The party that left the biggest impact on my life was a David Lynch style nightmare

So a caveat to this story: I don't know how much of it is true. It could be all of it or none of it, or a mix. This happened a long time ago, there was alcohol involved, and some other factors that I'll get into later. However I decided that my feeling during that night we're valid, and so the memories, real, exaggerated, or dreamed up, should be worth telling.

It was a New Years party being hosted by my roommate's friend, who I hadn't met yet. She opens the door and greeted us and I'm stunned by her. She was beautiful, funny, and energetic. I hadn't had much luck romantically around this time, and I normally don't approach women due to nerves. However, new year, new me, and I decide to go for it.

We start talking and immediately there's a spark. I help her with snacks and she's touching my arm every time she laughs at one of my jokes. Eventually we are on her couch in each other's arms, locked into a full on canoodle. She tells me "I have to take care of something. I'll be back in a minute." She kisses me, and gets up and leaves the room. I'm ecstatic at this point. She was everything I wanted and at this point, it was a sure thing.

10 minutes go by. I start to think I should go looking for her, but that seems desperate. I don't want to blow this, and it's already a sure thing, I just need to sit tight. 20 minutes, and now I'm getting nervous. I decide to hang tight for a bit longer. 30 minutes and I decide I should maybe take a look around.

She had walked towards her kitchen. Standing in the hallway to the kitchen with his back against a door was someone I'll call "corner guy." Corner guy is focused on his drink by himself. Standing near him is someone I'll call "friendly girl." Friendly girl is looking at something happening in the kitchen.

I walk into the kitchen and turn the corner, facing what friendly girl was looking at. I see 5 to 7 people, crowded into the far corner of the room. They're all facing towards the corner. When they hear me come into the room, they all turn their heads and glare at me at the same time. I freeze, suddenly worried that I stumbled into some "Eyes Wide Shut" type of thing. I look at friendly girl, and she says "you don't want to get involved in this." I slowly back out of the room.

I go back to the couch and friendly girl sits with me. I ask her what that was and she says "don't worry about it" and changes the subject. We chat for a bit.

Finally, after an hour, that girl I was with appears. She looks disheveled, looking somewhere between finishing a jog and getting into a bar fight. She walks across the room, doesn't look at me at all, grabs a random guy by his collar and starts making out with him.

I was dumbfounded by it. I felt the heartbreak and embarrassment rip through my guts. Stunned, I look over to friendly girl. She says "sorry," almost with this tone that she knew this was something that might happen.

After a while I get my bearings. I'm still very upset, but I'm able to move again. I decide to approach her. I didn't want to be confrontational or anything. Like, God forbid a girl changes her mind, right? But I just wanted to know what happened, and maybe get some sort of acknowledgement. Even if it was "this guy's hotter," it would be some kind of answer.

I approach her and she moves so that her back is turned to me. I move in the other direction and she also moves, keeping her back to me. She can't even look at me.

At this point I don't know what to do. She's making out with this guy in this room, so the only other place is the kitchen. I go there and see if those Eyes Wide Shut people are there, and I see that they cleared out. The only person there is corner guy, still sipping his drink.

I stand near corner guy. I'm not talking or doing anything, just sorta existing around him. After a while, I hear him speak for the first time, with a vaguely southern twang, "ya know, the stuff that's been going on around here? It's fuckin' bullshit." I give an affirmative "yeah." He continues, saying "Yeah man. All the lies and deceit. The dark pacts happening in the shadows. It just ain't right man. It ain't right." I give a noncommittal "yeah?" Because I have no idea what he's talking about.

Suddenly I hear someone yelling everyone to gather around. I think to myself "oh God what now?" Remember that this was a New Years party. The ball drops, everyone shouts "Happy New Year," and everyone crowded around me starts cheering and making out with each other, and I'm standing there with a blank befuddled face.

Years later and the experience is still with me, and it still stings. I think the reason is how I don't know why it happened. I mean, I don't even know what happened to tell you the truth. From the moment I stepped into that apartment, everything felt surreal and off, dreamlike with an undercurrent of dread.

There was only one thing that grounded me that night. When I was watching those two making out and sitting there, dumbfounded and hurt, friendly girl reached over and put her hand on my back, and sat with me for about 5 minutes.