To have asked family to leave me be?

[BoxingDayDinner]

I went out for a Boxing Day dinner/carvery with a friend who owns her own business. Friend had to take a phone call and went outside for better reception - fair enough.

A family came in and obviously thought I was sat alone and the father (I assume) shouted 'come here love and join us!' I smiled and said nicely 'oh, my friend is outside!' Then the mother said 'no no come and sit with us, can't have you one Christmas Day!'

Friend then came back but we had TWO more requests to join these people who neither of us knew! Ended up saying look, can you leave us alone to eat our dinner please!

As we were going they then said we were really rude to them! They had been drinking to be fair but aibu to be annoyed at this?

Don't think id be 'really annoyed', they probably just thought they were being friendly. Slightly irritated maybe but I definitely wouldn't still be thinking about it a day later.

It was today.

YANBU!

So it was, sorry just reread . I still wouldn't be anything more than mildly irritated though.

Well, we were trying to talk :)

YANBU. I'd have been annoyed as well. Asking/offering once is fine, but once you've said no, then they should have left you alone.

YANBU, why must women who are on their own or not with a man assumed to be in the depths of despair? (actually, I know the answer to that one).

yanbu to say no to them but maybe your reaction was in a rude tone. They probably saw it as 2 people bored and it's christmas. Hardly crime of the century

It might not have been crime of he century but (sorry) I do think it was rude.

I don't see this friend much and we were trying to talk and were interrupted twice by this family. We did end up being quite rude but after politely saying no thank you 3 times I for one felt justified!

YANBU in the least. Even if the first invitation was somewhat understandable as they presumably thought you were alone, the repetitions after they could see you were having lunch with a friend weren't. As someone else said, for a certain mindset, two women having dinner together with no men in evidence equates to Tragic And On the Shelf, or something - hence can be interrupted with impunity, whereas if you'd been lunching with a male friend, I doubt the invitations would have continued.

Assuming you didn't actually snarl, I don't think you were at all rude to request to be left alone to eat with your friend.

YANBU. Jesus, it's like there's a Christmas curfew for people without big families. The rest of the year you're a pariah if you take little kids into a restaurant. It would be nice if people would just let one another get on with their own business...