Should my boyfriend come to my birthday dinner if he wants me beside him all evening?
Relationships"I'll come if you promise not to leave me on my own," my boyfriend said when I invited him to my birthday dinner. There will be eight of us. He has met two of my friends once; everyone else is new to him. We've been dating for four months.
At the last group dinner, I went to the other end of the table for about twenty minutes. Afterwards he said he'd felt stranded. I thought the evening had gone well, so that surprised me. He isn't asking me to cancel this dinner. He says he'd just like to know he'll have someone to talk to.
I can introduce him properly and sit beside him at first. I also want to move around, hear my friends' news and enjoy the dinner I planned before we started dating. Promising to stay next to him feels like promising a different evening.
Would it be kinder to offer him a shorter visit, or to accept that he might skip it and celebrate with me separately? I want him included without spending my birthday checking whether he feels abandoned every time I get up.