Getting into a new relationship is both extremely exciting and extremely nerve-wracking.
- You don’t really know who you’re getting into bed with until you’ve been there for a few years.
Unfortunately, this means you spend a lot of time and energy investing in one human before you have a great understanding of who they are underneath. Besides the personal dramas of learning to understand another human, you also have to consider how easily you align with their biological family. I can’t tell you how many terrible in-laws I’ve had throughout my dating experiences. One set of parents, in particular, really stands out as the worst in-laws you could ask for. To start with, they were extremely protective of their son. They hated me from the moment they met me. Secondly, they lived in Florida. I can tell you, I’m not a fan of the state and I didn’t appreciate having to visit them. When we would go to visit, they weren’t very hospitable. Since they were accustomed to the oppressive heat and humidity in that region, they thought everybody should be. They rarely used their indoor thermostat to moderate to the sticky air quality. If I ever mentioned to the uncomfortably hot and humid indoor air, they just looked confused and told me it must be my haughty northern blood. They made me feel like a fool for having indoor air temperature preferences at all. This meant, I rarely got any sleep when we went to stay with them. Towards the end of our relationship, I was so fed up with their air conditioning shenanigans that I brought my own portable AC with when I went to visit. Then, I could pump cool air into the house without adjusting their precious thermostat.