You iron a shirt for the first time in months. You pickup roses from a grocery store because you’ve never bought flowers before. You practice your handshake over and over again. Why? Because you’re about to meet… the parents.
People on Reddit were asked: “What is your worst ‘meeting the parents’ moment when dating someone new?” These are some of the best answers.
As a teenage dweeb, I dated this very sweet girl during my senior year of high school for a few months. She finally asked me over to have dinner at her family’s house to kinda show the family that we’re taking our relationship seriously. I had never met her parents before nor had I even done a “meet the parents” before, so I was a little freaked out about how the introduction would go.
We head over together to her house that evening and walk into the kitchen. Her mom greets us and seems delighted to meet me, which puts me in a good mood. Then she runs upstairs to grab her dad, who I can hear moaning and groaning about coming down. I didn’t make out all of what they said, but I heard him distinctly say “I’m not introducing myself to a 17 year old who thinks he can touch my daughter”. Oof, okay.
My girlfriend and I awkwardly stand around pretending we’re not hearing this stuff, when we hear a “Fine!” and the parents both walk back down the stairs. Her dad totally reluctantly, in this over-the-top way extends his hand and says “You’re Jeff?”. Literally just as I reach my hand out to say yes, I get a nosebleed. He stands there for a moment, mutters “yup” and walks straight out the back door to his woodshop, where he stayed for the rest of the night.
I didn’t even do anything wrong yet!
readycent
I had a Filipino girlfriend in college. Decided to meet the parents. I drove around 3 hrs to meet them, and even brought flowers and stuff, when for the first time in their life, they decide to practice a tradition of “rejecting the boyfriend three times before accepting him.”
The point is that if you REALLY want their daughter, you’ll try as many times as it takes, and since they had never done it before, my girlfriend didn’t think about warning me. I was pretty damn annoyed when they tossed my flowers right into the garbage.
uReallyShouldTrustMe
I went to her house and hung out around her family. We were sitting around the fire and telling stories. It gets a little late and me and her decide to go upstairs and watch movies in her room. On the way to the stairs he grabs my hand, smells my fingers and then says “they better smell like that when you come back down.” Wasn’t so much bad as it was hilarious but it was my only noteworthy one.
jfuss04
Now, my girlfriend is mixed race. She’s a dark skinned Brazilian, and they think she’s half Black. After we had been dating for a few months, I helped her move out of an apartment and into her mom’s house. On the way to her house she says something like “I don’t know if my mom is home right now.” Cool, whatever. I’m usually good with parents, so whether she’s there or not doesn’t really bother me much.
We get to the house and start moving stuff. There’s this little old white lady comes over and starts talking to us. No one introduces me, and she doesn’t say “Hi, I’m (your girlfriend’s mom)”. I assume that she’s a neighbor, or maybe a friend or something.
I do not introduce myself and remain pretty quiet the whole time we’re there. As we’re leaving, the little white lady hands me a container of brownies and a card with $50 in it to thank me for helping move. I didn’t want to accept it because I had no idea who this woman was.
Now, at this point I should mention that in the year I had known my girlfriend at that point; nobody mentioned that she was:
1.) Adopted
2.) Her adopted mother was an elderly white woman that raised her alone
So imagine my horror when I realize the woman that I had been so dismissive of turns out to be my girlfriend’s mother. Turned out okay. I poke fun at myself about it with her mom still.
ILookLikeHyde
I had been dating this girl for about 3-4 months and it was time to meet her family. We made arrangements and went over for dinner. Her father was nothing short of a PRISONER; I still refer to him as the Prisoner.
The entire night he barely spoke, and when he did it was only after being directly prompted by his wife or daughters, and it was always one-word answers. The entire dinner was them making jokes at his expense, making fun of him while simultaneously spilling the beans on intimate, personal details of his life.
His wife treated him with absolute contempt and disdain, which was translated into how his daughters treated him as well. The only living thing in that house that had any affection for him was the cat.
This man spent 30 years working as a civil engineer to raise a family (his wife never worked a day in her life, before or after him). He put two daughters through college, paid their rent, on top of paying for their cars and basically everything else. And they treated him like a malfunctioning robot butler.
His eyes were completely dead, like a lion who’s been in the zoo too long. It scared the crap out of me, so I broke up with her about a week later. It was like a visit from the Ghost of Christmas Future.
InternetKidsAreMean
“I would like you to meet my dad.” Shows me an urn.
UntoldMysteries
First family dinner together. Grandma is in US for 75 years but never learned English. Stares at me sternly then rattle off in Italian while pointing a gnarly finger at me. Dad rattle back. “What did she say?” Dad eating, without looking up, “she likes your shirt”. All laugh but me.
rwslasdex
In 2005 I took a train to Connecticut to meet my college girlfriend’s family. She picked me up from the train station and when we got to the house, I had to pee really bad. (Trip from Philly to Hartford was like 4 hours) so I figured I’d run to the potty before I would meet the family. She told me to use the bathroom upstairs because they were renovating the downstairs one. Open the door: there’s her dad pooping.
MegaGrevious
The first time I was at my (now ex-)girlfriend’s place, we each took a piece of fruit when she showed me around. When I finished my banana, I went to throw it away downstairs. Their garbage can was below the sink, so I bent down, and it made quite some noise when I opened it.
From the other side of the room comes an angry “Hey hey! What do you think you’re doing there?!”
As I stand up again I look into an angry dad and stumble “Uh … just throwing away my banana … “
Then he starts laughing “Oh, haha, I thought it was the dog going through the thrash, I couldn’t see you”.
They made fun of that for a long time.
DrKobbe
“Please let me give you a tour of the house. First stop, my gun collection.”
Dirtychorizo
Girl’s father was in a wheelchair, but was built very well. He obviously lifted as much as he could from his confines. Girlfriend warned me he previously tried to break a guy’s hand upon meeting him and shaking his hand.
So, I went to meet him. He stuck his hand out to shake mine. I didn’t hesitate; I shook his hand. He looked at his daughter as if to say “if you weren’t here, I’d totally snatch his hand off his wrist.”
Then he started giving me “the talk” about dating his daughter. He ended it with telling me about his .45 in a shelf. I really, really wanted to answer with “This shelf, right next to me, but across the room from you?” but I decided against it.
Apparently while we were out, her parents ransacked her bedroom and found our notes that we had written back and forth. I wrote swear words so they forbade her from seeing me again.
gugudan
Had a massive poop on hold. We didn’t know he was home. So we got in and I dashed to the toilet. Ten minutes later I had destroyed and quarantined the bathroom. When I went out he sees me and comes to greet. I tried to close the door to lock the odour in but I failed. The smell was really bad. I saw his right eye tear up a little.
MrWindu
When you’re meeting the dad for the first time, but the dog comes up to you and is super friendly because he already knows you… Awkward.
williesmokes
My family owned an auto service station which I worked at while in high school. One day we have a gentleman come in and ask for brake fluid- we will call him John. John buy the brake fluid and leaves. A month or so later we get a letter from his attorney seeking damages because we supposedly put brake fluid in his transmission. Our lawyer wrote their lawyer and that’s the last we heard.
We were a full service station and I would pump gas for people, check their fluid levels, add fluids if necessary etc. We had a woman who came by a couple times a month: Mary. One day Mary comes through and I added a quart of oil to her car, an older Mercedes. She comes back through that evening with oil all over the front of the car and accuses me of not replacing the oil filler cap, which I couldn’t deny. Might have very well done that. I took my beating on it, cleaned the car, listened to her threaten my family, etc. Sometimes you learn the hard way.
About a year after both of these incidents, I meet a girl at a friend’s house. We start talking and set up a date. I pull up in her drive way – that green Mercedes looks familiar. Real familiar. I go to the door and the girl greets me. I walk into the living room and there’s Mary watching tv. I look over at her dad and he looks up from a magazine. It’s John…
I went blank there for a min. I think I said hi and exchanged small talk. I’m not absolutely certain, I only know that I wanted to leave. I dated this girl for a few months and her parents were civil. The incidents above never came up.
[deleted]
He said that he checked up on me at my place of work. I said that makes us even because I spied on his new backyard pool by looking at aerial pictures on my computer. (This was before google maps and satellite images). He didn’t believe, then I showed it on his computer. The look on his face was priceless.
kbouser
My girlfriend’s stepdad was at work, so we were in her room watching TV on her bed. We weren’t hugging, just holding hands sitting next to each other because of the way the bed is sat. I hear him arrive home downstairs.
And about 10 minutes later, when I least expected it, a man who’s a little shorter than me but a lot more bulked out, slams open the door, with his arm already extended like a cyberman from an old Doctor Who episode, shouting “HELLO ANDY, HOW ARE YOU?”
I thought it was some act done to intimidate me and it really did make me nervous. After a few months of knowing the guy I know it was out of nervousness.
Laffluks
Senior year of high school I was dating a pretty awesome girl. Smart and and at the top of our class. We went to a party and ended up having a few too many drinks and decided to go to her place to “sleep”.
I woke up the next morning butt naked, balls out with her father standing at the foot of the bed. He made his way to the night stand to borrow the clicker for the garage door opener. In his path, he could see a few condoms thrown across the floor.
My heart jumped as he made the walk out of the room. Two minutes later my ex-girlfriend gets called upstairs by her parents. They were a little mad, but not pissed. We had to sleep in the living room from that point on. Which meant we just hooked up in the living room. Haha
thatguyyoukindaliked
Was invited over to watch Pride and Prejudice with a girl I liked. We were about 19. She stayed with her dad. Met dad and he did typical dad things. Fast forward a few hours and we are in the dark living room on the couch watching the movie. Her legs were on my lap and I was rubbing them when I see a glint to my left by the hallway.
Her dad is standing in his boxers holding a big kitchen knife. “Everything alright in there Jen?” “Yeah dad.” She didn’t even see him and never believed me when I told her what happened.
cantliferight
Sitting on the couch with my Jewish (now ex-)wife’s dad the first night I met the parents when I heard her mother from the kitchen:
“Not only is he CATHOLIC…. he’s IRISH…. those are the WORST KIND!”
That was fairly awkward.
UnclePepe
I was seeing this girl when I happened to be in town and ran into her at a bus stop. We just about had time to say hi to each other before a very old woman tried to get on a bus, tripped over the step, and fell directly backwards, landing hard on her head.
This girl’s mum, who has been an NHS nurse for the last 25 years, then turned out to be there with her as well. She immediately began assessing this woman’s injuries and trying to stop the bleeding from her head. A pair of paramedics arrived shortly and took over (not after my ex’s mum had tried to shoo them away, informing them that she’d been doing this sort of thing since before they were born).
And that’s the story of how I first met my ex-girlfriend’s very intimidating mother while she was covered in an old lady’s blood up to her elbows.
Nicksaurus
First time I went to my ex’s house her dog greeted me at the door before anyone else arrived. He then proceeded to hump my leg and when I would smack him off he would bite my fingers. So when her dad came to answer the door I was just standing there dead-eyed while a little blue heeler humping me.
_Squirrel_Fcker
The dad was an ex army ranger. He made me do yard work while the girl stayed inside. He started a fire to burn trimmed tree branches and started the “So you like my daughter” speech. That was fun.
carebear-pterodactyl
While in high school, a girl and were making full use of the living room since her parents were gone for the day. At one point we’re just kinda laying naked on the couch between rounds and we hear the door open so we throw a big blanket over ourselves. In walks her dad who greeted us (he had heard of me but hadn’t met me) and proceeded to watch the movie we had on as background noise with us for another hour. All the while were just naked under a blanket on the other couch…
Carameldelighting
My high school girlfriend missed a week of school because she had pharyngitis. One day I went over to bring her some stuff from her locker and thought it would be funny to walk in wearing a surgical mask.
I stood outside the house tying it around my head when her very tall and stocky father came out and asked me who I was and what I was doing. I told him I was the new boyfriend and thought it would be funny to wear a mask. He wasn’t amused and neither was my girlfriend.
nycemt83
I’m bi but dating a girl at the time. We walked home from watching Finding Dory (she lives about a quarter mile away from the theater) and when we walk in the door, I’m greeted by the man I slept with two months earlier.
I have a thing for older men… At a bar a few months earlier this guy takes the seat by me. Tells me about his job (he’s a mechanic at a local auto shop) and buys me a few drinks. Tells me he was recently divorced (not true, but I never told his wife) and looking for some fun to keep his mind off it.
Argentle_Men
Some of this material has been edited for clarity.