whine or anti-whine?
My mum just found out it might be possible for her to come and visit me sometime next year. This is a good thing because I'd like to see her and show her around and stuff. The problem is she's going to want me to show her what I do here and places I go and I don't think a tour consisting of "here's the corner of my room where I usually sit with my computer and over here is the desk I occasionally sit at with my computer" will set her mind at ease about me being okay over here. I have a year, I guess; maybe I can get some sort of life by then... (as if I haven't already been saying that for the past 10 years). She's going to assume I'm best, best friends with my housemates, too and she'll tell them things. Sure, they're probably things a normal person would have told friends, but that's kind of worse, because then I'll look like the secretive, anti-social loser I am... I feel bad for not being unreservedly excited, because I genuinely was recently thinking about how fun it would be to show her cool stuff around here, but I can't help freaking out a bit at the possibility of worlds colliding.
posted by Lucy @ 11:05 PM
7
comments
7 Comments:
Well, as you say, it's still a year away...
Is it the kind of thing where your mom's visit could spur you to open up to your housemates a bit more beforehand, preemptively?
also, as someone living with relatively "normal" housemates, I'm always surprised at how little I really know about their backgrounds, family life/structure, growing up, etc. And I always forget exactly what I do know. So you may not be at risk of looking *that* weird in any case, unless, I don't know, your mom calls you "sweety pants" and assumes your housemates do as well. that might cause confusion.
I completely panic about my mom every meeting my friends. In part because of the things she might say to them, and in part because people always like my parents and then don't believe me anymore when I talk about how horrible they have been to me.
Mucho empathy from me.
Kermit, unfortunately I'm socially incompetent enough not to even know what she might assume is common knowledge. Oh crap, I just realised she knows I "was" depressed and she's likely to assume that I'd turn to my housemates for support... Maybe she'll have forgotten about it by then. One can only hope.
Shrinky, that sucks that people don't believe you. My mum was actually kind of upset last week because one of my little brother's friends came over and she overheard him tell my brother "your mum's nice" in a surprised tone of voice. I haven't heard my brother's side of it yet, though.
Other people's parents are always nice aren't they? It's only your own parents who you resent for the various things they've done or not done throughout your life, or who know exactly what buttons to push. I like the friends parents who I've met, even though I can see how they've driven their children insane. It's probably because everyone's on their best behaviour when meeting relative strangers.
yeah, it's definitely easier to like someone for a short time when you've never had to live with them.
The other thing is that other people can't necessarily see the ways in which our parents are messed up just by casual contact. I mean, my mom is or has been depressed, psychotic, and quite possibly autistic -- but my friends never knew unless I told them.
Your housemates may learn something new about you from your mom if she visits -- but remember, they're not looking for reasons to judge you the way your family might!
I've had various times when I've had to entertain relatives and sustain the impression that I had a more interesting and social existence than I actually had. But, sounds like you have a year to plot.
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