Originally Posted by adultsitecms

Three months ago I went to Italy with my then boyfriend, Philip. As we were checking into the hotel, I struck up a conversation with the receptionist in Italian (just one of the five languages I speak). But while I was enjoying myself, chatting away, it became clear that Philip most certainly was not.

He shuffled from foot to foot, muttered something under his breath and rolled his eyes like a stroppy teenager. Then in the lift he turned on me. 'I was wondering when you were going to let me join your conversation,' he snapped. I tried to laugh it off but I knew this was the beginning of yet another argument.

'You always have to be the star of the show,' he continued in our bedroom, as he began to systematically work his way through the mini-bar. Apparently I was argumentative, a know-all and an intellectual snob.

What had I done? It should be depressingly obvious. I had dared to dent his fragile male ego.

By speaking in a language Philip didn't know, I had managed to make him - a successful writer, ten years my senior - feel small. How selfish of me to embarrass him in public with my linguistic prowess!

Like so many of the men I've dated, it was clear he expected me to play second fiddle to him at all times. It wasn't the first time we had rowed about such things. One night, we ended up arguing over a BBC4 documentary on the origins of jazz. When he became annoyed that his attempts to outsmart my knowledge on the subject failed, he started singing loudly, to drown me out altogether.

But the pointless fight over the receptionist was the straw that broke the camel's back. Needless to say, our year-long romance didn't last long beyond the flight home.