RAZOR, May, 2005
Taking the Relationship Public
Is there ever a good time to meet the parents?
By Anna David
When I was a senior in college, I met a guy on a Saturday afternoon in October and by the following Friday he was introducing me as his girlfriend. Keep in mind, this was BAMMHBCB (before awareness that most men hate being called boyfriends), but nevertheless, I remember being thrilled – if not a little surprised.
Given the relationship-on-speed dynamic that we had, it makes sense that by December, I was spending Christmas with my fabulous new boyfriend’s family. While I was crazy about the guy and happy about the holiday arrangement, I still remember the terrifying combination of vulnerability and responsibility I felt before meeting his (strong, single) mother (whom he was overly bonded with) for the first time. I believe my recurring thought while driving me over there was something akin to, Why can’t another car hit us and save me from this fate?
Being trotted in front of a parental unit – well, let’s be honest, a mom — and identified as the chosen one has almost always been a nerve-wracking experience for me. Not to cling to outdated Freudian notions, but I feel this undeniable nice-to-meet-you-and-yes-I’m-the-woman-threatening-to-replace-you subtext. This is probably exacerbated by the fact that I come from possibly the most judgmental family in existence, so I’m preconditioned to assume that I will be dissected and overanalyzed for years to come, whether I’m still with the guy or not. (In my family, there’s no statute of limitations – a group mental file basically exists on my seventh grade “steady” on up.)
My mom, like most mothers, has a sixth sense when it comes to sizing up significant others. Most of the boyfriends that I’ve introduced to her have wilted under the glare of her all-seeing, all-knowing eyes. “He drinks too much,” she said of the future alcoholic. “I just don’t trust him,” she said of the one that ended up breaking my heart. If only I had listened.
For me, taking the relationship public – that is, calling him the b-word, meeting all his friends and having him meet mine, subjecting him to the familial inspection and vice versa – is something I don’t do unless I think he stands a decent chance of being The One. How else could I justify giving my mom any more ammo than she already has?
I’m not sure there’s ever a right time to subject the person you supposedly care about to this kind of parental scrutiny – if there was, I could have perhaps saved myself from the discomfort of having a boyfriend’s mother ask me if I was the one that got her son smoking after a pack of cigarettes accidentally fell from my bag. As my friend C.J. says, “It always feels too soon.” For me, it’s because I have a Mom-thinks-I’m-too-wild-for-her-precious-son complex, but for C.J., it just means the pressure’s on. “After being introduced to a guy’s parents as his girlfriend, I feel like I’m going to have to be with the guy forever, or, if things don’t work out, not only will he and I be crushed, but his parents will be, too.”
