Payback

I think that one of the most intimidating experiences in the world has to be meeting your boyfriend or girlfriend’s parents / family / close friends en masse for the first time (and that’s before factoring in a language barrier, which magnifies the intimidation factor exponentially). Thus, I was really looking forward to bringing Emilie to the U.S. in part so she could get a taste of the (self-imposed) intimidation that I had felt over the course of the past 16 or so months while meeting her family and friends.

While I could only hope that my family / friends would leave as favorable an impression on her as that left on me by hers, I nonetheless would relish the pressure that she would feel in meeting all those who are important to me. And though Emilie doesn’t suffer from the language barrier that I do, she’d be meeting everyone in such a concentrated period of time that I could finally consider us “even”.

And over the course of the various wedding-related events (the rehearsal dinner, the wedding itself, the subsequent brunch) as well as the large family / friends get-together that my parents held, Emilie was definitely thrown to the wolves. But she handled it well – very well, actually (far better than I would have, that’s for sure) – and didn’t display any of the telltale signs of intimidation / unease (e.g., the deer in the headlights blank stare that I’ve mastered) while facing the gauntlet.