This isn't so much an AIBU, as my reaction / feelings about this aren't those of your "average" person. I'm just curious to know what others think about this, if they'd be annoyed, or see it as no big deal.
To give some context, I'm a super-anxious person, particularly around social anxiety. I am useless at small-talk, and find situations where i have to chat to people I don't now well / at all really stressful and pretty excruciating. I'm better than I used to be, but will always find these situations very difficult.
Six of us went to a wedding abroad at the weekend. The groom is friends with my OH and his two best friends. I know the groom, and he is lovely. Don't know his new wife well at all, but she is also lovely. They'll have an idea that I can be a bit nervous, but certainly would have no clue of the real level of my anxiety.
Before the reception, I'd been chatting to the other partners, and we'd talked of how we hoped they wouldn't split us up. I said how I really disliked weddings where they put everyone next to someone they don't know so they'll mingle. I get it, but I hate it.
Heading into the reception, we see that I've been sat on a different table to my OH. So, one the the English couples on each table (though not sat together), with me on the same table as one couple, and my OH on the table with the other couple. The only other couple not sat on the same table as each other were the ones that we'd been "swapped" with. I immediately started to get stressed, I actually have a physical reaction in this situation, sweaty palms, racing heart and i go a LOVELY shade of purple. OH was in the loo at the time so i went searching for him, and when I came back my friend had sorted it (by getting the women sat in "my" seat to move to the table that her husband was on). So, all fine. I spent the dinner sat next to a stranger but it was fine as it could be, as I had a friend on the other side of me and my OH just across from me for reassurance.
The logic must have been three English on each table. I kind of get that. But as I said, I know my reaction (so swapping seats) was very much influenced by my wider anxiety issues. What would other people have thought / done about this? Would it have been a more "normal"reaction to think it was absolutely fine and not question the seating plan had been done in that way?
(and in case people are wondering, I do lots of stuff on my own without my DH, I've backpacked alone, but my anxiety is always there, bubbling under the surface, so my reactions, as I said, aren't always rational!)