I mean, I have a feeling there may have been other things at work there, but I guess I feel like you can team build without having to do it outside of work hours. If you are not being paid, I don't really see how that's legal to be required to do anything. It seems to me that if one could prove that, it could warrant some legal action as well.

Alcohol only increases that anxiety, and what makes it worse, is knowing that I HAVE to go to a couple to seem like a "team player".

I'll let you know what it's like, for at least 2 days leading up to the event, I'm constantly practicing things to say, then trying to figure out all dialogue trees, and what my replies should be. I will practice and practice, and the amount of stress that causes, the lack of sleep, staying up late constantly trying to figure out what to say, worrying about what someone might say back.

Running past things they have said to me, trying to categorize and itemize all the things in their lives that they have so that I can seem like I am a normal person.. just to fit into their world.

Now, you're also saying that there's going to be alcohol, which means that I will most definitely say something dumb, or slip up.. people will look at me differently, and I will get the distinct feeling that people are talking about me behind my back, and I'm being excluded from things.

Then the event happens, and I try my best to say absolutely nothing, and stick to my script... someone says something totally random to me, and I have not prepared for this, I say something back... this one interaction, one of many, will be the thing that I am now constantly beating myself up about for days if not years later. I have no idea if people hated me because I didn't reply with the correct words in the right order, with the right facial expressions... all things that I do not understand.

And on top of this... I'm expected to do this every now and then because without doing it, I'm going to be silently punished by a group of managers who cannot fathom what this is like. Or colleagues like you who think "hey, it's cool, we're getting beers!"

Sorry, but no.

I NEED my downtime, I need my time to not have to deal with all of that. YOU don't need me there.

Where's the problem?

Buying drinks or not doesn't really enter into it, particularly for people who don't drink.