Asking Eric: Gay man feels societal pressure to have a great relationship with his bitter mother

Dear Eric: I am a 35-year-old gay man. My mother is a duplicitous, bitter woman and my father is a weak-willed, hateful, homophobe.

I don’t particularly care for either one of them, and have never felt especially close to them in any capacity. Thankfully, I have many younger siblings and plenty of friends.

I am emotionally stable and am mentally healthy. Although busy with my career, I frequently date. During the dating phase of a relationship, how does one tactfully make it clear that he doesn’t like to talk about his parents at all?

I feel like people hear that I don’t have a relationship with my parents and they pity me and/or assume that I am a sociopath because I “don’t love my Mama.” It’s nothing like that, it’s just that when I am getting to know another man, I couldn’t care less about the relationship he has with his parents. I’m not trying to garner their approval (although other people’s parents tend to love me) or get to know his family members.

Why is there such a societal importance on (specifically gay) men to keep up some fantastic relationship with their mother?

– Never Been A Mama’s Boy

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Dear Never Been: Through dating, or, really, any social interaction, you’re likely to find people who have all kinds of relationships with their parents – close, estranged, complicated, and more.

Part of getting to know other people involves filling in the biographical details with context, color, and, most importantly, empathy. So, if you’re encountering people who are putting an expectation on you and your relationship with your parents, know that that’s less about you and more about them.

This can be a cold comfort. However, by processing your feelings about your parents, you’ll better equip yourself to navigate these interactions. Notice, I wrote

process

, not bury. I’m not suggesting you suddenly attempt closeness or reconciliation for the sake of dating.

Instead, I’m suggesting that by talking with a friend or counselor about the difficulty you’ve had with your parents, you’ll be able to own the narrative and communicate it clearly on dates.

One of the most attractive qualities that someone can bring to a date is emotional intelligence. Your letter already has a lot of that, so further processing will only help bolster it. This quality can help you to say to a date, for instance, “my parents are complicated people; they’re on their journey and I’m on mine. I’m working on healing and some of the ways that I’m healing are…”

Even when trying to find a love story, you don’t have to live in someone else’s narrative. Not your date’s and not your parents’.

Send questions to R. Eric Thomas at

eric@askingeric.com

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