Someone asked to share my table, then a group of others joined. Was I in the wrong to stay seated?
I work at a place with a shared dining area. There are fast food places where you can buy a variety of different things, and they all have their own dining rooms, but then outside of those building, there is a courtyard with additional dining seats. The tables have 6 seats attached to them, sort of in a flower shape. Some of the tables have umbrellas and some of them are in direct sunlight.
I have worked at this place for about a month now, and today I thought I would brave going into one of the food places and buying lunch. Normally I don’t eat lunch because I get anxiety about eating around other people, and I normally will just eat a snack like fruit at my desk. But today I thought I would gain some confidence and buy some food since I was feeling a little hungry. I have sat in the courtyard before to spend my lunch time because it is a nice place to sit away from my desk. Lots of people do because it is a communal area. Some people eat their own packed lunch, some people eat lunch from one of the food places, and other people don’t eat at all. Some people sit alone, some people sit with friends.
So I went to the place and bought some food, and then found a seat outside in the courtyard to eat it. It was a seat with an umbrella on it so it was in the shade. Then this lady came up to me and asked if she could join me because she forgot her sunscreen today, and I said, “Yes of course!” because it was just me taking up a 6-person table and I was just playing on my phone eating my food. So she sat down a couple of seats away from me, and then her three friends from another table joined. Which was a bit awkward because she didn’t mention that her friends would be joining, but again, it was a 6-person table so it wasn’t a problem. But then 2 more people joined. Now it was a full table of people, and all of the friends just kind of kept staring at me. They were all very polite and thanked me for sharing my table, but it almost felt like they were waiting for me to leave. One of the friends even came up to the table and said to me, “Hi, I’m X, I don’t think we have met before” and her friends that were already at the table said to her, “Oh, she was just kind enough to share her table with us!” but now since the table was so busy, I felt very embarrassed to be sitting there. I quickly finished my food and smiled and said, “I hope you all have a great day!” and took my trash and threw it in a bin and I left with my lemonade and they all thanked me again.
Were they expecting me to leave the table after I said that i would share with them? Is "sharing" in this context me just giving them the table?