I don't want to go to work social events but I feel like I have to. Can I just... not?
KYLIE, Vancouver CANADA
May 2026
Sarah’s take:
Of course you can!
For many (all?) of us, if we ‘just notted’ more things, more often, we’d be way better bosses/colleagues/parents/teammates/friends/people. Kylie, my guess is you can relate, so I say opt out of this one and see what happens.
Once you decide to just not, it may be tempting to be all black and white about it. Deciding — I will never go to a work social event again, seems easier to me than deciding — I will not go to this one and after that I will have to see. But every event will not be or feel exactly the same, so try to take each one as it comes rather than defaulting to no each time.
I’m curious about what makes it hard for you to say no to this. My guess is if it were easy for you, you wouldn’t be asking about it. Can we really just say no to work events? Aren’t there consequences to RSVP’g no to these things? I feel like this is the other implied question, here. And yes, of course there are consequences! I don’t know them all, but less time to build relationships with people, for one, and that’s something. But Kylie, my guess is that whether or not people think you’re a team player (wtf does that even mean, even?) was established long before now.
Maybe you’re worried about letting people down by saying no. Maybe everyone expects you to be there because you are THE team player, well what then? Perhaps this helps: whenever I have said no to an event people expected me to say yes to, it didn’t seem to impact things much AT ALL. The event happened. The people in attendance still had a time. The greatness of the evening in no way hinged on me. I doubt everyone else's good time hinges on you, either, Kylie. But maybe you’ll prove me wrong. I hope you run an experiment here and find out! Say no and see what happens.
Sandy’s take:
Yes, you can 100% not go.
Attendance at work social events isn't mandatory (usually). But before you RSVP "no" to every happy hour and holiday party until the end of time, ask yourself when you actually last went to a work event. There's a difference between someone who goes regularly and needs to give themselves permission to opt out sometimes, and someone who hasn't shown up in eight months and is starting to feel like a ghost in their own workplace.
Here’s the thing though – relationships at work matter, and some of them actually need a little off-the-clock time to go anywhere. So I'd think about the tradeoff like this: What do I get from going? What do I lose by not going? Sometimes the answer is – nothing, and nothing. In which case, stay home, put on your sweatpants, and feel great about it. But sometimes the cost of opting out is loneliness, or a sense of being out of the loop, or relationships that just never quite go anywhere. Only you can know which one applies to you.
You don't owe your employer your evenings. But your future self might appreciate the occasional appearance.
