meetup/coffee. one of the users sidles up to my table. i remember blonde hair, a crooked nose, an angular face, a shit-eating grin. cruel. "so, [malachite]," he smiled, "how does it feel to share her love with another woman?"
the intention to make me feel small. and it succeeded. why? at that age, pretty much any sort of shaming works.
oh, and i remember more. but that's for the private journal. and it explains so much. excuses nothing of course. but more than a quarter century later, the context becomes blinding.