true!

I don’t socialise with work colleagues any more. I don’t like how it makes me feel. So I just don’t do it anymore
YANBU op

we’d all rather be on a yacht somewhere but small acts of connectedness and camaraderie can’t make a workplace seem warmer and less draining.

Absolutely.

Yep, I agree about other posters who've mentioned the "pressure" to attend. I was happy enough to attend work socialising events that I actually wanted to and thought I'd enjoy, i.e. pub quizzes, etc., but the pressure and then shaming when I didn't go along to their cricket or snooker sessions was completely out of order and I told them so (and their bosses) when I left!

However, I also see the other side of things when you have staff who simply won't ever go to anything, and it does kind of spoil working relationships/friendships.

So, two sides of the coin really.

I was discussing this exact thing with our son yesterday. He's 10 months into his first "proper" job after graduation and working in a huge firm. About 15-20 graduates started at the same time. The firm set up internet group chats so they could start "chatting" in the months leading up to the start date, they also set up a couple of voluntary "get to know each other" days last Summer, with a free lunchtime buffet, tours of the offices, etc. Son threw himself into it all, despite having previously been very shy and socially anxious (not helped by being stuck at Uni during covid lockdowns), but he knew he had to throw himself in. Few others bothered. Only two of them turned up at the "get to know you days", only 3 or 4 of them engaged with the online chat. He got to know a couple of the others quite well over the internet and when they started work, and between them, they came up with all kinds of ideas for socialising with the other grads, i.e. asking if anyone was up for a river boat ride (river right outside the office!), or going to the museum, or going for an evening "ghost walk" of the town, or even getting together for lunch in the park across the bridge. Absolutely zilch response! After the first month or two, they stopped asking and making suggestions and just do things themselves now, along with some interns (work placement uni students) who likewise threw themselves into socialising! None of things they'd been suggesting involved getting drunk, going to pubs, doing sports, etc., that fair enough, some wouldn't have been interested in, they were all pretty simple/generic/cheap activities. What he's really annoyed about now is that he's starting to come across some of them working in other departments/other floors, etc., and they're moaning that there's no social activities happening and they're a bit disenfranchised with the firm, especially as they're encourage to WFH for 2 days a week! He's had to remind a few of them that attempts were made but there was little or no interest from them!!

It does work both ways. You get out what you put in. I think that pressure is completely wrong, but it's also just as wrong to shun perfectly simple/cheap/generic activities all the time, especially if you then bemoan that work colleagues don't talk or you feel left out! Best to get on in there and help shape what activities are taking place by offering suggestions, etc., rather than simply opting out and then whinging about other colleagues being "more in the know" or nepotism etc.

YANBU.

No one should be held back for promotion because they didn't want to attend after-work drinks down the pub. It's not everyone's cup of tea and it's so outdated now as well. This idea that everyone is off, having after-work drinks on a Friday afternoon and that's the only way to get ahead.

I don't think there's anything wrong with attending them or organising them, but I hate the fact that people feel so pressured to attend or else they fear they'll be held back for promotion or isolated within their team. Many people don't go to work to make friends-but to work. That doesn't mean that they don't like their colleagues or build in-work relationships with them.

It just means that when work is over-it's over and they're happy to go home and do what they actually want to do. It's not necessarily a reflection on how they view their colleagues as people.

I don't go out on work nights out. It's not my cup of tea-and I'm not going to demand that everyone switches the night out from one of drinking and pub crawling to one of going to the cinema and having a meal-because I know that's not what the majority want.

I'm not a big drinker and I'm not going to tag along to an event where I know there'll be pressure to drink-and questions why I'm not drinking-and pressure to stay longer than I want to. I think when there's pressure to attend-there's often pressure to behave a certain way or stay a certain length of time (that's agreeable to them) too or you still end up looking like an asocial cretin.

I would make the effort and go to a couple of events. I used to work with one guy who prided himself on rejecting all social offers, right down to refusing to let anyone put Xmas decorations up near his desk. I guess he thought we were all office drones or something. I’m not saying that you are like this person, but the truth is that nobody really wants to be at work, we’d all rather be on a yacht somewhere but small acts of connectedness and camaraderie can’t make a workplace seem warmer and less draining.

I've never worked anywhere where I have socialised with all my colleagues. Some wanted to. Others didn't. It was their call and they could do as they pleased. YANBU.

I don't subscribe to the popular mumsnet view that you should never make friends at work. It sounds so joyless and functional. I agree that maybe going for a meal after work once in a blue moon or something similar really does make a difference to how you interact with your colleagues at work.

I am not a football fan so, for me, it would be easy to say "thanks for asking me, but I'm not keen on football".

And just asking for tap water in the pub sounds cheapskate and "worthy". I am often the driver so my go to non alcoholic drink is a lime and soda.

Not everyone wants the op unquotable.

OP, just keep saying “I keep telling you, I can’t afford that sort of thing, you guys enjoy yourselves!”

Ouch. I think there may have been a nicer way to put it?

I think going for a short period very occasionally would be good for social bonding but it's up to you, it's your time.