Meeting the Parents

Yesterday was actually a fairly productive day. I had a great, super sweaty workout, complete with weight lifting. I also started a letter to my favorite teacher in Ukraine and sort of just dawdled around the house.

Speaking of the weather, this weekend is suppose to be ungodly hot both here and in St. Louis, where Scientist and I are heading for a little R & R. I hate hot weather. Wait, no, strike that--I hate humid weather, of which there is an abundance of in the Midwest. My clothes stick to me, my hair glues itself to the back of my neck, I'm tired, I'm cranky and, usually, unable to sleep. In fact, as far as I'm concerned there is no reason to be outside sweating your ass off if it's humid and above 90. Am I right?

I'm actually a little nervous about our little trip. Until now, I've only met a few of Scientist friends, but really nobody super important. His entire family, along with his best friend and old friend from college (best friend and old friend are now dating) live there and I'll get to meet ALL of them over the course of the next few days.

It's not that I think I won't like any of them; on the contrary, I think I'll like all them, it's that I'm afraid they won't like me. See, as some of you may remember, the last long term relationship I was in, when my ex-boyfriend, Crazypants, introduced me to his parents, they, initially, loved me. Unfortunately, I came to a series of realizations after that, the first being his family (with the exception of his father), was absolutely insane, dysfunctional and brought a whole new meaning to the word "controlling", and the second being that, Crazypants, was, likewise, crazy as a jail house rat. The apple never falls from tree, I guess.

The pure hell that Crazypants' family put me through for over 2 years is enough to make even the most level-headed and logical person a little skiddish. Now, to be fair, I try to avoid making comparisons between relationships a) because that's totally unfair to the person I'm currently dating and b) I'm a totally different person than I was when I dated the last guy and c) the guy I'm dating now is totally different than the person I was dating before (duh).

Nevertheless, I think my worries are well founded; I really want to make a good impression on Scientist's family. I know, logically, there's no reason why I wounldn't it's just that....I'm so different than his parents. First, I'm a big fat Liberal and his dad is both religious and conservative (I've been told on no uncertain terms to avoid the topic of abortion because both his dad and I are uncompromising in our very different view points and are likely to get into a pretty heated disagreement in said topic were to come up). Second, um, well, how do I put this delicately?....Uh, I'm fairly sure they know I spend days on end in Iowa City with their son (who's the baby in the family, to boot), so I'm pretty sure they know I've slept in the same bed with him. I don't know, it just makes me feel like they'll think I'm corrupting their son. Which I'm not--he was waaaay corrupted when I met him. I swear.

I'm probably worrying over nothing. I'm sure everything will go fine and we'll have a wonderful time meeting each other, but I think my concerns are pretty normal and valid. I mean, if Scientist can win over my dad, surely, I can win over his parents. Right?