'AITA for flirting with another girl after my GF introduced me as a 'friend'?'

"AITA for flirting with another girl after my girlfriend introduced me as a 'friend'?"

Me (28M) girlfriend (29F) have been together for more than 2 years. We recently moved city, and she has started working in a new place three months ago. Two days ago was an after-work get-together event at a bar with her coworkers, and she forgot her phone charger at home and her battery was low. I went to give her the extra power bank we have at home, as her phone uses the old USB type.

As I went to her table to give it to her, one of her colleagues asked her who I am. Before I could say anything, she replied "This is my friend *my name*. He agreed to lend me the charger." I was a bit taken aback, and looked to her and said "Friend?". She just laughed and said "you are so funny, thank you for this" and waved to me (as in implying goodbye).

One of the other colleagues asked me that if I was free, I can also join them, and I said why not, and I could sense the annoyance on my girlfriend's face. People were drinking, some talked to me and asked me questions, made conversation (what do I do, where did I grow up etc.) I should mention at this point that my girlfriend and most of her colleagues there were Chinese, and I am Indian.

This becomes relevant later. Whenever someone would ask me anything related to how I met my girlfriend, she would pipe up to answer in a way that wasn't untrue, but completely omits any romance, giving the impression that we were just old friends. This kept bothering me, and I will admit I was getting pretty angry.

Then one of the colleagues, who initially asked who I was, pretty drunk now, said "*gfs name* never told us she had such a good looking friend" and laughed. My gf also did a small polite laugh. I replied "I didn't know she had such a pretty colleague either" and winked at her which made her laugh more, but my gf became visibly upset.

Another colleague said to my gf "seems like you are an expert cupid!". My gf was turning red, and I was also feeling slightly uncomfortable, so after a bit more chitchat I made an excuse and said I got to go, the colleague said I should get her number from my girlfriend, and then I left.

Now, when she came back she refused to talk to me, and yesterday she angrily told me that I had "kind of" cheated on her, and hurt her badly. I replied that although what I did was hurtful, she also needs to own up that introducing me as "just a friend" was hurtful.

She refuses to acknowledge it as wrong, saying that she is just socially awkward, and she thought that her colleagues might react weirdly to her dating an Indian guy, as they all are dating white or other Chinese people.

Her reasoning is that it is a lot of explanation and questions regarding interracial dating, and she just wanted to avoid all that. I don't buy it, I feel she just wanted to hide the fact that she is dating me. We are at an impassé. I refuse to apologize till she sees that what she did was wrong, and she thinks she did not do anything wrong, and I was mean. AITAH?

What do you think? AITA? This is what commenters had to say:

Bitter-Paramedic-531 said:

Absolutely NTA. Your girlfriend essentially erased your relationship to her new friends. New friends, I might add, who clearly didn't give a toss about your ethnicity. Your judgement was right. She just didn't want to admit she was dating you. Sorry, but that's a dealbreaker.

Sowetorising said:

NTA. Your girlfriend introduced you as "just a friend" after 2 years together.. that’s hurtful. Flirting back was petty, but understandable. She can’t hide the relationship and expect you to act like her boyfriend in front of people she’s hiding you from. You both need to talk honestly about why she’s ashamed to acknowledge you.

mb34i said:

NTA, but you're not going to recover from this, because the incident clearly demonstrates the kind of relationship you have. She's ashamed of you, socially. She'll keep you "a secret" and you're not going to be able to progress in terms of commitment. If she's ashamed of calling you 'boyfriend', do you think she'll be willing to call you 'fiance' or 'husband'?

Minionerror said:

NTA. The major red flag is her refusing to accept her own fault. Being socially awkward doesn't mean introducing your boyfriend of 2 years as just a friend, and bring bothered to answer questions about interracial dating is just as excuse. That can be easily solved by drawing boundaries. And it doesn't seem as if she's the only one dating a foreigner, some of her friends are too.

Honestly, it's better to have a deep and honest conversation about this as there seems to be a lot to unpack. If you "kind of" cheated according to her, then by that same logic she basically called your relationship quits.

Salty-Wrangler-4945 said:

NTA. If she introduces you (BF = committed partner) to her social circle as just a “friend” then you are single and not in a committed relationship. But, don’t play games. Just end it and move on. If she was proud to have you on her arms she would have said BF with pride. You just got classified as “for now” rather than “forever.” Time to cut contact and move forward.

Crazy4Swayze420 said:

NTA. If she can't even introduce you correctly in social settings why do you want to be in a relationship doomed to fail? She is more concerned with optics than your feelings. That doesn't sound like a solid healthy relationship to me. It's also going to be very awkward for her when she returns to work and they pressure her for your number for the friend who you were flirting back and forth with.