She just got up and left

[Lotzana]

I do a weekly language course and tonight was the Christmas party with our group and other more advanced learner groups. Some of our group were sat in a circle and given some fairly difficult Christmas language tasks to do (we're beginners). One of regular ladies in the class turned up and placed herself outside the circle, didn't say hello, only to the teacher.

We were all getting on with tasks and chatting and hadn't really noticed her as she was sat slightly away from everyone and not saying anything. Perhaps someone should have said something but we were a bit absorbed by the tasks and struggling with them to be honest. There was no malice or bad vibes going on towards anyone.

The teacher came along to give her a task and encourage her to get involved with the rest of the group. At this point, she got up and declared she was leaving and never coming back! She said while she liked the teacher, she didn't enjoy the overall experience and found all of our group cliquey!

AIBU to think this was an overreaction and she must have issues? It's a weekly language class, not high school! All she had to do was pull up a chair within the circle and tag onto the task. Instead she chose to sit away from people and then complain she'd been slighted and then leave rather than join us!

Well if the shoe fits.
Yes, your group does sound unwelcoming and cliquey.

Of course it's her fault for not being able to cross the moat to your kingdom!
I'll guess if it was an ok looking non weirdo male, the lot of you would have fallen over yourselves to welcome him.

I'd give a speech to a group of 500 strangers half a dozen times, if it meant I didn't have to go into a class full of people that I vaguely know and have felt excluded by in the past, who I'm going to have to keep seeing every week, and try to wedge myself into a nonexistent gap in an established circle of people who seem to be resolutely pretending they haven't noticed me coming in.

It sounds like you think giving speeches to a load of strangers is hard. I think it's easy. I get to control the whole thing, I can plan everything I'm going to say in advance, nobody's going to say anything unpredictable that I'll have to react to, and nobody there knows me so they have no pre-existing impression of me. If I screw something up a bit it won't matter too much because they'll put it down to understandable nerves, and I'll probably never have to see them ever again anyway.

When people tell me they find that kind of thing hard, I wouldn't just tell them they need to develop a bit of resilience, and it's hardly like they're having to go into a roomful of people they know and push their way into a circle that's ignoring them.

You’re all cliquey, she recognised this and left. The people who say a group aren’t a clique are usually the ones in it.

The idea we all have personal responsibility to squeeze ourselves into an established social circle really doesn’t reflect the reality of trying to do so. You were unwelcoming, you didn’t acknowledge her when she arrived and did nothing to include her. The group is larger than the individual, it would have hurt no one to invite her and she clearly felt trying to force her way in was pointless.

I agree. Also in another post the OP tells it slightly differently

There was no malice or bad vibes going on towards anyone.

That's the line that stood out for me. You might not have been aware of any malice or bad vibe but you can't speak for a whole group.

I hope the poor woman isn't on here to recognise herself.

Maybe she does have "issues" but I'd argue lack of empathy, being cliquey so others feel excluded and pretending that you haven't noticed someone sitting alone are bigger character flaws.

So you're REALLY all baffled as to why someone left when they turned up to find everyone already in a group, aware of her presence but ignoring her, backs to her, not inviting her in, teacher not integrating her...

She may be anxious, socially, but you lot sound fucking rude and unwelcoming to me, and the faux bafflement is not endearing either.

Poor teacher, yes, but poor rest of you human beings too.

OP didn't you know you are supposed to fawn over every single other person around you to ensure they are comfortable and happy in every situation.

Its always hard to break into a group if you are late to a class.
It’s always hard to break into a circle, however loose, unless there are spare chairs already in the circle. …as a sort of visual invitation to join.
Its always hard to break into a group if students are all already busy with tasks and intent on communicating with each other as they would be in a language class especially if there is no verbal invitation to join nor even any acknowledgement of the late comer’s presence. She would have been faced with you all already bonded to a partner and deep in conversation no doubt with laughter and other signals that you were all settled and confident with each other as learners.
Also, it may have been even harder, on top of all that, to see more advanced students were present. She may have concluded that the tasks would have therefore been more challenging … she may have felt there was suddenly more scope to be seen to fail.
It was the teacher’s job to have anticipated the difficulties facing this student as soon as she arrived and not keep her waiting awkwardly on the periphery of the group. But I can see how this happened if the teacher was busy elsewhere and didn’t see her enter the room late.

It’s a shame nobody else reached out to her at the time. Maybe you or one of the group could get in touch to befriend her and encourage her back next term.

She doesn't sound shy or introverted. If she was, why did she make a big scene?

She clearly didn't make a 'big scene'. Op says in another post that she didn't notice until the teacher said what happened after the woman had left.

Which admittedly reads very differently to the opening post where she 'she got up and declared she was leaving and never coming back!'

Imo there will be people on this thread that understand how the woman could have been feeling because they don't feel comfortable in a group setting, don't feel confident enough to just join in with a group without some kind of (informal) acknowledgement - just something like a smile and budging over a bit so that there is an obvious space for her.

And there will be people that would happily create a space by asking people to move up a little, and jump into the middle of the task, and some of those won't get why the woman isn't more like them.

I don't think it's fair at all to dismiss the woman's own experience of the situation.

The first two lines were a quote. For some reason the bold thing didn't work.

I would have done exactly the same if I arrived at a class there was a circle and nobody turned round to acknowledge me or let me in it's common courtesy and you know this I don't the problem is with the lady who left tbh

Teacher should have settled her in if you were all absorbed in the task.

She seated herself away from you. I would expect an adult to be making that choice if she didn’t even try to pull a chair up.

When I was heavily pregnant I went to an NCT coffee morning - advertised for first timers. A group we’re standing loosely in a circle so I joined them. They ignored me. Fine. They then closed the circle leaving just me outside. WTF? Now that’s rude.

If you had refused to allow her in or if she was new then I would say you were unreasonable. But presumably you have all known each other for a while, you’re not really responsible for keeping an eye on everyone in the room. Sounds like she hasn’t gelled with you all. Or feels like she hasn’t. Are you all best mates? My experience of adult Ed language courses is that we were a very loose group & didn’t know each other well enough to form any sort of clique. The nice thing about adult Ed is you can choose to drop out of you don’t like the group.

Breaking into a closed circle/group is always difficult but as an adult it is our responsibility to either do it or stand back and wait for the right moment. I actually often stand back and wait for the right moment because I find it a bit awkward (it doesn’t make me anxious, it makes me awkward), but I don’t expect other adults to be keeping track of what I am doing in a regular class or group. Different if someone is new - then polite to extend a welcome, but really not unreasonable to assume an adult who knows everyone else in the room is making a choice to join in or not.

My experience of adult Ed language courses is that we were a very loose group & didn’t know each other well enough to form any sort of clique.
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this is spot on. We dont know eachother or see eachother outside the class. No one knows eachother very well so dont see how we could be cliquey or trying to deliberately exclude anyone. We're all just muddling along trying to learn
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Breaking into a closed circle/group is always difficult but as an adult it is our responsibility to either do it or stand back and wait for the right moment.

It's also an adult's prerogative to instead decide that they'd rather not try to break into an apparently determinedly closed circle at all, withdraw, and additionally do the teacher the courtesy of discreetly explaining why they're leaving and won't be returning. Which is apparently what the woman did.

She wouldn't have had any way to know that the whole thing would get passed around the class to comment on (and as OP later clarified, she didn't just stand up and announce it to the entire class as the original description implied).

I don't understand why the OP took such umbrage at someone deciding the group wasn't working for them and quietly leaving, especially since she obviously didn't have much to do with her.

True @FurryDandelionSeekingMissile so teacher at fault for telling them.

And yep @Lotzana all adult Ed groups I have been to have been like that. It can be an interesting way to spend a few hours with people you know vaguely!

this is spot on. We dont know eachother or see eachother outside the class. No one knows eachother very well so dont see how we could be cliquey or trying to deliberately exclude anyone. We're all just muddling along trying to learn

But by failing to acknowledge her and make room for her it would have appeared like she was being excluded - she has no idea if it's intentional or not. Her experience of the event is different to your experience.

It sounds like she might have some kind of mental health struggles. Try not to take it personally/ judge her. She's obviously finding things difficult.

Sounds like a shit party to be fair and others from her group sitting in a tight circle and ignoring her was the icing on the cake. She doesn't necessarily have issues she just doesn't want to put up with a hobby that she's not enjoying, which seems reasonable.

If she's a regular then my guess would that her impression of the group as cliquey is based on more than just the party example.

What are you trying to get out of this post? Judging by your replies you have already decided you have done nothing wrong. Do you have some kind of obsession with her to the point of needing to discuss her with strangers? I dont blame her for the way she reacted, sounds like this was probably the straw that broke the camels back. Also when you wrote about 'bringing her into the fold' - kind of gives away that you all saw yourselves as an established unit without her

Crikey do people really make such a big drama out of everything, it must be exhausting. Surely you would just walk in say hello and sit down.
I used to work in an office where there was a woman like this. We would be concentrating on our work (like we were paid too) and she would walk in. If we didn’t immediately make a bit fuss of her, ask lots of questions etc she would have a sulky face on her. The thing is if you were in the middle of something you were only half aware she was there.
She sounds like a drama queen who wants to be central of attention.

I consider myself shy and an introvert with anxiety and would find it very hard to do a class like this and come over to you guys but I would also find it hard to go up and talk to the teacher or to complain to her.

I don't even talk to parents in a group on the playground. But I do force myself to do it where needed and for work etc sometimes needing to build myself up to it.

From what you've said I don't think you did anything wrong. Yes it would have been nice to wave her over but are you the confident type to do that? I also don't think it was your responsibility and as you said others came in and joined you. If you were horrible like pp's are making out you wouldn't be questioning yourself now you and would probably have just thought 'silly cow' and got on with your life. Was the teacher too busy to notice that she wasn't participating and try to get her involved?

It is nice when the outgoing people pull you in, I guess most of my friendships were made this way. Once I know them I am comfortable with them but I also don't expect everyone else to be able or to want to be like that.

She sounds like a drama queen who wants to be central of attention

She really doesn't. If she wanted to be center of attention, she would have made a scene instead of just getting up and leaving with nobody but the teacher realising.