Leila, thanks for sharing this experience. It’s surprising to me how often situations like this occur. Last year, I went to a holiday party with my boyfriend for VCs and founders in tech. At the time, I was an executive at a private equity shop which didn’t focus on start-ups, so I didn’t know many people at the party.

During one conversation, a guy a the party spent most of the time talking with my boyfriend. It felt odd that he did not acknowledge me during the conversation. As it wrapped up, he invited my boyfriend to a later event and he looked at me and said, “oh, you can bring your ‘plus one,’ too.” That was the first time I had strongly felt like I was living in someone’s shadow.

Later in the night, we were talking with a well-known VC about credit risk, which I have spent the last 6 years working on. I wasn’t properly introduced in the beginning and I quickly realized that the investor had spent 5+ minutes without making eye contact with me. It’s difficult to get into a conversation when someone is not making eye contact. Eventually, there was a natural break and I was able to share my opinion on the topic. The investor seemed genuinely surprised and said, “oh, you know something about this?”

To his credit, my boyfriend realized the awkwardness of this all, and we figured out a better way to do introductions for the rest of the night. It was the first time I need to strongly use “labels” from my work/academic life to establish credibility in a new circle.

That night was the first time I felt unquestionably invisible — which was in sharp contrast to the responsibility and visibility that I had in my normal work-life.

Many thanks again for sharing your story — it’s far too common. I believe that these unconscious biases don’t survive in the sunlight and as more people share publicly, we may be able to minimize the frequency of these biases.