Meeting Her Parents: Make the Best of It!

15.03.2019

You've been dating for quite a while, and you really enjoy each other. You get the feeling that you belong together. You feel that your girlfriend is your perfect match. Obviously, it's time to make one of the most important steps in your relationship. No, no, no, we are not talking about marriage. That important step will take place later, but it depends on another important step that we are going to talk about. The step we are talking about is meeting her parents. Let's figure out why meeting her parents for the first time is an extremely important moment and how not to fail.

Why Making the Right Impression on Her Parents is That Important?

When the time comes to meet the parents, guys generally get extremely frustrated. And they are absolutely right about it. Making the right impression on her parents when meeting them for the first time is crucial, as their attitude impacts your relationship's development. Even when your girlfriend doesn't take into consideration her parents' opinion on her dating choices, having bad blood with her family is going to have a negative effect on your relationship. All visits on Christmas Eve is going to turn into a nightmare. Lunchtime with her family, when her parents are constantly snipping to each of your phrases is unlikely something to enjoy. So, you need to make sure that you are not going to make any mistakes when you are meeting your girlfriend's parents for the first time.

How to Make a Great Impression on Her Family?

Now let’s figure out how to meet your girlfriend’s parents. While you can try figuring out how to make a good impression on her parent on your own, we can provide you with some useful information. Not that meeting your girlfriend’s parents is an art, still, there are certain rules that we strongly recommend you to follow. Following those rules would help you go through meeting your significant other’s family with an easy. So, we offer you to check out our list of meeting the parents for the first-time tips without further ado.

1. What to Wear When Meeting Her Parents?

Men will never get rid of the question about what to wear for special occasions. First, you need to think about what to wear on your first date, then you need to figure out what to wear to meet the parents. Well, clothes are extremely important, as nothing tells more about your personality than your outfit. Your outfit shows your attitude to people that you meet as well, so you need to pick up your clothes properly. You need to look presentable, even if you are just having a casual dinner at her parents’ house. You should dress sharp but avoid looking like a peacock’s tale. Don’t wear anything outlandish. And make sure that your outfit is ironed beforehand.

2. What to Bring When Meeting Her Parents?

You should also mind the gifts when you’re preparing for meeting the parents. It is quite difficult to guess what to bring your girlfriend’s father, but it is obvious that you can bring flowers for her mother. Your girlfriend can be a great help in this case. If her father prefers a certain type of alcohol, let’s say wine or scotch, you can easily ask her about the brand her father likes most. You should also ask her about the flowers her mother likes. So, you can buy her mother a perfect bouquet. If you’ve bought it in a grocery store, take some time to remove a price tag, as it can spoil the whole impression.

3. Engage in a Conversation

You should really engage in a conversation with her parents. Be it small talk or in-depth conversation about political or other issues, you shouldn’t avoid it. You won’t be able to make a good impression when you keep silent all evening. Most likely her parents would think that you are weird.

4. Give Compliments

Giving compliments is one of the most crucial things about meeting her parents. Compliment their house if the dinner takes place at their house. If the dinner takes place at the restaurant, and her family is the ones who have chosen it, compliment their choice. But don’t get all that flattering, as you may start sounding fake.

5. Give a Nice Good-Bye

Don’t forget to give her parents a nice good-bye. Thank her parents for the hospitality, and that it was a pleasure to meet them. Sending them a “Thank you” note would be a great opportunity to make a good impression.

Mistakes to Avoid When Meeting Her Parents

Now, having learned the tips for meeting the parents, there are still some things you should find out. The above-mentioned rules are great, but they will make no sense if you follow them wrong. We make mistakes all the time, but only mistakes made in crucial moments have an impact on our lives. So, knowing that making the wrong impression on her family will affect your further relationship, you need to avoid making mistakes when meeting her parents for the first time. In order to help you with that, we’ve compiled the list of mistakes that you should avoid when meeting her family for the first time.

1. Don’t Bring Your Phone to the Table

Typical problem of the 21st century is to spend most of your time, staring at your smartphone. Just like you should avoid focusing on it on your first date, you should avoid bringing a smartphone to the table when meeting your parents for the first time. Texting and scrolling down the feed, while having dinner with her family for the first time is simply rude. If you want to put your girlfriend out of listening to her parents’ commentaries about your attitude, don’t bring your phone to the table.

2. Don’t Get That Touchy and Feely

When you are young, you are okay with openly showing your affection. But you need to understand the time and place. Meeting her parents is not the best time to get all that touchy and feely. You won’t leave a good impression if you’re going to hug and kiss your girlfriend all the time while talking to her parents. Aside from that being just uncomfortable, it is quite impolite to show your affection in front of anyone else. So, keep your hands and tongue to yourself, when you are meeting with her parents. You can get touchy and feely afterward when you are back home.

3. Don’t Be Mr. Know-It-All

We’ve already told you that you should engage in a conversation with your significant other’s parents. But that doesn’t mean that a chat with her parents needs to turn into showing how smart you are. Don’t be Mr. Know-it-All. That’s irritating, and you can make a wrong impression on your girlfriend’s parents. While you may think that you are just carrying on a conversation, as you know the topic, her parents may consider you to be obnoxious. Even if you don’t agree with your girlfriend’s parents’ view on something, or you are keen on the topic that you are discussing, you should let them finish expressing their opinion, before you start talking.

4. Don’t Overstay Your Welcome

You must know when to leave. It is okay to stay for dinner and have a lively chat with your girlfriend’s parents. But staying for the next day is mostly unacceptable. Especially if her parents aren’t asking you to. Even when they do, you should kindly refuse. But don’t even think about asking them to stay for another day, especially with excuses like, “Oh, it’s too late and I feel too tired to drive back.” Don’t overstay your welcome. You should know when to leave. Otherwise, you’re going to disappoint her family. You can’t even imagine the exact number of parents’ complaints about their children’s boyfriends or girlfriends overstaying their welcome.

5. Don’t Drink Too Much

You should avoid drinking too much alcohol at the first dinner with your girlfriend’s parents. Aside from the fact, that you are going to stay less focused, and it is hard to control yourself when you are getting drunk, you don’t want to appear to her family as an alcoholic. While you can justify that by explaining that you were a bit nervous when meeting your significant other’s parents, it is better to avoid situations like that. So, avoid drinking too much when you meet her parents for the first time.

6. Don’t Talk About Your Problems

The worst thing you can do to disappoint your girlfriend’s parents is complaining about your problems. Even if your problems have something to do with the topic of your conversation, you should avoid talking about your problems. Aside from the fact that it is impolite, your girlfriend’s parents may assume that you are asking them for help, which is definitely a bad investment in your future relationship. So, whatever you do, avoid complaining about your problems.

7. Don’t Be Fake-Nice

You know that you should be nice with your significant other’s parents, but you shouldn’t get over the top with it. When you are acting fake-nice, your chances to make a good impression decrease drastically. Be nice and polite, but don’t try to be politer and nicer than you can be. Don’t try to impress her parents with your manners on purpose. Just mind your manners every time you meet her family, especially the first time, and everything will work just perfectly.