Meeting The Family

Its always entertaining when your nearest and dearest explain their reasons behind not choosing a lesbian lifestyle. That probably seems like a rather odd statement to make but this has happened to me more times than you’d think. I once heard being gay likened to speaking in tongues, which was for one individual, just plain weird. The phenomenon of the divine gift was considered to be both an unwelcome and an unpleasant experience and well, so too was hooking up with another woman. The other rationalisation that rather amused me was to do with meeting the parents. Women it was complained, prefer to let the whole world know as soon as they’ve found a new friend whilst men are frequently content to wait.

Before I go on, let me just say that neither myself nor my ‘nearest and dearest’ have a problem with women who have a same a sex preference within their intimate relationships. The comments made to me were not judgements but rather personal feelings. Rightly or wrongly, I happened to find them funny (although you possibly had to be there at the time). Because I could definitely see the point about the family and friends thing. Stereotypically, males are somewhat reluctant to introduce a new girlfriend (or even an old one) to all and sundry till they’re sure they want them to stick around. Women however, stereotypically, will introduce you to their uncle-twice-removed’s next door neighbour’s cat on less than one weeks acquaintance. This might sound all right in theory but if you are the girlfriend in question, it can be a little stressful right off the bat.

This week on SMH’s Sam and the City blog, there was an entry about how long you should wait before introducing your new bit of stuff to friends, family and colleagues. From all the comments posted, this is obviously a bone of contention in some relationships – and I confess to having been conscious of this myself at times. Most people seemed to feel however that whilst there was definitely a ‘too late’, there wasn’t really a time that was ‘too soon’. I did get the impression though that its easier not to go the baptism by fire approach (ie everybody all at once), and it can be helpful to have another familiar person with whom the newbie can chat (just in case you need to go off and be grilled by dotty great aunt Mary). But having recently been put in that sort of situation myself, it can have its good points too.

I went to visit someone a couple of months ago and given their busy schedule, I was required to look after myself for a while. I was therefore conscious of trying to start my own conversations and not rely on them, which is an effort for me. As a result, I got to meet some great people. I must admit, I am a bit of a believer in the expression ‘show me your friends and I’ll tell you who you are’. Meeting friends and family is a good way of gauging the character of a person and having friends who speak highly of you is one of the best recommendations around. I can only hope that my friends and family would be as positive. I could also hope that they’d go easy on anyone I introduced to them but that would only spoil their fun. Being introduced to many people at the same time though does tend to tire you out so hopefully I don’t have to do it again for a while.