Meeting the family members of the person you are going out with is always a daunting prospect. Obviously, they love him, they want the very best for him and they want to protect him. You are entering the picture as a relative unknown. They know he likes you, but that’s about the only thing you have going for you, so it’s up to you to prove to them that you are worthy of their son's/grandson's/brother's/cousin's/nephew’s romantic company. In general, though, I’d say that I am pretty comfortable in social situations - meeting the family, included. Also, meeting his relatives is key to finding out what makes him tick – and if they really dig you, then that can be a serious relationship booster. In my experience, dads always like me, so do brothers, moms are cautious but warm up quickly, sisters are pretty similar to moms, and grandparents invariably size me up using adjectives typically reserved for puppies like “precious” and “adorable." Anyway, my point here is that family meet-and-greets are definitely a step up on the social stress-meter, but they aren’t the worst things in the world.
…is what I would have said up until this past weekend.
Last Sunday, Mark3 invited me to a casual evening get-together with his sister, Natasha, her husband, Dan, and the couple’s close friends, Jim and Anna. I’d met Mark3’s brother-in-law, Dan, a few weeks earlier. Great guy but a complete handful. He’s like a Will Farrell character with the soul of a Shaolin monk….funny as hell, no holds barred, balls to the wall, consistently blindsiding those around him with poignant observations and weighty reflections coated in an ironic wit that permits his points to permeate without risking condescension or the perception that he takes himself too seriously. It's practically an art form. I’d also detected that, since our initial meeting, Dan had been hazing me – like some sort of test to see if I could hang or not. It was requiring some thick skin and spontaneous brazenness on my part, but so far, I'd been up to the challenge.
Adding to the complexity of the night's social dynamic was the fact that their friend, Jim, is a professional hockey player. Given that my job sometimes entails working with professional athletes, I knew going in that I would have to maintain a manner of professionalism requiring a guard that would typically come down in a laid-back situation like this get-together.
I’d been out of town with some friends for the day, so I was the last to arrive to the soiree and came independently of Mark3. He had been there from the start and the group had clearly been putting away beers for the better part of the evening. Walking – stone cold sober – into a situation where everyone else is three sheets to the wind, I realized that I was already behind the eight ball.
Introductions were made, niceties were dispensed, a Miller Lite was passed my way, and I took a seat, joining all of them at a large round table on the veranda. They’d just started playing a board game. The way the game worked was that a random statement was read such as “things you want to do before you die” or “things you can get arrested for” or “things you should keep away from children.” Each player would then write down a response, all the responses would be read aloud, and then everyone would take turns guessing who wrote what.
“Things you know nothing about” was the first statement read. Everyone scribbled their answers, passed them in. Slightly self-conscious, my mind was grasping for something innocuous to write down. I looked around hastily, glanced at a neighbors’ house and wrote “roofing.” …Roofing? Really? That’s what you went with, me? Roofing? What a dork.
One-by-one, the responses were read aloud. “Math” was the first response. “Atomic matter” was the second. “Roofing” was third. Then came the fourth response:
“Buttsex.”
The remaining responses were worse. So dirty, in fact, that I don't want to list them, out of fear that this post will start attracting degenerates googling things that have very little to do with this blog. The word buttsex, alone, is going to draw its share of pervs already.
After everything was read, it was then time for the group to go around and guess who said what.
Awesome.
Here I am, sitting at a table of mostly-strangers, Mark3’s sister to my immediate right, and within five minutes flat of meeting her – and only two sips into my Miller Lite – the word “buttsex” is going to have to come out of my mouth.
Now, I’m no virgin-eared angel – I have a tendency to cuss like a sailor while in heavy traffic, and I can tell dirty jokes that make grown men blush. But saying “buttsex” or for that matter, saying butt-anything or sex-anything in front of someone whom I’d kinda like to make a good impression on isn’t anything I’d consider to be anywhere within the realm of appropriate. Still, I had to be a good sport – and so I was going to have to accuse someone in this group of knowing nothing about buttsex. In all honesty, it's not the worst thing to know nothing about – but having to say the word aloud and personally relate it to someone else made me want to crawl under the table and hide. Having to accept responsibility for writing "roofing" didn't help either.
The night ebbed on, the board game continued, and boundaries progressively deteriorated. The Shaolin monk had clearly departed earlier in the evening, leaving only Rob Burgundy in his place, as Dan had not stopped giggling since the first round of answers were read off and was clearly hell-bent on continuing the hazing process.
At several points in the evening, I thought about pounding beers but was unsure if it would actually take the edge off or instead, lead me down the perilous path of drunkenly deciding to dive into the debauchery. I finally determined that it wasn't worth the risk, and so I spent the remainder of the evening nursing my drink, acutely aware of the fact that I was sitting there accusing Mark3’s loved ones of offering up thoughtful answers such as “having sex with ponies” (things you can get arrested for), “10-inch black dildos” (things you should keep away from children), blowjobs ("things you shouldn't ask your dad's advice on") and of course, lots more buttsex (turns out it was a fitting response in every single round).
After about two and a half painfully awkward hours, I was finally put out of my misery. The game was declared over, the points were tallied, and while I'm an extraordinarily competitive person, this was a victory I gladly relinquished. Any hint of professionalism that I’d hoped to salvage in the company of the NHL player had dissolved – and thanks to my flawed reasoning, this was probably not helped by my complete avoidance of eye contact with him for the duration of the night.
I’ve yet to hear what Natasha’s take on me was, and I'm not sure I want to know. I'll just pray she had too much to drink and whenever she sees me next, will shake my hand and say "nice to meet you." And god help me if I ever have to work with the hockey player. In any event, hopefully, meeting the friends and family is all uphill from here, and hopefully, I never get a second chance to make a worse impression.
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