<p>I like the introvert/extrovert thing, marian. :)</p>
<p>BTW, I e-mailed the OP and have received no response. :( I'm hoping some lurkers are getting something out of the contributions of ek4, latetoschool, and everybody else who has posted. Seems a shame to waste good advice. Maybe I should start dating again.:)</p>
<p>Off-Topic </p>
<p>P.S. I've just decided that if I ever join another BB my name on the board will be "Original Poster". ;)</p>
<p>Marian,</p>
<p>Excellent point re: introvert v. extrovert. I'm very much an introvert - large groups either scare me or bore me or make me tired - but have learned to adapt and get "people time" in ways that work for me. So I have a lot of one-on-one time with people. My (very extroverted) parents can take a while to figure out that I socialise in different ways than they do. </p>
<p>Curmudgeon, </p>
<p>Trust me, you don't want to date again! :) Sure, it makes for some good stories, but bungee-jumping into a tank full of sharks also makes for good stories. Mosey on over to Sinner's Alley and we'll pow-wow.</p>
<p>Ariesathena, I can soooo relate to your post and your parents. D and I are still understanding each other - I'm perfectly happy living inside my head, or having one-on-one time with very close, trusted friends, or curled up at home with a good book. Dating is hard because it's just not all that interesting to me - lots of effort and feels too much like "work", unless of course I'm having a strong attraction the gentleman. Parties don't scare me, but they are hopelessly boring and even irritating - I'd rather watch grass grow or paint dry. </p>
<p>But D? The uber-extravert never heard of a person, party, social event, etc. that was not overwhelmingly interesting. </p>
<p>Put this dynamic into what she does at college; initially, as I'm watching from a distance, I'm not understanding how she is not absolutely obsessed with the endless supply of awesome materials in the libraries, or the way cool stuff in the science labs. Me? I get almost a chemical high - ridiculously excited - just reading the titles on spines of the books and the directories on the buildings at her school. For me, other people are obstacles, they are in the way of my getting to those books, and exploring the lab equipment. </p>
<p>Not so D, for whom college is an endless supply of interesting people, events, parties, discussions, debate, celebrations, office hours and Starbucks face time with professors, etc. Luckily, she also has managed to remember "oh yeah I should probably drop by that class I'm in too" etc. </p>
<p>Happily, it's all worked out well and she has the numbers and recommendations for grad school, etc. It's also probably been o.k. because I used herculean restraint to keep my mouth closed tightly, especially during her freshman year - I resolved I would offer only support and make no negative comments. Can't say why, just intuitively somehow knew that's what I should do. Marian articulated it nicely though. </p>
<p>It's balanced well, too; I think my influence is the only thing that has kept D from some disaster, such as falling asleep driving due to too many successive social events. Because of me, she knows the pleasure of curling up with a good book and falling asleep with the page open and the lights still on. Works the other way too - because of her, I am dragged to events that never would I consider attending if she didn't harrass me and force me, and that once there I discover it really is fun and interesting; also end up socializing with new people that I otherwise wouldn't consider.</p>
<p>I know my mother hated every single girl my brothers dated. She complains to me regularly about my sisters-in-law. I don't think she ever wanted other women in their lives. Not an unfamiliar scene. I have been accused by my sons of the same traits, but I don't think so. (I am so objective) It is difficult to adjust when your son/daughter brings home someone completely different from what you had in mind. My athlete son was seeing a girl who was pure "goth" in style, and that really got to me. In retrospect, I should have kept my mouth shut so that when he was seeing a girl with true issues (suicide threats, nasty anger tantrum, calling incessantly) I would have had more clout.</p>
<p>I think any serious romantic relationship includes some sort of implicit critique of the participants' parents, usually a pretty nuanced one. But it is not surprising that the parents are sometimes uncomfortable with that critique. (And the participants are sometimes less-than-fully conscious about it, at least pre-therapy.)</p>
<p>Superficially, my wife and my mother (whose relationship has never gotten better than diplomatic tolerance) are very different. I am extremely aware of the many similarities between them, but neither of them has ever been much interested in hearing about those similarities. My mother has always been disappointed that I chose someone like THAT rather than someone who conformed more to what she imagined for me (which was of course a particular kind of idealized view of herself, free of the flaws and anxieties she feels). She has also always understood, at least at a visceral level, that I chose someone like THAT because I perhaps did not place as high a value on some of her qualities as she did, or, more precisely, because what I loved about her was not exactly what she loved about herself. As for my wife, she would like to believe that in choosing her I was definitively rejecting the qualities in my mother my wife finds disquieting, whereas the truth is that I was opting for a slightly different arrangement of them.</p>