This is such a stupid problem but idek really know what to do about it and i thought maybe some of yall would be able to help me out to decide if i was in the wrong and how to try to get my way but also keep things good between him and me.
Im in 11th grade in higschool and we just started the 2nd semester. Our head teacher decided to do some changes to how people sat in class, we are 28 and we sit in groups of 3/2 so like 3/2 tables together. In my class we are 22 girls and 6 boys and the teacher said that we needed to stay quieter and he thought the boys needed to be fully split up and that they couldnt sit together anymore since they were always sitting together. Now i think this is very unfair to them since theyre not the only ones who talk but i guess that from the teachers pov its easier to split up 6 people than 22.
Anyway the boys had to choose a girl who they had to sit with, here is where the problem comes. I only really get along with 1 boy in our class and he only gets along with me so he asked if he could sit with me. But i sit with my 2 best friends and honestly while hes my friend and all i prefer to sit with my besties, so i said no. He got really pushy because he said that he really didnt get along with any of the girls and he didnt want to ask a random one to sit with him but i told him it wasnt that big of a deal, he got angry and eventually had to sit with the quiet girl since ig he couldnt find any other girl who would sit with him. Shes not bad or anything but she clearly has personality problems and is extremely shy.
As expected he isnt too pleased to sit with her and hes been distant with me ever since, i asked him on monday what was wrong and he said that he went from sitting with his homies and having a somewhat good time while being in class to now having to sit with that girl who wont talk at all and all of that just cause i didnt want to change my seat
I get his point but the thing is, its just a class thing?? Dont get me wrong 7 hours a day sitting with someone who basically wont talk or anything sucks but at the same time i dont really feel like i did anything wrong for wanting to sit with my best friends? I dont want him to still be angry at me over it but at the same time i dont really think he should be that angry about it since hes been very cold with me last week and this one too.
AITA?
NTA. You are not responsible for fixing his seating problem or sacrificing your comfort to manage his feelings.
NTA. The fact that he doesn’t get along with any of the girls is his problem (and there’s a good chance it’s his fault), not your’s.
NAH. you didn’t do anything wrong, but you made the choice of them over him and now he’s having a shit time. that’s not your fault, but you could have saved him from it. of course, had you sat with him, not actually wanting to, you might have ended up just getting annoyed and holding a grudge against him for that so he might have had a miserable time anyway.
there’s no right way out of this one. you picked what you picked. it might cost you his friendship, it might not.
Why is he having to sit with the same person for 7 hours? Are all of the teachers adopting this same seating assignment and somehow this same girl is in all of his classes? That’s just weird.
Overall, NTA. If the teacher wanted to change the seat arrangements, you should have just reassigned seats to everybody instead of putting the responsibility on all of you.
Hes the head teacher so he sent all the other teachers how the seating plan should look like, and most of them enforce it so…
ESH – He’s being a baby about having to sit with someone he doesn’t care for. It’s not a huge deal, you’re in school to learn and not chit chat all day. You kinda suck because changing seats shouldn’t be a big deal, again, you’re at school to learn, who cares where you sit. By grade 11 you’re old enough to sit with someone who isn’t “your bestie”. Not really an AH, but just kinda sucky on everyone’s account, seems very childish.
NAH except for your teacher… letting 6 boys be the ones to choose which of 22 girls they get to sit next to is a really problematic way to “fix” a seating problem. This sounds more like a psychological experiment than a classroom management tactic.
Hes honestly just stupid he thinks that he can kill 2 birds with 1 shot by getting rid of the boys group and hoping that the boys sit with some of the louder girls so they wont talk as much, literally not a week in and the class is almost as loud as it was before.
The fact that none of the other girls get along with him AND get’s pushy when told no might be related.
Later on in life he will have to work and sit next to people who probably won’t like him or are just like this girl is, so it’s great practice for him now.
Time for him to grow up and learn how to get along with people that don’t fit into his usual social norms
I don’t see why it matters. Because you’re not talking to each other during class anyway, right? You’re paying attention to the teacher and only speaking if it’s to participate in the class discussion, right? And in the breaks, he can get up and go to another table to talk.
The problem was that your teacher left things up to the students in the class after having problems with talking during class. It sounds like her solution was not very even handed and your primary concern is sitting with your besties. Of course this young man is going to be unhappy. You are thinking of yourself and your needs and not seeing the bigger picture. Your teacher should have handled this like a professional problem solver rather than leaving a group of kids to sort things out…
ESH
You’re lacking empathy. You’re a teenager, so it happens but you admitted that he IS a friend. Not your best friend, but a friend nonetheless. You’d rather your friend sit with someone that won’t talk to him all day than sit with a friend instead of a best friend. You didn’t want to be with your friend instead of best friend for 7 hours a day and expect him to think it’s “not a big deal” to be with someone who won’t even talk to him for that same stretch of time? And then you hold it against him that he’s upset with you and cold? That’s a natural consequence or your choice. He’s upset with you.
At the same time he’s being inconsiderate by putting you in this situation and repeatedly insisting. It is your choice, and he isn’t respecting your decision. It won’t be pleasant to sit with that girl, but it’s also not going to harm him or anything. If he is upset he could simply stop being friends with you instead of pushing the issue, but I suspect that in itself would cause more strife as well.
The teacher is also at fault here. Insisting on splitting up the boys specifically and leaving it up to the students how to do so? That’s a recipe for conflict.