Meeting the Parents: My True Story

In high school, I tried the boyfriend thing. In classic bad boy meets good girl form, I fell hard for a tattooed bass player who wrote predictable, brooding poetry. He delicately strummed my ribs and drummed down my spine with his musician's hands and called me "his porcelain instrument". I went to the shows he played, religiously paying service to the altar of puppy love. I stuck out amidst the sea of black shirts and dark eyeliner wearing my Gap turtleneck sweaters, politely swaying to the music while everyone else flailed around and slammed into one another.

At one show, his parents somehow snuck in to support their son. While both parties were content to uncomfortably stand on the fringes of the writhing crowd, my boyfriend chose to force a meeting. He cursorily introduced me to his parents, mispronounced my last name, and promptly stranded me. Completely out of my element already, I grinned awkwardly, shook hands, and futilely tried to stop over analyzing the conversation. His parents ended up loving me but I had to take into consideration the girls who he'd dated before me. I fear that their approval stemmed more from my ability to speak proper English and abstinence from alcohol or drugs rather than from a glowing first impression. Our love affair ended after much melodrama and I spent the rest of my high school career casually dating while laughing at, but never commiserating with, my friends who were navigating the intricacies of actual relationships.