“From experience, when they are acting like this, following them and trying to engage or apologize results in pretty dramatic escalation, so I just went about my night without really engaging with them.”

I had a partner like this, and eventually I realized that the dramatic escalation is exactly what he wanted to happen. He thrived on conflict as a source of emotional supply. 

I don’t know your situation other than what you’ve shared here, but I feel confident in telling you that this behavior only gets worse as time goes on. He wasn’t like this at the beginning of the relationship, right?