So this weekend I have organized a work event - I invited my office and colleagues who are no longer a part of the team and we went to Christmass Market and later on, everyone was invited to my place for a drink and my birthday party.
In total 15 guys were invited, 12 accepted and in the end 14 people were at my place. How is that possible you may ask?
One dude, who I considered a great and close friend, he doesn't work with us anymore, felt entitled to invite one of our former colleagues (dude only worked with us for 3 months - I had zero interactions with him except a coffee like once) with his girlfriend !!!! I was not informed by him but accidentally by someone else. Because it would be great to catch up. Initially I thought they were only invited only for the market but when we are at my place, they showed up as well.
Of the 12 people who accepted, only 5 actually brought something to drink/snack.
One got completely wasted, to the point he was throwing up.
Only two offered to help in the kitchen.
The same and only one offered to help to clean up but unfortunatelly also had to bring back the drunk one home, so I was left alone with cleaning after 14 people.
I got a nice gift, but again arranged by the same dude who offered to help and clean.
Last but not least, I thought I had a great relationship with my ex manager, we're about the same age and I thought it would be nice to see him as well. When everyone else left, at very reasonable 1 am, he stayed. Until 4 am. I had to tell him the "we call it a night" and asked him to leave.
We sat down on a couch and then he moved incredibly close, to the point it made me uncomfortable. I moved to a chair and decided to switch topic to work related thing because he started talking about his divorce. I was alone and it was terryfying, even though the dude was non-threatening at all.
All in all - I judge only 2 of them were actually HVM, one maybe more aspiring but nevertheless - it was there. The rest just come for free party and don't bother. I should have followed more FDS rules and keep more of a distance. Before this I judged that all of them had potential to be HVM, definitely my formed manager and some of my colleagues.
Oh my god, this reads word for word like something I went through earlier this year. Men inviting girlfriends without permission seems so innocuous but it's such a massive glaring red flag the more you think about it, it's about control and power taking up double the amount of physical space and resources at the gathering and causing drama - everyone else gets upset they couldn't bring their partner. And more often than not if they had asked for permission it would have came out there's a specific reason the girlfriend isn't welcome, like he's triangulated her with someone in the group or something.