
This past weekend I (28m) was at a valentine’s party put on by someone in my grad school program. This one girl in my program (Emily) is an amazing baker. She is always bringig sourdough, cinnamon rolls, cakes etc to any function. The best thing she makes is called 7 layer cookies and they’re like these amazing butterscotch, slightly salty cookies with cornflakes and coconut and all kinds of stuff in them.
So at the valendtine’s party Emily brought a full plate of her 7 layer cookies. I had one of them, it was really good, and the whole time I’m at the party my mind is trained on these cookies and I want another one but I want to wait until everyone else has had a chance to have one. I should say at this point that I struggle with my relationship with food a little bit and I am trying to learn portion control but it is kind of hard for me still. So I am spending alot of mental energy just trying not to gobble down the whole plate lol. Eventually I just can’t stand it so I go back to the snack table and there’s only one cookie left. But I have resisted this cookie for like a full 20 minutes, I can’t stand it any more, I figure everyone else has had a chance to eat the cookie, so I go for it. As soon as I grab it this other girl (Lisa) is like “oh… I wanted to try that, I heard those were really good.” I offer to give it to her, I’m like, I already had one, you can have it, but she says no, you touched it, it’s fine, whatever.
Now I am absolutely sweating lol, and I feel completely exposed. I hear her go back to her friend she was talking with and I hear them laugh and I immediately think it’s about me, like, the overweight guy who’s chowing down on the cookies and nobody else can even try one. I don’t even want the cookie at this point which is saying a lot for me. (But I eat it anyway lol.) Fast forward to the end of the party, I’m waiting to go to the bathroom and I overhear Lisa talking to Emily in the kitchen and Lisa is saying, oh my god, this guy is eating all the cookies, have some self control, you’re an adult, you should not be hogging the cookies. Basically my worst nightmare of the kinds of things I think people would say behind my back. And Emily is just sort of nodding along and saying yeah, he’s always been like that, if you want a cookie, you have to get it fast or he’ll descend on the plate and like vaccum it up.
So I hear this and immediately I’m spiraling because this is my worst nightmare. My friend (not in my program) said that I am completely in the right here, did not act impolite, and that I should confront Lisa/Emily about it because they're out of line. (No way I'm actually going to do that) But I'm just not sure what the etiquette here is, if I acted wrong, or if these two girls are just completely out of line.
Happy Valentines Day lol