Context: I work for a company abroad and am currently traveling to their home location (on another continent and in another city Im from). This is my first time in the country and as such I planned to do some sight seeing and whatnot after work.
During the day Ive had to go into the office for meetings and such. The HR team which is closest to my team organized an after hours movie night which I was invited to attend. When I was initially asked I said I would attend because I thought going to the movies would be a unique cultural experience for me.
I got the meeting invite and found out the plans were to watch the movie in a projctor in the office…my last meeting ended at 4pm which meant I could go home at 4pm or chose to stay an extra hour and watch the movie, not getting home till 8pm and not having dinner.
I politely declined as I left at 4pm but the team definitely was giving me judgy looks and i felt a little ostracized just for wanting to eat dinner on my own time.
For some reason I feel guilty, and its ruining my decision to miss out, which I know was the right one. I mean I mightve gone if it was in an actual theater but who TF wants to sit around IN the office until 8pm???