Don’t Mention It

My girlfriend and I are both out to our families. My parents are your typical former dope-smoking, Catholic, rustbelt kids who grew up to be guidance counselors with a penchant for indie folk music. Not surprisingly, my former peacenik parents are hardcore liberals. My girlfriend’s parents were more kids of the 70s, but also came up Catholic in a slowly dying steel town, drinking three-two beer, and blasting prog rock. Somewhere along this path, they became staunch Republicans.

My girlfriend’s parents have been nothing but nice and generous to me, taking me on family vacations, sending birthday cards with kind words underlined for emphasis (“You Are Special!” I love when people do this), and asking how I’m doing whenever they call. It’s still a little creepy, though, to come face-to-face with the framed Laura and G.W. Bush photo in their house, and I can’t beat the feeling that they are less than thrilled with their daughter’s way of life.

Our parents’ two-party system usually translates into an established dichotomy with how my girlfriend and I act around our respective families. My family is pretty much anything goes; Shelly’s family is a little more don’t ask, don’t tell. Everyone in her family knows we’re together, but we don’t really talk about it--erring more on the side of being the weirdos that live in the city and dress like teenagers.

This past week, both my girlfriend’s Mom and sister came to stay with us. The sister has been living in sin with her boyfriend for several years, much to the chagrin and constant comment of her parents. She complained about the pressure to make her relationship legit--get married, quit her job, and have a bunch of babies. I couldn’t help but feel relieved that the kind of scrutiny my relationship falls under is not the kind that’s polite to talk about at the dinner table. Whereas my girlfriend’s sister’s relationship was fair game for openly passing judgment, me and Shelly’s relationship was somewhat protected in its cloak of invisibility.

It feels strange to take advantage of this “queer privilege”. A younger me would be raging against the injustice of it all, demanding to have my relationship seen equally in the eyes of my in-laws. After going through several girlfriends and varying levels of acceptance from their families, I feel like I finally can see the merits of keeping some family at arm’s length. Yeah, it makes me a little sad that I will never really relate to my girlfriend’s parents. I also will never kick it with my Grandma about the implausibility of dental dam use. Some things are best left in the closet. In fact, I’m kind of liking that folks’ discomfort or not knowing how to handle the queer thing means I get to get away with stuff straight people don’t. Granted, aside from the same-sex sleepovers that flew under the radar when I was a teenager, it’s hard to come up with a big list of benefits to not being asked / not having to tell. But for me, immunity to in-law pressure is definitely one of them. Except for the fact that it's Republican, I don't really mind the elephant in the room.