The evening began at my apartment, where a small group of friends—including my roommate and her boyfriend, my boyfriend, and his out-of-town friend, plus or minus a few others I can’t recall—convened before heading to the first bar, selected by said boyfriend, where we would meet some friends-of-friends I didn’t know. I was happily (and tipsily) along for the ride. This, alas, was where the trouble started, long before the stroke of midnight and before we even made it through the bar’s front door.
On the street, we ran into an acquaintance of his. A round robin of introductions and polite questions ensued, during which my boyfriend made an eventually fatal mistake. He introduced me to his friend—not as his loving girlfriend with whom he whispered sweet nothings, made love, and almost lived—but as his “colleague.” I was aghast, could barely utter a hello to this poor sap who’d just met me. I had been denied, literally denied, as a significant presence in his life. Was I really nothing more to him than someone he worked with and bopped on the side? Certainly this was not the case. I felt in the presence of Judas or St. Peter—or whoever that great Biblical denier was.
Now, to the casual observer this might seem an innocuous thing to say, certainly not the worst thing one can mutter on a booze-soaked New Year’s Eve. Thing was, my boyfriend didn’t drink. He meant every sober word he said. I shot daggers with my eyes. If looks could kill, this guy would have been incinerated on the spot.
Despite my attempts to wither him with a stare, my boyfriend didn’t realize my displeasure until his friend left, and my icy demeanor finally clued him in that something was awry. As a fight quickly followed (our relationship was tempestuous), my friends retreated from the path of the storm to a Polish diner on the next block while I explained as calmly as I could after three glasses of champagne how hurtful it was to be denied, right in front of my face, for no apparent reason. In fact, my boyfriend had no good reason for misidentifying me and grudgingly apologized, if only to appease me.
