Lesson Twenty: Trust Your Boyfriend Can Take Care Of Himself When It Comes To Meeting Your Father.

When a girl introduces a boyfriend to her Father she wants it to go well. My Father has always told my sister's and I that he's not interested in meeting our boyfriends unless we're serious about them. So for only the third time in my life I was introducing a boyfriend to Dad. Needless to say I was nervous, the old man is ex-Army, plus this boyfriend is a bit shy and sometimes the family can be a bit full on.  When I introduced the last boyfriend my Father called him a pansy because he opted to sit in the kitchen talking with the girls rather than jump on the roof and help Dad out.

We pull up at the house I grew up in and everyone was knee-deep gardening and pulling down the obscenely high hedge. Childhood memories of me picking up weeds and lugging hedge clippings down the side of the house to the back yard came flooding back.

The introductions begin as my sweaty family, wearing half the garden on their clothes, came forward to meet this new man.  It was almost like a scene out of Close Encounters when the alien ship landed and the human’s stood around, curious yet apprehensive. Dad’s up first wearing his sweat band around his head, shorts, long socks rolled down to the ankle, sneakers and a polo shirt  - plus headphones in as he was listening to the cricket.

Me: “Dad, this is Craig. Craig this is my Father, Brian”.

They shake hands.

Dad: “Gidday, nice to meet you. Sorry about all the mess” nervous laugh.

The Boyfriend: “Hi there….” nervous laugh… “Yup – looks like you’ve been hard at it.”

I was wondering how this would go as we all gathered on the balcony together and started talking. Pretty soon Dad was telling Craig to, “Please, make yourself at home and help yourself to anything” – definitely a good sign. We were there for a few hours and I thought the boyfriend did well, he was relaxed, he was chatty - to be honest he was just being himself.  However, I was dying to know what the family – and particularly what my Father thought. I go back two days later without The Boyfriend who unfortunately had to work.

Me: “Hey everyone…”

Step Mother/Sisters/Brother collectively: “Hey. Oh….Where’s Craig, why didn’t he come with you….oh what, is he not here?”

Me: “Err – he’s busy….I’m here…”

Brother: “Yeah but we want to see I.T Guy…..”

Sister: “Yeah….”

Me: “What did you think Dad?”

Dad: “Yeah – a bit quiet but seems really nice. How come he didn’t come with you?”

Younger Brother: “Yeah Tarsh…. ring him and ask him to come over.”

Everyone who spent the evening drilling me about him repeated this request throughout the evening.  I never rang him but we went back for dinner a few days later and again he was the center of attention. Looking back I had absolutely nothing to worry about, the only problem now is he gets more attention than I do, a problem I don’t mind having at all.