Community: Real Life

Meeting the inlaws

Clare is a 22 year-old graduate of Performing Arts from Middlesex University. She's starting a TEFL this year with the aim of inflicting herself on other parts of the world in the future. She also has an encyclopaedic knowledge of 20th Century serial killers.

Clare Riley isn't looking forward to meeting her new boyfriend's mum very much.

You're definitely boyfriend and girlfriend. You share pizzas, have sex on a regular basis and have a polite tolerance for each other's bodily functions. However, it's still new and your mating rituals include sucking in your stomach when naked, and leaving the room to fart. As he desperately tries to fight the urge to commandeer all your remote controls, and waits till you back out of the room in that funny way before picking his nose and wiping it on the carpet.

But this period of infatuation and mystery never lasts. It's only a matter of time before he confronts you with the grizzly challenge of meeting his parents. The hairs on the back of your neck will stand to attention and a cold shiver will rattle down your spine because everyone knows, its not about meeting his parents, its about meeting his Mother.

Poets and Philosophers have taught us that the relationship between mother and son is a jealous and fraught affair: Oedipus and Jocasta, Hamlet and Gertrude, Mark and Pauline Fowler. You've got to admit that when it comes to their precious mummies, most blokes turn into spineless alter boys who'd do anything to avoid upsetting them. This includes dragging you in a WWF headlock up the gravel driveway of his parent's mock Tudor semi in a tasteful skirt and cardie combo.

Like a stuttering 12-year-old, you'll blush and stammer your way through a conversation about net curtains, feign interest in her collection of china dogs and even discuss Vanessa Feltz weight fluctuations. You'll laugh at the witty family banter, but avoid making a stab at humour yourself, or she'll think you're cocky (translated: you have a personality).

At what point exactly do normal women turn into Stalin with oven gloves?

An SAS interview is preferable to the company of an over-protective hag. You'll be paranoid about a) treading dog shit on the carpet, b) breaking anything or c) saying anything that could remotely be interpreted as sarcasm. He vowed not to leave you alone, but you know he's going to go to the loo at some point. The whole time, she'll stare at you as if she's assessing how fruitful your ovaries are.

After all the promises he'll sod off and go through his football trophies with his teenage brother, while his dad sits there like a puppet, talking only when mother pulls the string at the back of his head. The most interactive thing he'll manage to do is stare at your tits.

At what point exactly do normal women turn into Stalin with oven gloves? And why the hell do we have to meet each other anyway? All I can say is- he'd better be worth it, this lambs wool cardie is itchy.

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Updated: 15/01/2009


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