So today we were doing Secret Santa in my class, and the girl in charge of passing out the names let me choose mine. I walked back out to where everyone else was, and another girl asked me, “Did you pick yet?” I said yeah, and then she asked, “Who did you get?”
I genuinely thought she was just asking normally and that it was fine to say… so I told her.
The moment I said the name, everyone got mad. They took all the papers back, called everyone to return theirs, and then told me to leave while they talked about me. I could hear them calling me stupid and saying how they were happy with their person and now it was ruined because of me.
Now I just feel really dumb for answering the question at all. I wasn’t trying to ruin anything I just misunderstood. But now I feel like everyone hates me and thinks I messed up on purpose. And also no one wanted my name after that I could hear them trying to switch. I feel super stupid am i the asshole or the girl for even asking me?
NTA. ~~E S H.~~
This is not really that big a deal, but you and the girl are equally at fault. She shouldn’t have asked, and you shouldn’t have answered.
Of course people are going to complain if they liked their first pick, but on average it shouldn’t make a difference.
EDIT: OP clarified that the girl running the pick gave him her name. That means she was probably not doing a random pick for the others, either. SHE is the AH here.
ESH. You shouldn’t have answered and the girl shouldn’t have asked. What makes SECRET Santa so fun is the SECRET aspect of it. You’re both equally at fault
NTA. You made a mistake. The real problem is the overreaction, telling you to leave? Calling you stupid? That’s way out of line for what was clearly an accident. Kids can be cruel and love having someone to gang up on
NTA. They wildly overreacted.
She shouldn’t have asked. Was the person you drew even there? As long as that person didn’t hear there’s no need to start again. Even if they did hear, only you needed to redraw (or even just pretend to redraw), not everyone. Your class are a bunch of drama llamas.
The girl I choose was there but she was the one who passed them out and she looked for her name and gave it to me so she already knew
That’s cheating.
This needs to be in the post, it’s extremely relevant information.
NTA – Quite an overreaction for something so unimportant. Plus, why would the other person ask you in the first place? Sounds like you were set up.
The person who you had ALREADY knew. There was 0 reason to redraw. If anyone is an asshole it’s the organisers. Also the rest of your class don’t sound all that spectacular either.
ESH
They’re much bigger AHs than you as their reaction is not proportional to what occurred.
But don’t act like you didn’t know the rules. The word secret is literally in the name.
Full disclosure: I am not a fan of Secret Santa. It seems like there is always some drama over people not liking who they pick, what they were gifted or some other foolishness that hurts somebody’s feelings.
The last time I worked somewhere that wanted to do Secret Santa, I convinced the group to participate in Adopt-A-Family. We had fun buying and wrapping gifts for a family in need. It was in the true spirit of the holiday and nobody’s feelings got hurt.
ESH in this situation. Your classmates are huge AHs for being so mean. You’re a tiny bit of an AH for not understanding the “Secret” part of Secret Santa and recognizing that trying to figure out who picked who is part of the “fun”.
ESH. All of you ruined Secret Santa. The girl shouldn’t have asked who you got, you shouldn’t have told her who you got, and everyone else should have remained neutral with regard to who they got, as per tradition. Forget Secret Santa, you guys did Public Grinch.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/s/egqoHytfqa
Definitely info that was needed for judgements.
It sounds like you misunderstood that Secret Santa meant Secret. If everyone said who they had, it would no longer be Secret Santa
Lesson Learned. They overreacted.