





Photograph By: Jitender Govindani
Picture credit: Axel Gomille
This is going to sound ridiculous but I'm genuinely upset and I can't tell if I'm being insane. I have this thing where I save the best bite of any meal for last. Like if I'm eating pasta and there's one perfectly sauced piece, I push it aside and eat everything else first, saving it as a reward. I've done this my whole life. It's just mine, it's a comfort thing, I never really told anyone.
My roommate (26F, I'm 25M) saw me doing it during dinner at home one night and laughed and said "omg that's so cute." I didn't think much of it.
Last Saturday we were all out for someone's birthday dinner, 8 people at the table. Midway through, completely unprompted, she goes "guys have you noticed how Justin always saves his best bite for last, isn't that adorable??" and then proceeds to explain my whole thing to everyone while they're all staring at me.
Everyone laughed, it was cute, whatever. But I felt completely exposed, my face went hot. People kept watching my plate the rest of dinner. One guy even pointed at my food and went "is THAT the special bite?" as a joke.
I didn't say anything in the moment but I've been weirdly bothered by it for days. It's not a secret exactly, but it was mine? Like something private about how I experience food and she just...handed it to a table of people without asking.
She hasn't noticed I'm off. I don't even know if I should bring it up because saying "you shouldn't have told people about my eating quirk" sounds insane out loud. But something feels violated. AIO?