I always wonder if her lack of demonstrable affection is connected to an incident from her youth. My grandmother liked to tell the story of coming home to find the goldfish were dead. When asked what happened, my mother answered, “I don’t know. I just took them out of the bowl to kiss them.”

Was it then she learned that a kiss can kill?

In any case, we were shown to a table. I think we both ordered a glass of wine (and if we didn’t, we should have), and I chose the restaurant’s famous hamburger.

When the food arrived, Mother was carrying on about something about me that was annoying and irritating to her. It could have been anything from not calling her in a month to “I told you that I hate that tie, so why do you persist in wearing it?”

I nodded, eating, attempting to take the high road and pretending to agree with her, but unfortunately, I was internalizing my frustration. Suddenly, I inhaled a too-large bite of burger. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t eject it from my lungs. I literally thought I was going to die. I started to gesture wildly.

My mother thought I was simply behaving badly, so she carried on talking and looking at me disapprovingly. Thanks to the ringing in my ears as I started to suffocate, her voice grew silent, as did the ambient voices and clatter in the large room. Panic set in. I was going to die—right there, upright in a chair, with my elegant mother carrying on and on throughout the speedy evolution of my death.

For some unknown reason, my panic abated, and resignation set in. It was at that moment that my constricted throat muscles relaxed and the potentially fatal chunk of chuck catapulted from my mouth—and landed in my mother’s lap.

She was horrified and said so. “What the hell is the matter with you?” she hissed. “If you’re angry at me, just tell me so. You don’t have to spit your food onto me!”

“Spit my food onto you? I almost died! Right here! In front of you! I thought I was going to die, and you’re embarrassed?” I yelled back. “Wouldn’t you have been more embarrassed by a corpse?”

By now I was in tears, and Mother looked contrite. She responded, “Don’t be ridiculous; you didn’t die. You’re here.”

I asked for the check.

Mother said, “I’ll take it.”

“No, I will,” I retorted. “Because if I had died, then you would have hadto take it.”

We never did resolve whatever conflict we’d been having, but at least my near-death experience changed the subject. And I learned a couple of valuable lessons. One: When you’re on death’s door, rules of etiquette should most definitely be suspended. And two: Never try to resolve an emotional conflict over food. I recommend ordering drinks instead—with neither ice nor olives.

In the absence of choking hazards, taking the high road is a good strategy. You never know where the people you’re dealing with today are going to be in twenty years—or next month! Even if you’re a really selfish person and are only looking out for your own self-interest, you should treat people well. Why bitch-slap someone unless you’re leaving the planet for good? Don’t burn bridges; you might need those bridges later.

But there are limits. You don’t let yourself be abused. Even as you take the high road in a perilous situation, you should try to figure out how to keep from being in a difficult position like that again.

For years, my refrain was: I bend and I bend and I bend until I snap. No matter what was dished out I would think: Keep taking the high road … hmm, it’s getting awfully high … the altitude’s really something … I’m having a little trouble breathing… Then I would basically have a nervous breakdown.

Now I’ve learned to set limits and to take cues from people’s behavior.

For example, if someone is always late to meetings with you, you need to ask yourself why you continue to let yourself make appointments with this person. If you hate doing something for someone, you need to ask yourself why you keep doing it.

I used to host a wonderful fashion scholarship dinner. I did it for five years in a row. But the last time I did, it was horribly managed. Every decision made around the event was terrible, and the people organizing it were completely dismissive of every concern I had. I just hated the whole thing.

So I said to myself, “Why am I doing this?” I thought, This is something I was doing to be nice, and it’s no longer fun to do, so I’m going to bow out for next year and let someone else host.

I gave the organization a lot of notice and felt very liberated.

But I wasn’t free yet. The group’s president took me to lunch, and he was horribly abusive, telling me how angry he was that I’d stopped doing the event and piling on other complaints about me for good measure! Then he followed up with threatening e-mails. He was just furious that I wasn’t going to host his event anymore and figured he would try to intimidate me into reconsidering my resignation.

I thought, Well, I’m definitely not going back after being talked to like this!

When someone else from the organization contacted me, I explained how badly I felt I’d been treated. He must have said something to my tormentor, because then I received this syrupy e-mail from the yelling president about how much I mean to the event. He asked me if we could get together again.

I thought about it for a second and then said, “No.”

This was an abusive relationship. If I return to the event,I thought, I am condoning this bad behavior.It sends the message that it’s okay to talk to people cruelly. And it just isn’t.

You don’t want to behave badly back at people like that, though God knows it’s tempting. But you also don’t want to put up with mistreatment. It does no one any favors.

The abuser could be your boss, and in a case like that you just need to try to keep your integrity, even as you’re being mistreated, and try to get out of the situation as soon as you possibly can. Now that I’ve been on television, though, it’s like the whole world is my boss. Everyone has an opinion they want to share about my demeanor on my shows, or who the Runwayfinalists were, or all manner of things over which I have little control. And truth be told, a lot of these people don’t even seem to know who I am. They just know they’ve seen my face before. I’ve found it’s always good just to smile and walk away. Or, in the case of nutcases, run away.

Usually people think of me as a surprisingly nice person as fashion people go, but occasionally someone will corner me on the street and say: “You’re so mean!”

Often this is because people mistake me for Clinton Kelly from What Not to Wear—which I’m sure would disturb him to no end, because I could be his grandfather. When I determine that’s the case, I say, “I think you have me mistaken for—”

Then they’ll interrupt and say, “I’ve been watching that show for years!”

And I will say, “Then you really should know I’m not Clinton Kelly.”

During the Project RunwaySeason 3 auditions, which were held at Macy’s, I went into Au Bon Pain every morning to get a coffee and a croissant. The first day, the woman behind the counter pointed to me and said, “Look, it’s Michael Kors from Project Runway!”

I didn’t want to disappoint her and I didn’t think it mattered, so I just took the high road. I smiled at her and said hello and thanked her for watching the show. But the third morning, she got closer and said, somewhat concernedly, “What happened to your nice tan?” Finally, I told her I was the other guy on the show. She seemed so confused that I almost regretted not having done my best Michael Kors impression and told her, “Good call! I gotta get back to the beach.”

WHEN I WAS LITTLE, I had a great uncle who was verbally abusive. I’ve never forgotten a particular dinner he ruined with his bile. I still remember the tone of his voice at that holiday get-together, even though this was easily fifty years ago. I remember the room, what people were wearing, the candles, and then the excuse people kept offering one another: that he was ill. It didn’t make a difference to me. If he was going to be that nasty, why didn’t he stay in bed?