Is AUTHOR wrong in the post ? POST : TL;DR at the end, since I can ramble.

  
**Background:**

So I'm a bit of a loner.   My family lives far away, most of my true friends live far away, and I generally am much more comfortable alone with my dog than with any other person.  My family has learned to accept that I am not a reliable guest for holiday gatherings, so when the holidays come and I don't feel like driving 3 hours to be uncomfortable in a crowd, everyone just gets it and moves on with their plans.  

Last year my personal solitude festival got cancelled when a coworker who I'm pretty chummy with at work heard about my plans to do absolutely nothing for Christmas and was horrified at the idea of *someone being alone at Christmas.*  He invited me to his home since they didn't have anything special planned, have no kids, and his parents were on a cruise or something.  I didn't want to make him understand how happy I am when I can look forward to a quiet day of not being bothered, so I said yes, bought them a gift and made the effort.   

I pretty much hate all kinds of socializing, so when I go to a new gathering of this type and don't return feeling like a complete waste of skin, it's a victory.  Anyway, the people were mellow, the food was good, the gifts were no more awkward than coworker gifts tend to be.  It almost went fine, except for one thing.

**The Problem:**

Sometime after dinner he shows me his cool new security system which has a video doorbell and about a half dozen cameras constantly recording and cloud saving the video around the INSIDE of the house.   Now at this point, I should mention I am what doctors refer to as a bit of a fat fuck.  Whenever I do go out and socialize I am consumed by shame a rage about being overweight and can barely think of anything other than how I must look like shit, and I'm probably making people uncomfortable, and everyone has got to be noticing that I'm sweating in a room they find cool, etc. etc.  The mere idea that someone would take out their phone and start taking pictures is a nightmare for me, because then it all gets ten times worse in my mind since now there's time to scrutinize the image forever and do god knows what with it.  

And here's my gracious host showing me cloud storage video of me hugging his wife when they greeted me at the door in which I look like a fleece rhinoceros trying to smother a harp seal to death.  I wanted to nope the fuck out of there like he'd just thrown a million spiders on me but he was just beaming at me saying "how cool is that"?!  So I pretended everything was fine, went home mentally shitting myself and tried to just forget about it for the next year.

**The Offense:** 

Basically, that time of year came again, I am hoping to do absolutely nothing (and the coworker knows) and he's invited me over again.  And I want to say "hell, no!".  He's cool and his wife is nice, but his home is basically a torture device designed to inflict the most punishment possible on an anxiety case like me.   I can't just say "no" because he knows I don't have other plans, and I still don't want him thinking nothing is a better option than his place.  So, would I be the asshole if I just said it really freaks me out to spend an evening under personal surveillance??  I realize I'm overly sensitive to it because of my anxieties, but do I get a pass because of that?  Is there any chance that this is something normal people find creepy too? 

TL;DR Last year, I had Xmas dinner at a friend's house and was so weirded out about being on camera the whole time, I don't want to accept his invitation to do the same again this year.