My boyfriend and I have been dating for about two months. Neither of us has properly met each other’s parents and, since my birthday is in a couple weeks I am planning a dinner so that he can meet my mom. However, even though my birthday’s on a Saturday, he works that day. Do you think it would be a big deal if he calls off work for this one day just to spend it with me? I mean he never called off work before and it wont be a “You’re fired!”-type situation. But he says that, no, he’s not calling off. Who’s wrong: he or I? And why??? — Birthday Girl
You’re wrong. It’s a birthday. It’s really not that big a deal — people have them all the time. You yourself have one every year. And most people don’t even take a day off work for their own birthdays, let alone for someone they’ve been dating two months. And, anyway, is he working the entire day? If he’s not available for dinner, what about breakfast? Or what about drinks after dinner? Even if he’s out the whole day, surely, there are other times you can introduce your boyfriend to your parents, and, if he’s a good boyfriend, he will properly celebrate you and your birthday at some point over the weekend when he isn’t at work. In a reasonable way. Like, maybe a dinner out or some flowers and a card. Keep your expectations in check. It’s just a birthday, after all.
I met this guy over the Internet (he lives in New York and I live in Jamaica) and I ended up developing feelings for him. He’s been nice to me because I have a 4-month-old baby and he does his best to be there for me. Anyway, on Valentine’s Day he sent me money and I was not appreciative because I believe he could have sent more. But instead of arguing about it, I started avoiding him. I didn’t wanted to talk to him because I wanted to get over the ungrateful emotion. Anyway, he texted me and I started saying things like I wanted to be alone and I wanted to take care of myself and I don’t want him doing everything for me because I want to make it on my own. I also said things like I know that every man has a monster inside of him, and I reminded him that he told me to call him when I I didn’t have any credit. (Normally, he would rush to get credit for me, as I told him, but on that day he didn’t). I kept on texting him, saying that he’s just like every guy I know and I wish I was working so I didn’t have to ask him for anything. He stopped replying and now I want him to chase me again because I really need him. — Need a Man to Pay the Bills
Get a grip. The only man who owes you anything is the father of your baby, so track him down and fight him for some damn child support and get a damn job so you don’t have to manipulate men in other countries to pay your damn bills, God.
I have a question about guys. I am curious: Should a guy take a girl whom he is interested in dating to a local bar and then proceed to get so drunk that he cannot drive home even though she left her vehicle at his house because that was the plan before going out? Also, do guys take a girl to a Super Bowl party at that same bar the next day as well? This is a bar where is he is well-known. — He’s a Bar Fly
I think the better question is: Does a girl who isn’t impressed with a guy’s behavior at a bar go back to the same bar with the same guy the next day? And if so, how did it go?
***************
Follow along on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
If you have a relationship/dating question I can help answer, you can send me your letters at [email protected].
LW3 – I dated somebody like that. Did not end well. MOA.
LW 1 + LW 2: WTF? Are you serious?
LW2: Why would he chase you?
Because the fake picture she sent to him is super hot?
Who are the guys that fall for this, I want to know? Just like the guys who pay for webcam girls? Who are these people? Who has the time who has the money? Do I know them and they just don’t tell me?
Yeah, I want to know too. I wish a DW reader who does this would tell us about it.
There has to be one right? or at least one on the receiving end, I have so many questions.
Come out come out wherever you are, you men who send money to women in need abroad and/or pay for webcam girls.
I don’t do webcam, but I’ve been paid to sext with people.
Tell us everything Anonymous, what are the clients like? what do they do? why do they spend money on it?
Honestly – they’re shockingly normal. Oh, sure, there are a few that have made me uncomfortable. But I won’t set up a session with them. I always talk with them first, kind of get to know what they’re into and make sure it’s something I’m comfortable with.
.
For the most part they’re just REALLY lonely guys. Most of the time, they just want to chat after.
I webcammed once. It was ridiculous the amount of people who sit around & watch you on those things. I was too bored to sit around & wait for people to pay me though, ha ha! It seriously takes a LONG time unless you have the desire & motivation to chat people up & be all flirty blah blah blah. I did not, therefore I got like 11 tokens, which is worth, oh maybe 89cents? Ha Ha
I’d be all “you wanna see me eat this piece of pizza in 1 bite? Yeah? Ooooh, yesss, I know you want to watch. Mmmmmmmm” and then I’d get…. 2 tokens.
@AP, I want to see you eat a piece of pizza in one bite, but mostly because I want to see anyone eat a piece of pizza in one bite.
Actually, I’m willing to bet there are a select few people who are looking for just that, and would pay ridiculous amounts of money.
But do you really want to think of those people getting off every time you eat a slice of pizza?
I don’t know @stonegypsy, I personally would like to think that I was bringing “joy and pleasure” to everyone around me by eating pizza. I would eat so much pizza.
Your last sentence gave me the skeeves/chuckle!! It reminded me of Jame “Buffalo Bill” Gumb in Silence of the Lambs – “Would you f*ck me? I’d f*ck me. I’d f*ck me hard. I’d f*ck me so hard.”
Good point. It may ruin my own pleasure in eating the slice.
Ooooooo…AP eating pizza in her Pajamas…
.
Is it getting warm in here?
😉
Ha, the response to LW3 was my favorite.
*
LW1 – You’re being totally unreasonable. Completely. Based on your question alone I bet you are insanely high maintenance.
*
LW2 – Good god. WWS.
*
LW3 – Still smiling at Wendy’s response.
Man LW1 maybe two months in he’s not ready to meet the parents. Did you even ask him? Also like Wendy said, you can celebrate your birthday on days other than your birthday and it’s still special.
I also love Wendy’s response to LW3.
And have nothing for LW2. Other than wow.
I would not be ready to meet parents after two months either :-/
Are you kidding, by 1-2 months I’m ready to celebrate holidays together, with all the parents, and to start our own family. … Which is why I’m not allowed to give advice on DW.
LoL I USED to feel that way Addie, but I feel like my disaster of a LDR has made me wary of all men haha.
I think we met parents at like 4 mths. Which I was fine with, but we you know talked about it. Amazing how that works 😉 Not saying the LW hasn’t. But, if the bf is acting a little resistant to the idea maybe that’s part of it. Also not everyone has a ton of leave. I would not use any of my precious leave for a birthday when I could have it for vacation or something else equally important to me 😉
Meeting parents is the scariest thing in the world, I hate it so much. Also, I found out that the girl I’m seeing’s parents have pretty much hated every guy she’s dated. So now I’m scared, especially since I’m younger and likely don’t check off all their boxes.
In other relationship news, she wanted to do that 36 questions and stare into each other’s eyes and fall in love thing that was all over the internet a couple months ago. So we did it, I wouldn’t say we fell in love, but we’re definitely a lot closer.
My boyfriend met my parents pretty much by accident on…day three? We’d had one date. I was in an orchestra at the time and we were having an open concert, so at our first date (on a wednesday) I told him he could come if he wanted (on the friday.) I didn’t really expect him to show up, but there he was in the audience! And so were my parents. SO I’m out in the lobby with them afterward and he comes up and I end up having to introduce them. He was super polite and shook my dad’s hand and stuff, and then hugged me and left – and in the car on the way home my parents are all “now, who the heck was that?” and I sort of went “ummmmmmmmmmm we met online and now maybe we are kind of dating.” They didn’t even know I had a dating profile.
The fact that he did not run away and never come back was a big point in his favour, for sure.
Oh I sort of want to do that with my boyfriend! Was it weird?
It wasn’t really, until afterwards when I was thinking about it! In a way it worked out really well, because there was no chance to get anxious and build it up into this big important THING, plus it meant my mom had zero time to freak out about my doing online dating (I was 21 at the time and living on my own, BTW :P). By the time she knew, she’d already met him and could calm herself down with “well, he didn’t LOOK like a murderer….”
Oh I meant that questions thing! My bf and I live on the opposite side of the continent from my parents so who knows when he will meet them.
Haha, the questions thing was really weird, some of it was stuff we talked about, but a lot wasn’t. It was definitely interesting and I would say worthwhile.
Thanks! We’ll see if I can get my bf to do it!
Oh ha, my bad 😛 I kind of want to do the questions too, except I feel like when we get to the “staring soulfully into each other’s eyes” part we would just end up killing ourselves laughing.
The eyes part was really weird, we set a timer, laughed at first, the first minute was so long, but then it gets faster? I don’t know.
Does MsMidTwenties know about DW?
Haha oh most certainly not, how am I supposed to get secret lady advice?
I’m worried that NG checks DW sometimes because he doesn’t know exactly how much time I spend on here…but at the same time we talk about the goings-on in the forums. I know he’s checked out the site a couple of times, but it isn’t stuff that he would read thoroughly so I think I’m safe. 🙂
It sounds like MsMidTwenties may be MsEarlyThirties? Mid, how much older is your lady friend? Is she a cougar??
No, AP, she is only 2 years older, actually only a year and a half.
Well (not a creeper, promise!) you’re a cutie so I don’t blame her for dating younger. 😉
That’s my parents age difference! It worked for them. (And they started dating at like 17/18 or something like that.)
Addie, I haven’t said it yet but I’m sorry about what happen. I read the post about how you took so much care to send him a library book and he donated your pants. At least you lost the honey-moon glasses and got see his real flaking off colors quickly. Better a bomb detonate fast than after a marriage license. Sorry though
Thanks, something! That’s sweet of you. Yes, I saw his real self very clearly and abruptly. BAM! Like that. I mean, the library book / pants thing wasn’t a big deal, I mean, they weren’t diamond-laced pants or anything. It was just a funny/pathetic observation after the big bomb exploded, if that makes sense. Lest you all thing I’m sitting here fuming over pants. I mean, who cares about pants, I prefer not to wear ’em. But, again, thank you, something! It does warm my heart to have support from DW friends.
Wait, what? Where is this story hiding?
Yup, we broke up. I mentioned it somewhere in the middle of a forum post – so it’s buried somewhere.
I’ve always been wary. Well, except Bassanio met my mom right before our first date, but I was living at home at the time, so I don’t think that counts? It wasn’t like an official meet-the-parents, my mom was just there.
The thing is, as with most things, it just depends on your background. Meeting parents is not a big deal for me at all. I’d be interested in meeting any friend’s parents so any new boyfriend would be no different. It doesn’t add any pressure to the relationship to me. “Hey, this is boyfriend, we’ve known each other for a month, let’s eat, I’m starving!” – just like that, bam. Doesn’t mean we’re going to get married tomorrow. I don’t understand how/when/why it became this big milestone.
Because when you have a mother like mine, she DOES think it means you’re getting married tomorrow. Or at least that you should be. And then the pressure never lets up.
Well that makes sense. See? Just depends on the circumstances. I think my mom is the opposite – she worries we’ll get married tomorrow, ha. I also generally like hanging out with parents and siblings and stuff so if my significant other had a standing Sunday night dinner with family, I’d love to go. I also haven’t dated anyone with a horrible family, so, again, it just depends.
Bassanio’s mom is kind of like that. My wariness though has no relationship to my parents themselves. They welcome significant others, but don’t care. It’s literally just me. My sister is wary for different reasons, namely our dad. They don’t have a good relationship…
Oops, meant to say Bassanio’s mom is like MissDre’s. She’s been trying to convince him to marry me for like 5 years.
I went on like 3 or 4 dates with a friend this past fall, and made the mistake of telling my mom about it. She then wanted to know why I wasn’t bringing him home for Christmas. When I spent New Years with my girlfriends she wanted to know why I wasn’t spending it with him. Every single time I talked to my mom on the phone she’d ask me what he and I were doing that weekend and I’d be like nothing, I’m going out with my friends. And she’d want to know WHY? Is everything ok with you two? And I’d get SO ANNOYED and be like MOM! He’s NOT my boyfriend!!! Leave me alone!!!
My family is just like the second I introduce a boyfriend he is absorbed in to the family and they treat him like a son, so for me its like a level of commitment I am not often comfortable with until I am serious about someone, because they will do it regardless. It is a great thing about my family and my boyfriend who met them during our first dating life after 4 months or so, loves my family but it is overwhelming for me. Its like after that they just expect him with me at all times and want to feed him and he is just family after that point and its just a lot. I would never introduce my parents to someone unless I was confident he would be around for awhile. One of my boyfriends they got SO attached to (I was living at home) they were genuinely upset when I told them we were breaking up, for me yeah but also for them ha.
My family is this way. With friends or boyfriends. I’ve never felt pressure meeting anyone’s parent or have I felt like it’s needed to be a serious relationship to meet mine. My current boyfriend met my mom after about a month. She lives in a different state and wouldn’t be back for 6 to 8 months.
.
However, my family likes anyone as long as they treat me right and I’m happy. But they are immediately considered a part of us and anything I’m invited to after the initial meeting he is too.
I made the mistake of agree to meet my now boyfriend’s mom on day two. Setting boundaries and therapy to help with preventing the inevitable three’s company situation they wanted to create has been such a chore. It undermines our whole relationship.
We met each other’s mothers super early but to be fair, neither of them live in the area so it was kind of ‘oh hai, here’s my mom!’
I met my new boyfriend’s parents about a month after we started dating, I think? I stayed at their house for a weekend before I flew home for Christmas. But, obviously, you shouldn’t try to force it to happen if either person isn’t comfortable yet.
I think I would be a little weirded out about meeting parents after only 2 months of dating IF it were strictly a “meet the parents” kind of thing. If there were broader circumstances, like, say, the guy was graduating and his parents were in town for his graduation or something like that, it would be a little different (still a little awkward, I think, though). That said, I one of my boyfriends met my grandparents (who were like surrogate parents in my college/post college years when my parents were all the way in germany) when he came to their house for christmas after we’d been dating less than five weeks. And it didn’t seem weird at all (at least to me). I can’t remember when he actually met my parents but because if the distance it might have been a year and a half or so before that happened. Drew and I met each other’s families after about a year or so of long distance dating, which seems about right.
I met my husband’s mom about 5 days after I’d met him. He got a new car, and I went with him to pick it up. Unbeknownst to me, he’d told his mom he’d come by and give her a ride in it. Neither she nor I knew that we’d be meeting the other one that day. It was super awkward for me. My husband still doesn’t get why it’s a big deal.
My question for LW2 is:
How can I get a magic money fairy for me too?
Agreed. Even just for holiday times. I’m always scraping to pay my student loans each month.
LW2: what the flippity freaking flipping duh huh??? Some dude sent you $ for VDAY and it wasn’t enough, so you ignored him so as to get over being ungrateful, and now he’s hip to your game so you want to know how to string him along some more? Ugh. Well, ##&&anythingcanhappen
I don’t even understand what’s going in LW2….he just sends you money?? Nothing in return? Where can I get me one of those??
LW1- Sooo you set up this whole thing between him and your parents BEFORE asking him if he could come? And now you are mad he can’t make it? And how nice of you to decide it won’t cost him his job! Plus, maybe he feels 2 months is a tad too soon to meet the parents? I know I would feel a little uneasy.
If anyone I dated for 2 months demanded that I take off of work because it was his birthday and pouted when I said no, I’d break up with him.
.
If anyone I met online asked me to send them money, I’d block them.
.
If anyone got so shitfaced on our first date that I had to drive him home in his car, I’d forget he existed. And possibly give his keys to the bartender, get a cab and leave him stuck there.
.
Too much drama, all the way around.
100% agreed on all three.
I can see maaaaybe excusing someone for drinking too much on a first date because he or she was nervous or something, but this guy just sounds like less than a winner.
BUT IT IS FACEPALM FRIDAAAAY. Aren’t they all supposed to have babies together?!?!
All of it: WHAAAAAAAT?
LW1: It’s a birthday. He doesn’t want to take off work. Let it go. Ask him if you two can do something together instead and put off the parent meeting bit for awhile.
LW2: Stop. Stop Stop. WWS. GET A JOB! Support yourself! It’s a lot better feeling that manipulating men online to give you money.
LW3: MOA.
So… I take my birthday off every year. I’ve only ever worked it once (and only because it was 2 weeks after starting my current job). My mom taught me that my birthday is my day 😛 But I couldn’t imagine asking a boyfriend of only TWO MONTHS to take it off too. If I were that guy, I’d run the other direction.
I take my bday off, too. Mostly because I have so much PTO by the end of the year I have to 🙂
.
Ugh it’s on a Tuesday this year! What kind of crap is that.
That just means you have to take Monday and Tuesday off 🙂 Mine’s on a Sunday this year but it’s also 2 days after my due date so I may be off anyway!
I never take off work on my birthday. The only time I sort of did was when I took the day after my 21st birthday off.
I always take my birthday off but not my husband or anything! That’s a lot to ask of someone else when there are so many awesome ways to spend precious vacation time throughout the year.
LW1, my birthday is on March 8, so we’re almost birthday twins! But yeah you’re putting too much stock in this. A birthday, as fun as it is, is just a birthday. Although it is also a GREAT excuse to eat birthday cake for breakfast on the day after. That’s my tradition.
LW2, uhhhh, what?
LW3, well, if this is bothering you that he is going to a bar that much (and I understand why you feel that way), it’s time to move on.
Anyone want to hear about how I went off the deep end and decided to foster a dog for the weekend. Our local shelter’s heat died in one of the buildings so I took one little guy home. Now I don’t think I can take him back….
Keep him!!!
but three dogs? three? ahhh. i am such a sucker for a cute dog. he’s sleeping on the couch enjoying being warm and not sleeping on concrete. breaks my heart. i’m pretty sure i don’t have it in me to take him back. my goal is to find him a home this weekend.
I twisted my Mom’s arm and sent pictures until she decided she was ready to adopt again. Our family dog passed this year at 16. So he has a home and doesn’t have to sleep on concrete ever again.
OMG!OMG!OMG! This gives me ALL.THE.HAPPIES. SO HARD!! jlyfsh, I officially find you awesome!! Thank you, thank you. Fur-babies without warm loving homes = 🙁
Way to go jlyfsh!
Yay!!! 🙂 I’m trying to twist my parents’ arm to get another dog too, but haven’t had much success. Hopefully the place Navy Guy and I move into will allow dogs in addition to our cats!!!
Not sure if this was mentioned, but didn’t see it as I read through… LW 1 used the term “call off work” which to me is calling in sick on the day of, rather than actually booking a day off in advance (plus why would you be fired for booking a day off?) Calling in sick for your birthday – bad idea. Are you also going to tag him in fb/instagram photos so his boss can see and know he was out when he should be at work? That actually could get him fired.
“Birthdays are no big deal”
Okay , Satan