Column: Not Quite Nietzsche; Meeting the parents much more demeaning than in the movies
It started as a long weekend in Vernal to meet her extended family – normal, adult relationship stuff.
After 10 hours in a car and two days full of first impressions and questioning, I feel like I can say this with some authority: normal, adult relationship stuff sucks.
This has nothing to do with my being trapped in a perpetual state of adolescence.
I hardly ever laugh at bodily functions anymore, and I haven’t seen “Benchwarmers” yet. It is just that despite how many times I’ve done it, meeting the family is never easy or fun.
Naturally, there is the surge of adrenalin. Like a sheep among the wolves, I had the feeling, even if it was only for a second, that things could actually work out. But while the sheep is thinking of being friends, the carnivores aren’t thinking about catching a movie.
The family interrogation is so grueling, probing and complete that it’s hard to believe that law enforcement hasn’t yet adopted it as a way of breaking the most hardened criminals. I can only assume that they considered it, but the courts unanimously voted it cruel and unusual punishment.
I’ve been asked about everything from my eating habits to my fashion sense to my sexual preference.
Parents of the world, I do not date your daughters as a clever way to get close to your sons. Please stop asking about it.
This weekend’s questioning wasn’t as bad as some I’ve had. Instead, I contended with a plate of sausage the size of a golden retriever – yes, that similarity unnerves me a little – and a roomful of guys egging me on. I don’t eat meat very often. I don’t like it. But when faced with the men whose opinions could very well mean my being voted off Katie island, I ate.
Thanks to my body’s poor reaction to the serious meat intake, however, the ride home was a windows-down affair that may or may not leave me voted out of the relationship despite my culinary heroics.
There were other tests, of course. I also put my testosterone to use in a serious hike, an anything-goes egg-rolling contest complete with fireworks and Shoe Goo, and a rubber band-powered boat race.
After spending two days sharing my inadequacies with a group of people I don’t even know, I know why so many men go into engineering. It isn’t because they are good at math, enjoy creating things or enjoy the high salaries.
Instead, they’re just preparing to impress the girlfriend’s family during the boat race. This plan isn’t perfect though, and if any of you are considering this career path I’d still counsel you to choose English instead. I mean, when was the last time you saw an engineer with a girlfriend?
But back to my own humiliating life. I went into this weekend thinking that we were beyond the point where meeting her entire network of aunts and uncles would be awkward.
It wasn’t until about 11 p.m. Friday night that I realized there would be 10 of us fighting for one shower come Saturday morning.
Fighting for bathroom time will tear even the closest friends and families apart.
Rather than be the next plate of sausage, I did what any thinking mammal would do: I woke up at 6 a.m. and silently shuffled to the shower before anyone was awake.
Then, to give the impression of good hygienic habits, I gladly took the three and a half free minutes of bathroom time that morning, turned the water on and thought on my brilliance.
I may struggle with eating meat, building boats, rolling eggs and being a man in general, but so far as they’re concerned, I can take a shower in under five minutes.
And if that’s not enough to impress her family, I don’t know what is.
Zach Pendleton is a junior majoring in English with a minor in failing to impress girls’ parents. Comments and condolences can be sent to zpendleton@cc.usu.edu