The Worst Question Your Relatives Could Ask
Elizabeth Baker
Raise your hand if you have ever been personally victimized by nosey relatives:
When we were little, we didn’t like our relatives because they were overbearing, smelly, and gave the worst Christmas presents. Now that we’re a little older, we still don’t like our relatives – but now, the reason is SO much worse.
Going home for the holidays is supposed to be an exciting time. You’re supposed to be looking forward to seeing your family again and eating homemade food for the first time in months. Holidays are meant to be times of togetherness, happiness, and relaxation. Unfortunately, the college girl doesn’t get any of this… and it’s all due to the horrifying questions your relatives ask you about your personal life.
There is one question, though, your relatives are bound to ask you no matter what. It’s impossible to avoid, annoying to answer, and frustrating to hear. We’ve all been through it before. Here’s an explanation on why this is the worst question and tips on how to respond without losing your mind.
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
You’re telling your uncle about your favorite class this semester when BOOM! Without warning, your aunt interrupts with a bazooka of a question. Perhaps the most annoying (and notably, most frequently asked) question we get over the holidays, “do you have a boyfriend,” has to be the one that will cause us to have a mental breakdown. There’s no comfortable way to answer this question. If it were up to you, you’d look your family in the face and tell them to F-off and have a nice day. But, against your will, you have to come up with some kind of satisfactory and mature response.
If you say yes, you do have a boyfriend, you’ve got to be prepared to provide name, pictures, the “how-you-met” story, career goals, life history, family medical history, blood type, and probably a DNA sample. You’ll never escape the gratuitous amount of unsolicited advice about your relationship your family so graciously wants to give you.
On the contrary, if you say that you don’t have a boyfriend, you’ll elicit a totally different response. Don’t get me wrong, this response is just as dramatic as the other. Did you know that not having a boyfriend is the smartest, easiest, and best decision you could ever make (because you have complete control over getting guys to want to be your boyfriend, apparently)?
When you tell your relatives that you don’t have a boyfriend, they’ll start with something along the lines of, “good for you! You don’t need to worry about guys right now anyway.”
Hold up. What? You think I want to be single?! That’s so cute. Keep telling me how smart I am for “choosing” to be single. I won’t cry, I promise. Meanwhile I’m contemplating joining every site from Match to Farmer’s Only because I don’t want to end up forever alone. I would really appreciate it if we could change the subject, okay?
“You’re too young to worry about boys and love, anyway.”
Actually, Aunt Ida, I’m 22 years old now. Don’t you remember that you were 23 when you got married and had two kids by 26? My biological clock is slowly ticking away! I’m in my prime for marriage and childbirth but I can’t even get a boy to text me back, let alone date me!
“You’re in college, you shouldn’t want to be in a relationship anyway. You need to have fun while you’re young!”
This statement comes from the relative who’s trying to be “cool.” Maybe the one that winks at you and nudges you with an elbow, as if to say, “if ya know what I mean…” at the end of their sentence. When you relatives start commenting on your sex life, there’s only one option left to get out of the conversation:
Now, escape to the kitchen to find what you actually came for.