I need to have a tantrum!
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: UK
Posts: 2,937
I need to have a tantrum!
I have been away in Europe for a conference. Eastern Europe to be precise. So great big jugs of beer everywhere. Nasty evil, smelling shots of stuff that smelt like nail polish remover. Hot wine stuff that smelt like cough and cold medicine.
I did not drink nor did I feel tempted.
No way of not going. It was work. 150 people there too.
Apart from not drinking, I have had some ill health recently. So I was down on my twinkle fairy dust supplies that enable me to grin and gear it until I can escape.
We were there just under a week
There was 'entertainment' every night.
The meals in the evening were okay.
However the last night, was a black tie event.
It required transport home so I could not make a quick early exit.
The country I went to is famous for dancing.
This is graceful, elegant dancing though. Not twerking, staggering, generally being revolting or unbalanced swaying.
I sat round my table where we had eaten.
I was happy. I was people watching. I was fine.
So why did colleague after colleague decide that I must not be having a good time and take it upon themselves to be the one to end my misery by dancing over, determined look on face, and then proceed to drag me very publically onto the dance floor? Then when I refused make a great big public display of how they had failed at stopping me being an absolute misery.
I really could have lost my temper many, many times.
At one point I did say no very forcefully and their was a look of shock.
I felt like calling them for it the next morning when they were moaning about their heads hurting.
I wanted to ask why they felt it was their responsibility to make me dance?
That I understood that's how they enjoyed themselves but had they ever considered I did not enjoy myself that way?
It just makes me hate the way alcohol gives drinkers that fake confidence that it's okay to put someone under pressure to do something they don't want to do.
Anyone else can't bear this or have a solution for it?
Thank you for letting me have a tantrum!
I did not drink nor did I feel tempted.
No way of not going. It was work. 150 people there too.
Apart from not drinking, I have had some ill health recently. So I was down on my twinkle fairy dust supplies that enable me to grin and gear it until I can escape.
We were there just under a week
There was 'entertainment' every night.
The meals in the evening were okay.
However the last night, was a black tie event.
It required transport home so I could not make a quick early exit.
The country I went to is famous for dancing.
This is graceful, elegant dancing though. Not twerking, staggering, generally being revolting or unbalanced swaying.
I sat round my table where we had eaten.
I was happy. I was people watching. I was fine.
So why did colleague after colleague decide that I must not be having a good time and take it upon themselves to be the one to end my misery by dancing over, determined look on face, and then proceed to drag me very publically onto the dance floor? Then when I refused make a great big public display of how they had failed at stopping me being an absolute misery.
I really could have lost my temper many, many times.
At one point I did say no very forcefully and their was a look of shock.
I felt like calling them for it the next morning when they were moaning about their heads hurting.
I wanted to ask why they felt it was their responsibility to make me dance?
That I understood that's how they enjoyed themselves but had they ever considered I did not enjoy myself that way?
It just makes me hate the way alcohol gives drinkers that fake confidence that it's okay to put someone under pressure to do something they don't want to do.
Anyone else can't bear this or have a solution for it?
Thank you for letting me have a tantrum!
Administrator
Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: Dancing in the Light
Posts: 61,476
I'm glad you got through that.
It sounds like alcohol was part of the problem with you co-workers, but it also sounds like rudeness played a big part too. In any and all circumstances 'No' means 'No' and that includes not wanting to dance with someone.
It sounds like alcohol was part of the problem with you co-workers, but it also sounds like rudeness played a big part too. In any and all circumstances 'No' means 'No' and that includes not wanting to dance with someone.
Sober Alcoholic
Join Date: Dec 2014
Location: northern AZ
Posts: 796
It doesn't just happen with drinking. Social drinkers, or not, who are extroverts think anyone who isn't like them isn't having fun and try to help them with that! I get pretty sick at times and amused at other times by those who think I need dragging, kicking and screaming, out of my "shell." Introversion IS NOT a disability, handicap, mental nor emotional illness! Its as valid and/or healthy as any other personality type! I hear ya. Don't build resentment over their myopia and don't grin and bare it either. Just practice "the look" in the mirror. 
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: UK
Posts: 2,937
The thing is it was not just one person.
It was women and men.
I think it just annoyed me that because I was not drinking and dancing, they automatically assumed I was not having a good time, like they were.
Like they had found the holy grail to having fun at a party and were determined I needed to follow it.
Its just how arrogant drinking makes people. That they think they it is 'their job' to make people enjoy themselves. And that they know better than me about what constitutes enjoyment.
I'm just cross.
I think its really bad to put someone in the spotlight like that when they don't want to be.
I wish they would go just concentrate on themselves.
It was women and men.
I think it just annoyed me that because I was not drinking and dancing, they automatically assumed I was not having a good time, like they were.
Like they had found the holy grail to having fun at a party and were determined I needed to follow it.
Its just how arrogant drinking makes people. That they think they it is 'their job' to make people enjoy themselves. And that they know better than me about what constitutes enjoyment.
I'm just cross.
I think its really bad to put someone in the spotlight like that when they don't want to be.
I wish they would go just concentrate on themselves.
Member
Join Date: Jan 2015
Location: UK
Posts: 55
Sasha4, I get you and agree wholeheartedly. For me this happens a lot at family do's....same people every time get drunk, then get annoying, then start annoying me "get up and dance, come on, join in, enjoy yourself, have a drink" over and over. They will not listen "I WAS enjoying myself just sitting with a coke watching...I am now not enjoying myself because YOU keep on!" Thank you for sharing your rant, I feel better for having a mini one too 
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