Interesting incident last week at a business luncheon. I'd been invited by a business associate to join him and a few of his friends for lunch, along with with a few people we work with and know in common. Great banter over food and drinks, but it lasted longer than I expected it to. I had arranged to meet a date at the restaurant bar at a time when I thought the lunch would already be over. She shows up as we're wrapping up. These guys are mostly 2-3 decades older than me and get a kick out of the fact that I called off my wedding and am now openly dating women non exclusively.

When I meet her at the bar she notices the table of men looking at us, so I fill her in that I just had lunch with these guys and we walk over to make the introduction. One of the friends of my business associate offers one last round of drinks, so we sit down to indulge. My date gets nestled in the back of the booth with me on the outside and this guy on the inside. Immediately his good nature changes and to my astonishment, he is trying to AMOG me to impress my date. He begins by telling a pointless old man story that dragged on. At one point I inject a little levity but he shushes me. Yes, he literally shushes a grown man. You could've cut the tension with a knife. Not knowing the depth of his relationship with my associate (who didn't hear the interchange, caught in his own side conversation), I let my anger be known with a strong stare but sidestepped confrontation for the moment (aside from saying, "excuse me?"). His story continues to drag on and gets to a point where he is talking about a relative's funeral. My date makes a polite, sad comment, and he takes this as his cue to rub her back sensually, as if in consolation, then whispers something in her ear. She's clearly quite uncomfortable (almost jumping out of her skin as he ran his fingers over her back, actually) so I stand up, grab our coats and angrily tell the group we are headed to the bar. They're all a little shocked at the severity of my reaction since they weren't paying much attention to the exchange.

At the bar I learned what this guy's cringeworthy comment was - "It's taking everything in my power not to kiss you right now." He was intoxicated but this was still clearly unacceptable behavior. Especially to a woman you just met, who is boxed in the back of a restaurant booth, on a date with another man from your extended social circle. My head was spinning that this shit was even possible. And from a supposedly suave and successful older man. . .

As the group exited the restaurant, one by one they come up to say goodbye to me and tell me how much they enjoyed our conversation at lunch. The guy in question (now noticeably embarrassed) made a half ass waving gesture while he said bye, but I called him over to the bar. Intensely, obviously fighting repressed rage, I told him how weird he had made things back there. He tried to back out by saying that's just how he is and "what are you gonna do?" I told him he could apologize. At this point, he relented and said he was sorry for how he acted. Then I demanded he apologize to my date. ASTOUNDINGLY, as he turned to apologize to her, he raised his hand as if he was about to put it on her shoulder, but I stopped him in his tracks, "no more touching. . . just the apology." He apologized, hung his head in shame and shuffled out the door.

My plate gushed over the way I turned the tables on this guy, then texted several of her friends about what a man I am. On the ride home I called my business associate (who organized the luncheon) to let him know the disrespect I endured from his friend. He insisted on coming to my office on Monday to make it right.

When my plate came over after our stint at the bar, naturally we had a passionate fuck. I wouldn't let her stay over though, because I had to be up in the morning. She pouted about this but then covered the bill when we went out for late night dinner before she went home. She texted me a lot in the coming days and surprised me with a new outfit she bought me.

Come Monday morning, my business associate lets me know that he has excluded this other guy from their golf group and left him a few voicemails. He thanked me a number of times for reaching out, saying he appreciates the heads up so this guy doesn't reflect badly on him in the future. He told me next time not to bite my tongue for his sake, even if the person offending me is his brother or his client (this guy was neither). ALSO, he reached out to a few women who have played alongside this guy in an annual golf tournament to find out if he was the reason they haven't come the last few years - turns out he was, by being a little too handsy and too forward with them. They just stopped coming, never said anything. We discussed a little business at the end of my friend's visit, with him offering more favorable terms than one would ordinarily expect, as a gesture of good will.

Moral of the story? Don't put up with people's petty shit. It betrays your SMV. The people who matter in your life will respect you more and reward you for having a backbone. Even more important: don't be the guy I described.

tl; dr; Friend of a business associate disrespects me, then hits on my date. I force his apology. My friend goes out of his way to make it up to me. My date is more amorous then ever.