Most contrary to our usual profesional, capable, don't-mess-with-us personae.
In the middle of gooey, cheezy pizza, washed down with Rum Raisin ice-cream and chocolate truffles, Carol sprang into the room and jolted us back into reality.
"I can't believe this stuff still happens," she said, slamming the door and throwing her files on the coffee table.
"You'd think that in 1994 women would be self-sufficient enough not to stand for their husbands fooling around, let alone having an entire second family overseas."
We held up the box of chocolates, having known her long enough to realise that the only thing that could calm her down were Cointreau truffles and ice-cream. With the sedatives in her system, she calmed down long enough to tell us that her colleague, in her late 40s, had come in distraught after her businessman husband asked her for a divorce.
"She knows he's got kids in Taiwan," she said in disgust. "What does she want him back for? I would have kicked him out ages ago."
Hong Ping, who was reaching over for another slice of vegetarian pizza, rolled her eyes and did her best to look jaded.
"What's the big deal. This stuff has been going on for ages. My uncles have had mistresses in Taiwan left, right and centre. But my aunts were financially dependant on them, so what to do? Just keep quiet and suffer lor."
Twenty-nine, petite and attractive, she is in a three-year relationship with a man she plans to marry, although she is not sure when.
"You know, you can try and talk about it with your husband after it happens, but how do you trust someone after that? Maybe, I'll make them sign a pre-nuptial agreement saying that if he fools around, I get all his assets."
Ex-lawyer Lisa, who just turned 30, slipped her long sleek hair over one shoulder and smiled sweetly: Remember John Wayne Bobbit?" She made scissorlike motions with her fingers. "I'll Bobbitise it right off."
Men taking on second families have been in the media a fair bit lately, and people are paying attention. After The Straits Times ran a story I did a few weeks ago on a Feedback Unit dialogue session where such concerns were raised, strangers started calling me up -- women who just wanted their stories told.
One had signed away millions of dollars' worth of property to her husband, thinking that he would go back to her after that. She was wrong. Another had given up her job to look after her children and was left with very little child support.
Yet another looked on helplessly when her husband was given a posting overseas without the family and took him back after he had strayed once, only to see it happen again. Now, he wants a divorce.
And these were not uneducated women. They were intelligent, articulate professionals in their 40s and 50s who had never dreamt that this would happen. When it happened, they were caught totally unprepared.
Angry and helpless, they were left to pick up the pieces while their husbands took their emotions and assets to some other woman's country.
Sociologists, politicians and lawyers gave me suggestions ranging from "divorce the men" to "companies should send entire families overseas".
But, to these women, these tips were meaningless.
But us, we are supposed to be different right? The lucky ones. Young, educated, independent, we know our rights and make our own choices, and we would never allow it to happen to us -- or would we?
I mean, I believe in love and marriage as much as anyone my age. You know, two kids with cherubic faces and maybe a pet dog named Clinton or Terminator, and a cat named Socks. And a relationship and partnership that lasts the next five decades or so -- until I reach the end of my life expectancy.
But this is the '90s, when I see my friends who are barely older than I struggling to get out of unhappy marriages. And unlike their mothers, they are not prepared to sit around in self-imposed martyrdom, kids or no kids.
"If my husband fooled around, he'd be facing the door so fast he wouldn't have time to get packed," said Alice, who got married three years ago when she was 21.
Now, her husband plans to get his PhD in the United States, and she wants to stay in Singapore to work.
"I'll put up with a lot but not infidelity," added Choon Lan, 26, who, along with Alice, were the only two married women that night.
"Why make yourself miserable -- even if you have children," Choon Lan said. "I'm educated enough and capable enough to bring them up myself."
"I think you just need to go with the guy," said Lisa, who has a penchant for eccentric intellectuals. "Men tend to let their wives handle the emotional side of things for them, so when they're alone, they may turn to a female close by, like a colleague, etc, for that kind of support.
"Even if we had kids, and he got posted to some place like Cambodia or Bhutan, where school might be a problem, I'd take the kids there and educate them myself -- or leave them with my parents or in-laws and visit them often."
Sharon, who turns 29 early next year, sighed and took a drag on her cigarette. If she got married and things went wrong, she said, she would not stay and swallow her pride. Like a boy scout, she believed in being prepared.
"All you can do is guard against the hurt by making sure that you will recover, because you don't rely entirely on him for your happiness.
"And I'd make sure that I had my own life, career, money, so that if he did stray, my life would not collapse."
What she wanted, she said, was a soulmate she could connect with. Hopefully, the relationship would be glued together by mutual respect and by two people who valued each other, and who allowed their partners to remain individuals, with their own jobs, friends and interests.
And if she was lucky, it would work out.
In the meantime, on the TV screen, Billy Crystal, in When Harry Met Sally, realises that he cannot live without Meg Ryan. Upstairs, my sister is playing the soundtrack from Sleepless In Seattle, with Nat King Cole crooning When I Fall In Love.
Me? I will just do what I did during my first swimming lessons in primary school. Hold my breath, jump in, swim like crazy and trust that I am good enough to make it to the other side -- with a lot of work and struggle.
The Straits Times, Nov 27 1994.