Chapter 1 part 2

My sister thinks I am uptight

Me: Jenny. Have you ever taken a boyfriend to mom’s and shared a room with him?

Jenny: Are you KIDDING me? Which mom are you talking about?

Me: Yeah, that’s what I thought.

Jenny: Why?

Me: Primo is taking me to meet his parents—

Jenny: It’s about time. You guys have been together for more than a year.

Me: Yeah, well. They live in Florida so it’s not exactly easy to get there. Anyhow, Primo told his parents that I want to sleep in a separate room from him--

Jenny: Wait. He had to tell them that?

Me: Yes. I guess it’s not the default for them. He says his parents “pride themselves on being hip.”

Jenny: I’ve stayed in the same room with a boyfriend at his mom and dad’s. I never even thought twice about it.

Me: But what about taking a boyfriend to visit mom?

Jenny: That’s totally different! That is not how mom rolls! Mom does not pride herself on being hip.

Me: No kidding.

Jenny: So they just assumed you guys would be in the same bedroom?

Me: Yes.

Jenny: Are you guys sharing a room now?

Me: Umm. Yes. But at his place or at my place.

Jenny: I thought you weren’t going to sleep with him until his divorce was final.

Me: Yeah well that resolution didn’t last very long.

Jenny: Homewrecker.

Me: Hey! He had already moved to Austin and filed when I met him. It’s been six years since he split with his ex-wife!

Jenny: She’s not his ex-wife. Legally.

Me: You know what I mean.

Jenny: Yeah, whatever, you homewrecker. When was the last time you visited a boyfriend’s parents?

Me: Probably not since I was in my mid-twenties.

Jenny: You are old now. Nobody cares. Maybe they’ll ask you to smoke pot with them.

Me: Nope. They hate drugs.

Jenny: It’s just sex they are hip about?

Me: I guess so. I am not getting a good vibe about this. I didn’t think it would be a big deal, but I guess it is. I have never slept in the same room with a boyfriend at his mom and dad’s and hadn’t even thought about it, but then Primo mentioned that they will put us both in the guest room.

Jenny: That is a little weird that you don’t want to be in the same bedroom with him.

Me: No! It’s that I don’t want to be in the same bedroom with him at his mom and dad’s! That’s the weird part. When we stayed with his friend Doug last year, Doug didn’t want us in the same room. He said it would be a bad influence on his kids. Primo said if we couldn’t be in the same room then we weren’t coming. I didn’t care about that. It’s just in front of parents that it feels wrong.

Jenny: Call me when you get there. I want to know what happens.

Maybe the first chapter? Or part of it?

Raise your hands: How many of you slept in the same room as your significant other the first time you went to his parents’ house and stayed there overnight?

Yeah. Me neither.

Every single time I have ever visited the parents (1), I have stayed in my own room and the boyfriend has stayed in his own room.

Anytime I have taken a boyfriend to my parents’ house, we have had separate sleeping quarters.

It never even occurred to me that it would be any other way – that parents would expect their child, even their adult child, to share a room with his SO.

But then, I have never met Primo’s mom and dad before.

“They pride themselves on being hip,” he tells me when he explains that they are very annoyed at the idea that I would not be comfortable sharing a room with him under their roof.

Wait. “Annoyed” is probably not the right word.

They are pissed.

Primo: They just don’t want to clean the spare room. And, like I said, they pride themselves on being hip.

Me: Parents are not supposed to be hip. I can promise you that when we go to my mom’s house, we will be in separate rooms. My mother is not hip.

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1. I have multiple data points on parental visits. Not with the guy in grad school whose parents, it turned out, didn’t even know I existed. That, my friends, is a red flag that should not be ignored. I ignored it. But that’s a different story.