the parent trap

meet the parents, i must admit, was a funny movie. meeting the parents, in real life, isn't funny at all.

but what's even less funny than that is not meeting the parents at all, even after 9 months of being together.

back in high school, when being in a relationship simply meant holding hands beneath the canteen table and having someone lug your bag for you after classes, meeting the parents wasn't a big thing. in fact, you'd both rather hide the fact that you were in a relationship with anyone, lest that mean your allowance and phone privileges get cut off. back in college, you knew you'd probably meet the parents during graduation or some other school function where you're forced to bring parents to school, provided that such happens after you turn 18 cause god knows parents have that 18 years old or after graduation boyfriend rule that absolutely does not make sense cause i firmly believe that you will have sex when you want to have sex and having a boyfriend has nothing to do with it.

but i digress.

i've been bothered by this fact sometime between our third and fourth month together. see, we live a hundred meters apart from each other, too close not to make time for a meeting. i met his sister a month after we got together (he invited her to watch a movie with us) and i've hung out with his cousins. we had dinner with his friends once and we've brought together one of his friends and one of mine (they celebrated their first month together last saturday!). we're as close as close can be. so i don't get it. why not the parents?

he's told me that his parents aren't comfortable with it, at least not yet. he told me that when the right time comes, it'll happen, but it won't happen in some contrived setting where his mom invites me over for dinner and we make small talk over paella and whatever you serve on contrived dinners such as that.

because of this, my insecurity has been on attack big time. is it cause i look like a teapot (short and stout)? is it cause i'm not prim and proper like his sisters? is it cause his sister didn't like me and has so reported something vile about me (like how i am able to finish popcorn even before the opening credits of the movie)?

i don't know. my aunt says not to mind it, and some of my friends tell me it's his parents' loss they don't get to meet an amazing creature like me (god bless my friends). but at the end of the day, i feel like a nobody, a girlfriend he sneaks the car out to take on a date, a girlfriend only talked about in hushed tones at home.

at 27, more than ten years after i've graduated from high school, i feel like i'm back in high school all over again.