It’s natural to be better friends with some co-workers than others, especially if you’ve known some of them longer.

In today’s story, a newer employee accuses one of her co-workers of trying to exclude her from an after work get-together.

She was invited to the work event, but never showed up.

Let’s see why she didn’t know up and why she’s blaming her co-worker…

AITA “purposefully excluding” a coworker

I (28M) work in a team of 7 people.

A new girl Jess (26F) joined a couple months ago who I don’t really care for.

I am polite to her while we work but we don’t share any hobbies or overlap in any way.

I think she’s a bit pretentious to be honest. She’s always talking about her living in London in her early twenties.

It’s her whole personality, talking about all the expensive things she used to do and how she’s “sooooo broke” as a result.

We are all paid very well for what we do and the area we live in.

OP and his co-workers were going to go out together after work.

Last night, we had all planned to go for dinner after work to celebrate Chris (28M) getting married.

I knew Jess would be going, but it wasn’t my plan to dictate who went and it’s a nice thing to celebrate so I decided to go anyway.

Everyone at work drives apart from me, so Chris offered to drive us both. I will say I am the closest with him, we started around the same time.

Jess wanted OP to ride with her.

I was all set to go until Jess said she finds driving on her own nerve-wracking (I have no idea how she manages to commute in every day) and asked if I’d ride with her.

I declined and said I wanted to travel with Chris.

She insisted, so I told her I want to ride with Chris so we can talk about some wedding things and got into the car.

Chris did offer to also drive her but she declined.

Jess is blaming OP for trying to “exclude” her.

We all got to the restaurant.

Jess did not. She had a panic attack mid journey and decided to UBER home, leaving her car on a random street somewhere.

Today at work, she had a go at me and accused me of purposefully excluding her from the group plan.

Apparently me not riding with her was a scheme on my end to make her not go because I don’t like her.

OP doesn’t think it’s his fault that Jess didn’t go to the restaurant.

I told her that she excluded herself. Chris offered her a lift and she didn’t take it.

She also didn’t have to abandon her car and ditch, she could have called an UBER for herself to the restaurant.

Then I walked off.

While I don’t like her, I never make that known at work or to any of my coworkers.

I ask about her weekend, I offer her a hot drink if I make one, I help her whenever she has questions.

I just don’t talk to her like I do with everyone else and I don’t have her on my social media – I’ve known everyone else for 3 years+ now, of course I’m close to them.

I was talking to Chris about this post-shift, and he told me that it wouldn’t have hurt for me to ride with her instead of him when she insisted. AITA?

It sounds like Jess has some issues she needs to work out.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted…

This reader points out that Jess had multiple options.

Another reader thinks Jess is a “nit wit.”

This person believes OP has every right not to ride with Jess.

Another person points out that riding with Jess is not OP’s responsibility.

Perhaps HR should get involved.

Jess needs to take responsibility for her own decisions.

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