now, she was REALLY pretty

on Friday night i found Sully and i arrived at Malatesta for a surprise birthday dinner for She. which was a little ironic since that was where i had had my own surprise birthday dinner a year ago. 

as always, the food was amazing (the Spinach Gnocchi made more than 1 appearance at our table. aah, the power of Yelp) and i won't bore you by discussing it again (read my former post).

instead, some other interesting events happened, that made me think:

1. upon entering the restaurant, the first person i ran into wasn't a guest for the party, but instead a friend i'd known from middle school/high school (so over a decade ago). i hadn't spoken to her since high school, but we occasionally play random games of Scramble with Friends against each other.

of course it was great to see her and we did a brief catch-up with all the usual suspects.  there was 1 part of the whole situation that caused a little discussion between Sully and myself later which was that i never introduced her to my friends for the party. which may have been a little awkward since we were all squeezed into the waiting vestibule while we waited for our reservation to be completed. 

my thought process had simply been that this individual was not a close friend of mine, nor was it likely that i would ever see her again (at least not intentionally). so i saw very little point to introduce her to the people i was with.  in addition, i was with at least 4 other people, while also waiting for 2 more. it just seemed slightly cumbersome to make such a lengthy introduction for somebody that i would never see again. 

apparently, other people were more curious.  Sully assumed she was a family friend that would go back to my family and inform them that i was dating someone (which was not the case). others were simply just curious about the random stranger i had run into. 

in retrospect, should i have introduced her to everyone? did she expect me to? would i have expected to be introduced if i had been in her position?

2. the second experience is less of an etiquette question and more me unburdening what i recall as an unpleasant experience.  boyfriends pay attention.

right when people were winding down from their entrees, Sully received a phone call from his brother and stepped away from the table. he didn't come back to dinner until after dessert was completed. already, i was a little annoyed by this, but decided not to press the issue since my friends and i were having a good time anyway. 

it turned out that Sully's brother had gotten a blue screen on his laptop and needed help fixing it,  i used the opportunity to tell Egg, She, and Dr.Dre a story about Sully's brother.

I have yet to meet Sully's brother. on a recent trip to Flushing, Sully called his brother for a nearby restaurant recommendation.  when SB found out Sully was with me, he immediately started harassing Sully via text to send him a picture of me. in a million years, i would never want SB to see a picture of me without meeting me in person and here's why: in the past,  Sully had been dating a girl and when Sully showed SB the picture, SB's immediate response was to call the girl "atrocious." yea, he sounds like a real peach right? while i think i'm fine (as in not hideous), there's no way in hell i'm going to subject myself to that kind of no-holds-barred judgment.

so i was in the midst of relaying this story to my friends and had just gotten to the part where SB had criticized Sully's ex, when Sully interjected:

"and this ex, she was really pretty, if you know what i mean."

::awkward looks all around the table, including me::

"i mean, really pretty"

Egg: "uh....Sully? you might want to rethink your last phrase..."

"no, i mean, she was pretty. you know, pretty."

::sigh:: i chuckled the comment off and rolled my eyes at my friends and barreled on with the story although it obviously came to a lackluster finish. the climax should've been the insensitivity of SB, but instead, Sully managed to steal the thunder with his "she was REALLY pretty" comment. 

now, i've let Sully's comment slide. i mean, i've given him a little ribbing about it, and brought it up a few times since, but never in a "we need to have a serious talk about this" manner. it's sort of like a rock and a hard place for a girlfriend: i have no problem admitting that i may not be the prettiest or most beautiful girl my significant other has ever dated. but Sully's comment hits me the wrong way for the following:

A. it's the unspoken and inferred that's the worst about his comment. that if she was really pretty and his brother found her "atrocious" then who's to say what he would say about me? and in that implication is the obvious unspoken statement: that i am less pretty (or perhaps closer to atrocious) than his ex-girlfriend and his brother would rip me apart.

B. actually Sully had already made this comment to me before. obviously that's how i knew about the whole anecdote. and i'd pointed out the same thing as stated in above "A." but a private conversation that reveals a subconscious thought has a very different feeling than a public comment made in front of close friends.

it was definitely embarrassing to haveSully reveal that he thought i was less attractive than another girl in front of my friends. my friends who knew we were dating. i actually felt my face get red after he made the comment. and even as i tried to laugh it off, it felt humiliating to have to act that way in front of my friends e.g. it doesn't bother me that my boyfriend thinks i'm less/not attractive.

i guess it was a blessing that Malatesta is poorly lit so nobody noticed and that we left the restaurant shortly after that.

and while it's great to unburden this to the amorphous ether that is the internet, rehashing it also reminds me again of how it bugged me.