To despise when you have a social plan and the person you are planning to meet brings someone else along unannounced

[CurdinHenry]

I have bad social anxiety and pick my social situations carefully

It fucks me off so much when this happens (and then it seems like I have a problem with the plus one which I almost never do they're usually great I just don't want my comfort zone changed without my participation in the decision).

My mother in law does it a lot which as you can imagine is a whole extra layer as my husband can't cope with her being upset (he does side with me he's still just very upset about it).

I would have been upset too, at least year’s later it can become one of your ‘dinner party’ stories. 🙂

Just depends who they bring. I like it usually.

I can understand liking to meet new people, but why do you like the part where it's a suprise/secret? How does that make it better than if you know extra people are coming?

I think my biggest issue with it is that the perpetrator acts like they thought you would enjoy it, but if they really thought that, they'd tell you in advance. Of course the reason they didn't send a simple text letting you know, is that they knew you wouldn't be pleased and wanted to trick you in to it.

Yes just came on to say i would hate this as well. Ok if I had been asked about it . Would feel like o am I not enough company ?

One of my friends constantly does this. It’s like she likes to kill two birds with one stone and so mixes people from different groups. I went on holiday with her recently, and she invited someone else who I barely know, and I felt that I couldn’t then back out.

Agree it’s rude and also surely awkward for the person dragged along who clearly isn’t wanted.

Totally get it part of my autism is knowing exactly who will be there and for no known reason if the plan doesn't go as told to me the stress, run away symptom and being physically sick start and I go home

I don't have social anxiety @CurdinHenry and it really pisses ME off. So I can imagine it's quite stressful for those with social anxiety.

A few years ago one of our DC (DC1) left Uni and it was their graduation a couple of months after. DH and I had one night in a hotel nearby as the Uni was 250 miles away from our home, and things started on Graduation Day at 8.00am! (We were there with our younger child - DC2 - and had to pick up DC1's cap and gown at 8.15am at the venue - which was 2 miles from our hotel.)

Anyway, we had got into the University town and checked into our hotel 3pm the previous day, and were going out with our DC1, and their younger sibling DC2, who had come with us, and we all planned to meet at a restaurant for a celebratory family meal the evening before. DC1 and their partner were staying at a different hotel, and were due to meet DH and I and their younger sibling at 6.30pm...

DC1 whose graduation it was turned up at the restaurant 20 minutes late with 4 other people. A friend who was also graduating who had come with their sister, and another friend who was graduating - and their mum! (The mum and knew of the others all knew each other... The one's mum only lived 25 miles away, and saw her DC/visited the uni often...) We knew none of these people. DD1 and their partner knew them all. (And as I say, they all knew each other.)

We had never felt so awkward. Sitting there like chopped liver whilst DD1 and their partner and these 4 strangers all laughed and joked all night. We made our excuses after the main, and went back to the hotel. Left at 8.30pm. Left them to it and said 'see you at the Graduation venue at 8am tomorrow.' DC1 said 'aww, leaving already?' We just made the excuse that we were tired, and we had an early start tomorrow - (which we did!)

Truth was, we hated every minute of sitting there with these people we didn't know, when we thought it was a family meal for DC1's Graduation, for them, DH, me, and DD1's younger sibling... We weren't asked if we minded, we weren't warned, no-one said 'four other randoms might be there' ; they were just there, and it really pissed us off. Ruined the celebratory family meal for us!

I suppose it was DD1's 'celebration' and they were entitled to invite who they wanted to the meal I guess, but it was meant to be a family meal, and it was ruined for DH and I (and DD1's younger sibling.) We all felt so awkward.

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Oh I am so sorry. (Adult) children can be absolutely thoughtless and hurtful at times,I have one myself. I would have felt really shitty and upset after that.

Re saying something or not, the kinds of people who are insensitive enough to do it in the the first place also tend to be really bad at receiving negative feedback (ime anyway). They are happy enough so it doesn't occur to them that someone else might feel differently and if you try to broach it subtly it rarely penetrates.

I would tend not to go to a party so a stealth party is hell on earth but this person who gets to kill multiple friend birds with one stone just assumes everything is fine.

If people aren't being open about inviting you to something that involves other people I can't help but think that's often deliberate. Like they know that you would say no to something with near strangers and they don't want to take no for an answer.

I hate this. What I think happens is that one of the participants gets a "better" offer from their other friend but doesn't want to cancel so tries to smoosh the 2 together.

So why comment, @ASub?

I agree with the majority. It's rather rude and annoying.

I still remember an incident in my first year of uni. My three closest high school friends and I had all gone to different universities, and hadn't seen each other in over six months. During semester break, we were all back in our home town, so arranged a catch-up. One of my friends randomly brought along her new bestie from uni, without giving us the heads up beforehand. She (the uni friend) was a perfectly nice girl. But it meant that rather than an evening of reminiscing and catching up and swapping gossip about about mutual acquaintances from school, we had to spend an evening making polite chit-chat with a stranger.

No reason at all for the person you are meeting running it past you first. It's rude to just assume you wouldn't mind. If I felt uncomfortable I'd just go home tbh.

A friend from NCT who had moved to the next town texted me shortly before our planned meet up at the soft play (we had toddlers) that she had invited a new friend from that town. I said "I wish you hadn't, I was looking forward to a catch up" and got "I didn't realise we were exclusive" in return. She weird and tearful when I saw her. The nice woman she had invited was clearly uncomfortable.

Similarly, the amount of times at uni/in my 20’s I thought we were going out to a particular place to get almost there and here “but ‘Rachel’ wants to go to x instead” was infuriating. I had no idea who ‘Rachel’ was. This happened on my birthday once too, to go out and find out we were out for ‘Charlotte’s’ birthday.
one time it happened at a specific meeting spot that they changed last minute because of someone else. I hung up and went home. Not having it. I don’t speak to any of them anymore - a few have fallen out quite spectacularly since. I suspect that it came from a few wanting to suck up to the dominant personalities.

YES, it's so rude! My sister would do this all the time, I'd think we were meeting up 1:1 then 9 times out of 10 I'd arrive and one of her friends would just be hanging out there without her even mentioning it to me 😭She's like me and is also a little socially awkward so I could never figure out why she wasn't just upfront that it wasn't a 1:1 and that someone else was coming?

I specifically hate when I've suggested something and suddenly someone I don't know is there. Like when I asked my friend if she wanted to go to the cinema, she picked me up then went 'we just need to go get X' - what do you mean!? I didn't invite X, she's your friend, not mine! A message of 'X would also like to see the movie if you don't mind?' would've been one thing but now it's just been sprung on me - rude!!

Yes, it's rude. One time we invited this couple for dinner and one of them turned up with his adult son in tow, without letting us know. Our dinner table at the time was doable for four but very cramped for five and it also meant I had to stretch the food to another person. Fortunately, I'd cooked enough, as I always do, but it could have been even more awkward than it already was.

And this son, bloody hell. All he wanted to talk about was calories!

That is a really crappy thing to do and I hope you dropped them

Oh thank you. I appreciate that. 😘 I did wonder if I was silly to be bothered by it.

Bless you. I'm so sorry this happened ... People can be such shits can't they?!

Yes, I don’t like it. It’s okay if it’s a big group, fairly casual thing. But if I’ve made an effort to set up a meet with someone I care about and haven’t seen for ages, I don’t want some random brought along as well. i have one friend who turned up with her husband in tow to a long awaited reunion of a small friendship group - we hadn’t seen each other for a year, and it was really difficult to find a date. Then she turned up with him! I still don’t know why, as she spends most of her time moaning about him when he’s not there 🙄

I really don’t understand the hate for this and I don’t get why people are so precious about their friends. I’m sure most people will disagree with me.

The only exception is when you want to talk to someone about something sensitive and you have specifically asked to see them alone.

I enjoy meeting new people and I trust my friends to bring nice people along. I hate it when people say it “changes the dynamic”. You don’t have intellectual property on a relationship with another person. Grow up and deal with the fact you can’t control other people.