I am very close with my family so what goes on in my personal life, including whom I’m dating, is considered an open forum for questions and conversation. However, since online dating can be a very fluid situation where you go out on several dates in a short period of time, I don’t necessarily feel a need to tell my family, or even my friends for that matter, every time I go out on a first date. In fact, I generally won’t mention that I am seeing someone to my family or friends until we have gone out on a few dates and I actually have something meaningful to tell people.
My rationale behind this approach is: Only when I finally meet someone I’m interested in seeing more frequently will everyone in my close circle of friends and family know about her. Unfortunately, this methodology doesn’t really fly with my family, especially my mom and sister. Before my sister met her current, serious boyfriend she went out on several dates with guys she met on JDate, and after each date she would give my mom the details about the guy and date.
As a result of how openly my mom and sister talked about her JDating® experience they both have taken that same approach with me. Recently, I told my mom about a woman that I was seeing since we had gone out several times and it was going well; however, before I had the chance to tell my sister about her, my mom did. As a result, the next time my sister and I were on the phone she grilled me about my new quasi-relationship and made me vow to give her the news, and details, before she heard them from my mom.
Even though it may seem strange to some people that I would talk to my mom and sister about who I’m dating I honestly don’t care because we are close and I don’t mind sharing aspects of my dating life with them. Therefore, after this recent situation where I ended up being scolded by my sister because she had to hear about my dating news from my mom, we’ve reached a compromise where I still won’t tell them the details about every date I go on, but will make sure to keep both of them in the loop and up to date about what’s going on in my dating life so they don’t have to heard it from the other.
