Today I argued with my eighty one year old father.
My father and mother separated when I was four. I lived with my unstable mother until the age of ten, then moved to Europe to live with my retired grandparents until I was fourteen. When I returned to America, I was told my father had been found. My mother had hidden us from him, poisoning my mind with hatred toward him, and I believed her.
Years later, my mother’s behavior became unbearable. I moved in with my father, but the hate I had been taught still lived in me, through no fault of his own. I graduated high school, left for college, quit, and got my own apartment while working for my father. I still carried the same resentment.
Eventually my father remarried and had two sons. No one pushed me aside, but I felt like an outsider in his new family. So I left and never looked back.
Sixteen years later, I reconnected with my brothers on Facebook, leading to a tearful reunion. By that time I was divorced, and I understood my father better. The hate had disappeared, somewhere after my mother’s death.
Over the years I visited my father, stepmother, and brothers regularly. But every visit came with the same questions from him:
“How’s your love life?”
“Any new romances?”
“Anyone new in your life?”
“Met anyone at work?”
“I married at forty six, there’s still hope for you.”
“Your grandfather married at fifty three, there’s still hope for you.”
“My tenant thinks you’re good looking.”
Every single visit was one of those same lines. It wore me down. Eventually my older half brother joined in with his own lectures. I shrugged it off for years until one day, walking through a mall, my father asked again. I snapped.
“What’s with the questions? Do you think I’m gay? What’s wrong with me? What do you want me to do to make you happy?” I shouted, making it clear that I was single and staying that way.
The very next day, he asked again. It was like he hadn’t heard a word I said.
When I got home, I sent him several of my articles and followed with a text:
“Maybe one day you and Billy will stop calling me gay.”
He told me not to be ridiculous. I told him straight, the lectures and hints hurt me. I did not care what his tenant thought of me. I was done being poked at. You cannot keep pushing a tiger and not expect it to bite.
I reminded him that I had already been with enough psychotic girlfriends who saw me only as a provider. I was not going back to that insanity. Yes, I know the tired line, “Not all women are like that”, followed by the accusation that it is my fault for picking them. My answer is simple. I will not pick them anymore.
I cut out people who nag me about being single. I do not want to have to cut out my father. I have been with too many women. I only wanted one. I am not jumping back into the fire. Women with multiple children from multiple men, with histories of abortions and STDs, are not for me. Entitled women who expect the world from me have no place in my life. I was not put here to be a woman’s meal ticket.
He said he would not mention it again. I told him please, keep that promise.
Later I apologized for blowing up, explaining that it is a sensitive subject for me. He accepted my apology. I told him I value the time we have together and do not want it to end. He told me it ends when he passes on, and that I will still have my siblings and his wife. I told him there will be time.
