If you’re an extroverted or simply more sociable person, the holiday season is great.

With event after event bringing together, any social butterfly will have the time of their lives, mingling with their friends and loved ones – and even a few strangers that they meet along the way.

The person in this story was well used to their thirty-plus guest list at their annual family Thanksgiving party, and looked forward to the opportunity to spend time with each and every guest who came.

They looked forward to it so much that they invited three friends along to enjoy the event too.

But one friend’s reaction after the event made them think twice.

Read on to find out what happened.

AITA for not staying with my friends the entire time at my family thanksgiving?

Every year, my family has a Thanksgiving gathering (this time it was held on a Sunday) with around thirty people.

I invited and took three of my friends to the event this year.

During this, my friends were anxious and overwhelmed. From my memory, they sat on a couch and didn’t do much to walk around and do anything.

Any time I came up to them and asked them if they would like to get up and walk around with me they said no.

And the combination of friends and family left this person a little overstretched.

I didn’t stay with them the whole time because I only see some of my family once a year at Thanksgiving, so I was interacting with them as much as possible.

There was an instance where two of my cousins and I went outside to do something at my cousin’s car, and my friends all followed us but didn’t come outside until we were going back.

One of them said they were feeling overwhelmed and wanted to stay outside, but I had wanted to go back inside.

Two out of three of my friends came back inside right after me and one stayed outside.

But it’s only now that they’ve realised that their friends might have been less than happy at the event.

The thing is, I just received a text where the friend that stayed outside said that it was rude of me to disregard their feelings and go back inside.

They were also upset that I didn’t stay with them during the thanksgiving, spending time with my family instead.

We are all adults, so I assumed they would be able to figure out what they needed on their own to feel comfortable, even when I knew they were uncomfortable, because I am not responsible for how they feel or how they deal with it.

They didn’t tell me how they were feeling at any point other than we were outside, and I figured them staying outside would help them calm down their anxiety and stress.

Let’s see how this person felt upon receiving that message from their friend.

I made them aware that I wouldn’t be with them the whole time and that I would be interacting with my family before and during the day.

I also explained that I didn’t feel comfortable staying outside with them because to me it felt rude to my family. We have a schedule of things that I would have missed part of, things that my friends weren’t required to be part of but I was and am every year.

I also feel conflicted because in the message, the friend says that the other two friends agree with them that me leaving them outside on their own was rude. But when I left them outside with the other two friends. The two of them came inside after me, but only by less than a minute difference, so I don’t completely understand that.

Am I wrong for not staying with my friends the whole time?

AITA?

Let’s be real: going to an event full of people you don’t know is tough, and unless you’re a complete social butterfly it’s normal to want to cling to the people that you do know.

But this person didn’t invite just one friend that knew no one. They invited three friends, who could have spent the time together, even if they didn’t socialise with anyone else.

In reality, inviting these three friends likely left this person a little overstretched – perhaps they should just focus on family in the future.

Let’s see what folks on Reddit thought about this.

This person thought that this friend had done nothing wrong.

While others suspected that the friends suffered from social anxiety.

And this Redditor wondered if they were simply quite codependent.

Regardless of what was going on with the three friends, this person did a nice thing by inviting them to a family Thanksgiving.

They need to realise that a host cannot simply spend all their time with one or two guests. Would they expect the same if they were invited to a wedding, or another big event?

Social anxiety is extremely difficult, and perhaps they were brave to simply turn up to the event, but they can’t blame the host for their own discomfort.

They need to take responsibility for themselves.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a daughter who invited herself to her parents’ 40th anniversary vacation for all the wrong reasons.