Dating at Home

​Hello,

So as many of you know I’ve moved back to Toronto. What you may (or may not) know is that I’ve returned to living in my parents’ house. And there are lots of pros to living with my parents. First of all, constant entertainment; my parents are fucking hilarious. Second, the food is amazing, and the booze is even better. Third, free rent. So yes, those are three among the many reasons that I really enjoy living with my parents. However, there is one thing I am less excited for.

Although we’re all currently locked in our houses, there will come a time when the world opens back up. At which point, my single self will want to rejoin the world of other singles and find myself a man (men? I’m in no rush to settle downs fear of having a spinster for a daughter). But dating at home can be a buzzkill.

Now, my parents aren’t super religious or anything. They’re not asking me to save myself for marriage or reject men until a suitor comes along that can buy me for 10 cows and a bag of gold coins. They’re realistic that I will date people and…hang out with people who are not “the one” (I mean if you ask me “the one” is a bit of a hoax, but that’s for another time). And my parents know about my less than virtuous past, (my mom found when I got a UTI and my dad discovered the birth control boxes I had stashed in my room, which led to a particularly uncomfortable dinner conversation) so we’re all on the same page.

However, we don’t really exchange information regarding casual dating. My parents know when there is someone significant to know about, someone they should expect to see around, someone who will be taking time in my life. They DO NOT need to know about short term flings that I use to keep life interesting. In fact, my parents and I talk about everything under the sun except sex. I mean, we talk about talking about sex. And sex in its periphery comes up, like a couple nights ago when we discussed pros and cons to making prostitution legal, but that debate was primarily political.

But my parents and I don’t talk about sex or dates or casual dating. Not in the books. Telling your parents makes it seem like this big deal when the point of casual dating is to be “breezy”. Involving parents is not breezy. Plus, the idea of my mom and dad witnessing my hot mess of a romantic life makes me want to vomit. There is a threshold of appropriate parental interaction in casual dating and I will give you an example:

Appropriate: A boy picks me up from home and while I am leaving my house my mom is also leaving the house at coincidentally the same time. They share a BRIEF “Hello” and the world continues to turn.

There are so many inappropriate examples of parental interaction. And when I lived in my own apartment in my own city the chance of inappropriateness occurring was 0%. But living at home makes dating feel like walking through a field of land mines. I’m not bringing home a boy after the bar just so my mom could come into my room at 2am to see if I stole her melatonin when she can’t sleep. I’m not letting this boy walk out in the morning so they can meet over morning coffee and the paper. Nope. Not in the cards.

Plus, my parents are home all the fucking time. My mom works from home and my dad is retired. So, I can’t “wait for a free base” because the base is never free. Nobody ever leaves. It is constantly filled with my genetics. My parents are running around, watching movies, having dinner, drinking wine on the back patio, all of which is stopping me from casually dating. I’m not emotionally prepared to settle down right now! I haven’t collected enough stories to write songs about yet.

And yes, I could go to his place. But first and foremost, ladies, Lord knows what I’m going to run into when I get to this boy’s place. I have seen boy-apartments that resemble the state of frat houses. And there is a reason that I spent four years in a sorority and 0 nights at a frat house. Moreover, then I have to do the walk of shame home in the morning. To who? MY PARENTS. And that is not a conversation I want to have.

I don’t want to have any of these conversations with my parents. I don’t want to talk about ghosting and rosters and dating apps with them. I want to keep that part of my life entirely separate from my family, screw drawing a line in the sand, I want to carve a line in the cement.
So, to my friends who live at home. I am reaching out for advice. Because moving out right now is not financially feasible and I’m not returning to celibacy. I need options. How do you date while living at home? How do you meet people and… get frisky? HOW DO YOU BE SNEAKY? Because although it feels like the world has stopped turning, I need a plan for when it starts up again.

From me, with love, to you,
​
-Victoria

---