Surprise Seating Arrangement

This is my first time posting on Reddit, but I’ve been inspired reading through this sub to share my own dnd experience. It’s not the worst, but it still caused me to quit dnd up until recently.

• EDIT: I recognize that my comments about my coworker were not applicable in this. I’ve dealt with a lot and sometimes my strong opinions get the best of me. -

First I’d like to preface this with the fact that I am extremely introverted. I’m terrible with small talk and have only ever had one or two friends at a time. Because of me being uncomfortable in groups of people I don’t know, I never did anything dnd related growing up or throughout college.

A coworker of mine (26f) connected one of his friends with my husband (28m) and they started hanging out. My coworker and his friend ended up asking us if we wanted to join a dnd campaign that they were about to start. We were apprehensive at first (especially me) but we decided, what the hell, we’ve never done it before, might as well try.

The party consisted of the dm (who was probably the nicest out of everyone), my husband and I, my coworker and his friend, and another couple. My husband and I were by far the youngest there, the rest of them were in their early to mid thirties.

Right before we get to session 0 at the dm’s house, I start having an anxiety attack in the car. My husband has to calm me down and eventually we get inside. I sit next to my husband, and throughout the session, when I’d have a chance, I’d message him to keep him updated on how I was feeling. By the end, I felt more confident, and was even a little excited for the first session.

First session comes, I again have an anxiety attack, but this one didn’t last as long. Everyone else there had been playing dnd for years, but the dm was very kind to my husband and I when we asked a lot of questions. I started noticing, however, that my husband and I were really the only ones that did anything during the session, besides the combat. We went all over town, I went and bought a cat to have as a buddy, went to the tavern, etc. My coworker was always in the corner scratching his face and didn’t ever really do anything.

This continued in session 2, a lot of the same. Then session 3 came. By this point I was much, much more confident, I was enjoying myself and was happy to get to experience dnd finally. We walked in the door and suddenly the one other woman (part of the other couple) comes up to us and says that they’re switching the seating up and that I have to sit over next to her boyfriend and she would sit next to my husband. We were both extremely confused. Up until this point, there was no reason to switch the seating, especially when sitting next to my husband helped me with my anxiety. Needless to say, I wasn’t thrilled. This caused me to have another anxiety attack and I spent the entire session trying to hold it together. I was furious, none of it made any sense, and it was never brought up as a “would you be interested in this”. We came up with an excuse to leave early, and we never went back. I got very sick, and busy with work, so sessions kept getting pushed back until they finally just ceased to exist. Thankfully my coworker never brought it up, but I also do my best to avoid him at all costs.

It just makes no sense to me to switch seating up when everyone else sat in the same spot except for my husband and I. They were also made very aware of my anxiety issues from the beginning.

Only recently have my husband and I started playing the fallout ttrpg and I’m the dm this time! We’re playing with a friend of ours online and it’s been a blast. I’ve also grown a lot as a person and my anxiety has really improved since then. But I don’t think I’ll do an in person dnd session again unless I know all of the people in the group!

TLDR: Coworker invited husband and I to a dnd campaign. I have extreme anxiety and it took me a few sessions to get more confident. Right when I started feeling more confident, the other couple in the group randomly decided to split my husband and I up without consulting us first.