You've heard of party animals? She's a party scaredy cat!
[singing] Every party needs a pooper and that's why they invited you. Party pooper. Party pooper.
—Super Kami Guru, Dragon Ball Z Abridged.
People don't always want to do what everyone else is doing. Sometimes, they have differing versions of what is fun or enjoyable.
Bibliophiles, for example, might prefer a quiet night in, reading, than a loud, raucous party.
Or someone with any form of social anxiety may dislike being in a crowd.
Or maybe they had other plans that are now being interrupted.
Or perhaps they see their friend(s) as The Troublemaker, and want no part of it. Another reason could be that the character is a child and the party is more adult-oriented.
Whatever the case, they find themselves at a party, and they are clearly not having any fun there, and would have preferred to have been left out of it. Maybe they didn't know what kind of party it was going to be. Maybe they thought it would be an informal affair with close friends, only to find it a large community event. Perhaps they came voluntarily but discovered someone there they'd have rather avoided. Or perhaps they never wanted to go in the first place, but were dragged along by friends who were trying to "broaden their social circle".
Now in a situation they find distasteful, they may threaten to leave the party, or declare up front that they have no intention of having any fun.
Depending on the situation, a friend who was looking forward to the party may Resort to Pouting and/or use Puppy-Dog Eyes, or silently threaten tears. If the person is a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, that will get them to stay at the party at least, and often silence their protests.
Then again, sometimes an Aesop will be that people need to be left to their own preferences, and the character won't be in the wrong for not wanting to participate.
May overlap with The Complainer Is Always Wrong. Often used to foster narratives that promote group unity instead of isolationist attitudes. Oftentimes, The Bore and The Killjoy can be related as they can ruin the mood of the party.
Compare Shoddy Shindig for when no one likes the party. Also compare Fun-Hating Villain or The Grinch
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- My-HiME: When Midori reveals that she is holding a karaoke party for the "HiME Sentai/Rangers", Natsuki is seen sitting on the sofa, her arms folded and her expression a frown and her eyes narrowed black dots, wondering why she has to participate. The situation does not improve her mood when she's the first to be called to sing, and is forced into a ridiculously frilly pink dress, to the amusement of her nemesis, Nao.
- My Love Story!!: Suna is a quiet, withdrawn personality, and he is often dragged along to places by Takeo. On one occasion, he tries to leave before Takeo can rope him into a mixer with Rinko's friends, but Takeo catches him and says he's coming along. Suna sullenly says that he won't talk to anyone there, something he sticks to.
Comic Books
- Rat Queens: Dee is shown to be very uncomfortable at the party that occurs at the end of the first arc, preferring to bury her nose in a book than socialize. When someone does try to chat her up, she snaps at him to deliberately drive him off.
Fan Works
- In The Loud House fanfic Nolan's Birthday
, an Original Character named Nolan invites a whole lot of canon characters to his fifteenth birthday. Among them is Mr. Grouse, but he doesn't want to be there and plugs his ears.
Films — Animation
- The Care Bears Movie: Grumpy Bear is not looking forward to the party that he is helping set up, though it might be justified as he points out that he's having to do double duty to get it ready in time (which he demonstrates by being at both ends of a ladder he's carrying).
Films — Live-Action
- Bridget Jones's Diary: At the party to launch the book Kafka's Motorbike, Bridget suddenly sees Mark Darcy, who is hardly a party animal, and asks him what he is doing there. His Deadpan Snarker reply is that he has been asking himself the same question, before adding that he came with a colleague.
- A Muppet Family Christmas: Fraggle Rock's Doc and his dog Sprocket rented a cabin in the countryside for a nice, quiet Christmas. Unfortunately, they rented the cabin from Emily Bear (though Doc tells Sprocket he didn't know he was renting from an actual bear), mother of Fozzie Bear, and Fozzie, without telling his mother his plans, arranged to drop in an celebrate the season with her, along with all of his friends, including the cast and crew of Sesame Street. Though the Muppets eventually grow on Doc, and he eventually finds himself embracing the madness, early on, he is frequently lamenting that he was promised a nice, quiet Christmas.
Emily Bear: You think you're disappointed? I just took three months of surfing lessons for zip.
- Rocketman (2019):
- Downplayed after the Troubadour concert; Elton is alone at the afterparty while Bernie is off with Heather, and he's feeling too lonely and disconnected to enjoy it despite having just come off an amazing show. Things only turn around when he's approached by John Reid, who comes to bring him a drink and compliment him on his performance — an interaction that quickly turns to romance.
- About halfway through the movie, Elton's at a party that takes place at his own house, and instead of engaging with the guests, he's up in his room, drinking and being miserable. This is due to the horrible timing of said party; he'd just come off of a drug bender, found John cheating on him, and wasn't mentally prepared to be a host given that he didn't even realize what day it was. Bernie goes to talk to him, but Elton brushes him off as he's with two girls, inadvertently triggering Elton's hopeless crush on his friend and making his mood even worse. When Bernie leaves, Elton quickly spirals into attempted suicide, making a scene mid-party by announcing his intent to die and falling into the pool while high on drugs.
Literature
- Adrian Mole: At the beginning of Wilderness Years, Adrian is reluctantly attending his mother's New Year party, refusing to join in, and reminding Pandora and her lover Cavendish that they are going to give him a lift home, adding that Cavendish must avoid drinking because of this.
- Dirty Bertie:
- In "Worms!", Bertie is invited to Angela's sixth birthday party. He doesn't want to go to the party for several reasons: he is the only boy invited and thinks Girls Have Cooties, he finds Angela in particular annoying, and the guests must wear pink, a colour which Bertie hates.
- Greg and Rowley are best friends, but Greg generally doesn't enjoy Rowley's parties, because he finds the party games "dopey" and most of Rowley's other friends are a lot younger.
- Emma: John Knightley would much rather stay at home with his children than go to Mr Weston's Christmas party, and spends the whole journey there enlarging on why it's a terrible idea to go.
- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: Professor Slughorn has a habit of holding parties for those whom he believes are the great and the good, and many people do not actually enjoy attending these. Indeed, as he is Quidditch captain, Harry starts to arrange Quidditch practices at the same time as these parties, to save himself and his team from having to attend them.
- Mr. Men: In Little Miss Shy, the titular Little Miss gets invited to one of Mr. Funny's parties but as she is so incredibly shy, she flip-flops on whether to go or not before in the end deciding to stay home. However, Mr. Funny comes to her home and personally brings her to the party, where she learns to have a great time, and even meets someone just as shy as herself, Mr. Quiet.
- Pride and Prejudice: Mr. Darcy is first introduced attending his friend's ball, where the party quickly learns that he's handsome, rich, and so cold and standoffish as to render the first points moot. It turns out that he's just terrible at talking to strangers, but the scene leaves Elizabeth hostile towards him for the first part of the book.
- Thinks by David Lodge (Writer): the geeky Professor Douglass is not fond of parties. When he attends Ralph's birthday party, he turns up precisely on time because nobody told him otherwise, and leaves first because he finds it awkward. Near the end of the book, after he has suddenly committed suicide, his empty seat at a big dinner draws no attention, because his dislike of social occasions is well-known.
- The Worst Thing About My Sister: When Marty (short for Martina) is invited to Alicia's birthday party, she wants no part in it, partly because the guests must wear dresses and Marty Hates Wearing Dresses, but mostly because she and Alicia dislike each other. It gets even worse when Alicia and her friends Katie and Ingrid start calling Marty "Bluebottle" for her blue dress.
Live-Action TV
- Astrid: Played for Drama in "Fulcanelli" when Raph invites Astrid to her birthday party at the precinct's Local Hangout, without considering what the Sensory Overload would likely do to someone who habitually wears hearing protection just to walk the Paris streets. Astrid gives Raph a thimble as a birthday present, causing a round of confused muttering, and then leaves in tears, and Raph quickly runs after her to apologize for her mistake.
- The Big Bang Theory: Sheldon Cooper can ruin any party, whether there voluntarily or not.
- In the first season, when Penny determines to throw Leonard a birthday party after learning he's never had one due to his mother's views on achievement (and being born wasn't one), Sheldon resists the idea of attending. Penny has to blackmail him into participating by threatening a variety of irritations, including disfiguring one of his mint-condition comic books.
- At Penny's Halloween party, Sheldon's costume as "The Doppler Effect" is unnoticed, and he approaches the situation as though he were Jane Goodall studying apes (though he'd later pooh-pooh the social sciences entirely and consistently in future episodes).
- He's invited to a party hosted by his "Mortal Nemesis", Wil Wheaton. He doesn't want to be there but is "fighting for his and Leonard's friendship." Wil actually manages to get on Sheldon's good side by apologizing for any enmity between them and giving him a mint-condition action figure of his character Wesley Crusher. It's subsequently opened by Brent Spiner, who finds himself on Sheldon's Mortal Enemies list. Wil informs Brent that it doesn't take up a lot of your time.
- Dad's Army: In "The King Was in His Counting House", Captain Mainwaring throws a party for the front line of his platoon at his house. His wife, Elizabeth, refuses to make an appearance and believes that the men will "get drunk and smash the house up".
- A running theme throughout Breaking Bad:
- In the first episode, the depressed Walt is less than enthused by the surprise party Skyler organizes for him to celebrate his unwelcome 50th birthday, sulking throughout.
- In the video Marie makes of Skyler's baby shower, Walt is again visibly uncomfortable in the midst of frivolity, nearly putting a damper on the whole thing with his unsettling, gloomy message to his unborn daughter.
- A year later, at his unexpected and unwelcome cancer remission party, Walt takes out his misery more directly on those around him, gunning for a fight with his brother-in-law and encouraging his 16-year-old son to drink tequila until he vomits into the family pool.
- In the Everything's Gonna Be Okay episode "West African Giant Black Millipedes", Matilda, who is autistic, is invited to a party at her crush Luke's house. Matilda has very little experience with parties, and badly overestimates her tolerance for alcohol (and its utility as a social lubricant). It ends very badly for her.
- House, M.D.: House takes it upon himself to organize Chase's bachelor party and even starts the night off with a speech to the guests. However, he spends most of the night drinking in the bathroom. When asked why he isn't enjoying the party, he says that he prefers to be alone.
- The Magicians (2016): The series premiere opens with Quentin sitting awkwardly on the living room floor while people party all around him. Eventually, he moves to a bedroom and begins reading an old, worn book. When Julia, his best friend, joins him, their conversation reveals that Quentin left the party being hosted in his apartment to go to his bedroom and read a book he's read dozens if not hundred of times since his childhood.
- Star Trek:
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine:
- In "Let He Who Is Without Sin...", Jadzia and Worf go on a couples' trip to Risa, ostensibly to discuss their relationship—except Worf had wanted to go hiking on Qo'noS, and she immediately goes off with one of her previous host Curzon's old flames and blows him off. Worf understandably gets irritated at her and becomes enamored of the New Essentialists, an extremist group that's stirring up trouble on Risa to poop everybody's party, on the notion that the Free-Love Future is weakening the Federation at a time of great peril.
- Odo used to use his shapeshifting abilities to entertain people at parties. He does not remember it fondly.
Odo: I was the life of the party. People would say "Odo be a table." I'd be a table. "Odo be a chair." I'd be a chair. Life of the party. I hate parties.
- Star Trek: Discovery:
- In "Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad", the crew is having a party to let off steam. While Burnham is in attendance, she is visibly uncomfortable and says as much. She has to be aggressively persuaded to interact with the other attendees.
- Star Trek: Voyager:
- In "Alter Ego", the crew are having a luau on the holodeck. Janeway has to order Tuvok to attend, but he's not in the mood. Instead of dressing according to the setting, he wears his uniform and pointedly sits away from everyone else, signalling how much he doesn't want to be there.
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine:
- Succession: Family patriarch Logan famously detests parties, especially surpises. He sulks through his own birthday celebrations whether his kids don't show or simply show and disappoint him. They later use this trait to their advantage, encouraging the new CEO they are attempting to undermine into organizing a massive gala for Logan — which he attempts to walk straight out of once he realizes how many people are there.
Music
- Alessia Cara's "Here" details a party that Cara doesn't want to attend, and she considers going to wait in the car. She doesn't know anyone else besides her friend group, whose presence is the only reason she came along; her friends have gone off to do their own thing, she doesn't have much in common with the other partygoers, the music isn't to her taste, she's not keen on the open drunkenness and drug-taking, men keep trying to hit on her despite her lack of interest, and she's unimpressed by some guests gossiping about their friends and "haters". Cara is apologetic for appearing to be an "anti-social pessimist" and admits this isn't the kind of party she usually goes to.
- Tom Cardy's Party Dog starts off like this with the singer describing how they don't want to do any typical party things and only came along so they could pat the host's dog. But in typical Tom Cardy fashion, it quickly goes off the rails into an overextended metaphor about the precise territorial categorisation of 'Dog-pat Town'.
- Ninja Sex Party's "Dance 'Til You Stop" (feat. Tom Cardy) is a song from the point of view of people at house parties who hate parties.
I had two sips of beer and a couple of snacksStood against the wall and had a panic attackA guy comes up and he wants me to vapeThis is my hell and I cannot escape
- The Ed Sheeran and Justin Bieber song "I Don't Care" is about a socially awkward person attending a party and feeling out of place, but who becomes comfortable when they can be with their significant other.
- Three Dog Night: In the song "Mama Told Me Not to Come", the narrator is a square who attends a hippie party and is horrified by all the sex and drugs.
Video Games
- Depression Quest: One of the scenes in the game involves the player being invited to a party by their girlfriend. No matter what options the player chose before, it is impossible to enjoy the party.
Web Animation
- In Dis/Connected, a short animation about a shy girl who doesn't feel connected to her schoolmates, the protagonist is dragged to a party by two bully girls who know she'll hate it. Things get even worse for her when she loses her headphones she uses to block out the world but she manages to overcome this by imagining other party patrons turning into various animals and fantasy creatures.
- Helluva Boss: Loona spends most of the episode "Queen Bee" uncomfortable and out of her element at a blowout house party she attended only to see her crush, immediately getting into a fight with a group of mean girls who remember the last party she attended, where she drank too much and projectile vomited. Her mood only worsens when she takes a dislike to her crush's girlfriend, and she ends up calling her dad to pick her up — but comes around when he joins in with the festivities instead and helps her get more comfortable with letting go and having a good time.
Webcomics
- In A-gnosis' comics on Greek myth, Hades is an introverted Workaholic with little patience for his Big, Screwed-Up Family, so in The Family Party, he makes a token appearance at Zeus's party on Olympus and then hides in the kitchen with Hestia. He has his first meeting with Persephone when she notices him there but doesn't blow his cover.
Web Original
- This design by the artist Mel Tillery parodies extremely specific T-shirts. Part of the design says, "I'm weird at parties. Not the fun kind of weird though. Just weird. Like I will sit on the floor and follow your cat around. And tell people unsolicited facts about terrestrial isopods. So you probably should not invite me if I'm being honest."
Web Videos
- Dimension 20: In the second bonus episode of Fantasy High's first season, one of the foul spirits attempting to ruin Zelda's coming-of-age party is an unsympathetic take on this trope. The spirit is in a bad spot emotionally and in no mood to socialize, yet refuses to leave the party when given the option—instead taking the central couch in the living room so nobody else can use it.
Western Animation
- Batman: The Animated Series: Jordan Hill, son of Mayor Hill, is frustrated that his father has turned his birthday party into a political meet-and-greet for himself and his supporters, instead of allowing him to invite his friends. This leads to Jordan running away and falling into the clutches of The Joker.
- BoJack Horseman: Due to her social anxiety, Diane really dislikes parties. However, she often has to put up with them due to her relationship with the incredibly social Mr. Peanutbutter. On more than one occasion, this leads to a blowout between the two, as Mr. Peanutbutter brings Diane to parties, or even throws them for her, despite her being more comfortable with small-scale celebrations. Usually she awkwardly makes her way through the crowd, but in "After the Party", she snaps at Mr. Peanutbutter over a minor disagreement due to built-up resentment about the ordeal.
- Miraculous Ladybug:
- In "Crocoduel", the socially-anxious Juleka watches in horror as a planned movie night to celebrate her birthday slowly transforms into a joint birthday bash for her and her twin brother Luka that also includes a surprise visit from her estranged dad Jagged Stone (which inevitably leads to a fight between him and her mom, and - because this is the Miraculous universe - two akumatizations). She spends much of the episode on the verge of either panic or rage, so it's almost a relief to her when Ladybug recruits her to be a superhero.
- In "Perfection", Kagami is already anxious about attending a party on the Liberty because she doesn't really know anyone there besides Adrien and Marinette, Marinette is avoiding her for extremely Marinette reasons, and her False Friend Lila has given her deliberately bad advice that causes her to feel even more isolated and alone. By the end of the night, Kagami is nearly suicidal, convinced that nobody would notice or care if she just disappeared, and thus gets akumatized into Ryukomori, a Giant Woman made of clouds who causes havoc and panic as she stumbles through Paris, hoping that her body will just dissipate.
- In the Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur (2023) episode "Goodnight Moon Girl", Lunella is so anxious about going to a slumber party that she tries to build a mind-reading device so that she can read everyone else's minds and thus know what to say. After Casey forbids her from bringing the device along, Casey has to physically drag her out of her lab.
- Spider! (1991): In "Monkey Business", the boy, his friend, and the spider are invited to a party, but find it boring, so they decide to start a pillow fight.
- SpongeBob SquarePants: The titular sponge gets thrown a Surprise Party by his friends at his house in "SpongeBob Meets the Strangler", and the Tattletale Strangler sees this as torture, which, among other things, leads to his Villainous Breakdown and willingness to go to jail.
Real Life
- In a 1976 interview for Titbits magazine, British character actress Pat Coombs admitted, "My pleasures are terribly simple. I'm a stop-at-home. I enjoy people in small doses. I take a lot of getting to a party. There is this image of 'Pat's fun' which is nice, and I hope I am. But I can still walk into a crowded room and think, 'Oh my Gawd, I wish I hadn't come'. I'd rather be at home reading a book or watching telly".
