My oldest Samuel is 19 and is very much a stereotypical boy we bonded over cars , sports , fixing shit all the general guy stuff . He’s also gay which has never been a problem he never really had to come out to us or anything he just started talking about boys at school he liked since elementary school. He’s in college now on the other side of the country and hes always busy with school and wrestling that we don’t get to hear alot from him or about this serious guy hes been seeing for the last 6 months, Ian (19M).
He came back home for his cousin’s wedding this weekend and he decided to bring Ian home with him to finally meet us. Now Samuel has been dating since he was 14 but hes only really had one or two "serious" boyfriends and this is his first real adult relationship. Pretty much hes ever dated has been just like him usually either a teammate or some boy from another team.. So I definitely wasnt expecting Ian. I mean hes a nice kid and all but hes a vegan and Gothic and apparently is a ballet dancer. He also doesn’t watch sports or drink beer and honestly I’m much more used to Samuel having boyfriends i could talk about Sundays game with or bring along to box seats. I tried my best to find some ground with the boy but I just kinda gave up after a while. My wife and his sisters took more of a shine to him.
Before they left Samuel pulled me aside and asked why Id been so cold to Ian and that he really liked Ian but now Ian thinks i don’t like him. I tried to explain that I liked him fine I just didn’t expect him to bring someone home so "fancy" and I couldn’t really find much in common with the kid is all so i didn’t say much. He gets mad and says that I should leave my comfort zone more. I asked my wife and she says I should apologize to Ian and maybe actually indulge in his interest instead of just mine.
So it’s okay for your son to be gay as long as his boyfriend’s are manly enough for your delicate senses? You don’t have to have anything in common with someone to be polite, which you obviously weren’t considering you were being cold to Ian. YTA
YTA. Listen to your wife.
I mean, if your son wasn’t gay and had a girlfriend there would be a probability of not being able to talk about cars or sports. How would you behave in this situation? Having interest in a person should not be associated with their gender. YTA
YTA. You’re an adult, your son and Ian are still teenagers. You should’ve made more of an effort even though he’s, what, not manly enough for you? Since you’re not the one dating him, that shouldn’t be an issue. Your son and your wife are correct. You need to step out of your comfort zone. Maybe you could take your son and Ian out for a nice dinner or to a movie or a play or even a walk along the beach (or in a park if you don’t live near a beach). The point is, you should have worked harder to find common ground or at least been able to manage some courtesy. Shame on you.
Seems like a great opportunity for you to open your horizons and experience some new things.
YTA
Soft YTA
Samuel is kind of right in that you should really branch out of your comfort zone more. Part of learning how to relate to people is taking time to learn about their interests, that are important to them. And if Sam and Ian are together, they obviously share each other’s interests to some degree, which means that Sam is getting into what Ian likes and vice versa.
Why not learn a little about ballet and goth culture? Sports are not the only the interesting subject in the world.
So it’s fine for your kid to be gay as long as his boyfriends are adequately masculine for you? How sure are you that your kid isn’t play-acting what you see as masculine to make you happy, if that’s how you react to someone who isn’t?
I think you need to leave your comfort zone a little more, yes. YTA.
YTA, I think this is a good lesson in growing as a person. Why not ask questions about being vegan, goth-asthetic, or ballet? those are some interesting characteristics and I bet there are stories and reasons behind them all! Even if you don’t have an interest, getting more curious about others and their interests should still lead to interesting conversations and in Ian’s case asking doesn’t mean you all of a sudden want to be a goth, vegan, ballet dancer. If your son cares about him, you should try to care too.
YTA. YOU didn’t like this kid, because YOU didn’t have anything in common with him. did YOU automatically write him off when you learned he did ballet and didn’t like sports? how long did you try to have a conversation before you “gave up after a while”?
If your son didn’t like sports, would you even like him? How do you interact with your daughter and wife, or do they like sports so you can talk to them? is your whole life ONLY sports, since that is the only thing you repeatedly bring up.
You really need to have some ready replies in your bag for situations like this so that you don’t look like an asshole when talking to your son. stuff like “He’s nice and if he makes you happy, i’m happy.” or “Ya’ll are so sweet together”, or “I’m glad to see you smile so much son.”
What did your wife and daughter do when they didn’t have common grounds with the bf? Did they get cold bc they couldn’t talk sports or whatever? Maybe start to take interest in some other things than beers and sports. YTA
You don’t have to share the same interests to be polite to someone and talk about random stuff. Find some common ground, or a tv show you might both like? You love your son and he loves you, so it is good to be nice to who he also loves. Also, ballet dancers are some of the most athletic people in the world – and they must make the elite athleticism LOOK nice, too – that is a major skill that many athletes couldn’t pull off. You don’t have to be SUPER welcoming – just kind.
YTA
How do you manage to interact with your wife if you can only talk about boy things that only boys like?
Your narrow minded gender stereotyping and refusal to engage in normal conversations with other people belies some deep rooted issues. Get therapy.
I’m not sure where the soft YTAs are coming from. This is a HARD YTA. You have made the barest of efforts to get to know this kid and then immediately written him off because he doesn’t fit the type of gay that you find acceptable.
Whether you share his interests or not doesn’t matter. You are his boyfriend’s dad, probably the person he was most nervous about meeting, especially considering his boyfriend is more traditionally manly. And now he knows that was for good reason.
You need to try a lot harder than this.
YTA
If he was straight and brought home a girl, it’d be very likely that she wouldn’t like those things. But you’d still be friendly and socialise as much as you could
The fact he brought this up to you as an issue, and he got mad, tells me that you didn’t really bother to socialise at all with Ian. Which is completely on you and something you need to figure out. Maybe you have zero things in common with your son’s boyfriend, but even then, there are still ways to socialise and make him feel welcome