Officially the gay uncle
My boyfriend is closer in age to my older sister than he is to me, and so when we were all having dinner together on Sunday at her house in Jersey, I felt a little bit like a kid at the adult table, listening politely to grownup conversations about jobs and houses and cars, and wondering when I could excuse myself to go play with my cousins. But this is how I always am with my family, boyfriend in tow or not. I am awkward, quiet and careful. Unless I've been drinking, of course, in which case I'm contributing to my maternal grandmother's innocently racist rants or telling my mother's ex-husband's wife how much I adore her. It only gets really bad when my mother drunkenly lets her guard down, too, revealing herself to be human. That has a way of making me feel guilty.
I have never before introduced a boyfriend to my family, unless you count that one time after senior prom when Arthur dropped me off at my house while my parents were gardening and I introduced him as my friend from school. I'm sure my mother saw right through that. Maybe it was the fact that I had never before mentioned a male friend of any kind in front of her. Or that we lived in New York and Arthur's car had Jersey plates. Hmm.
I think the best part of Sunday was when my boyfriend and I sat down with my four-year-old niece for a pretend tea party. Over the course of 20 minutes, she adorably served me pretend tea with pretend cream and pretend sugar, pretend strawberry cake, pretend ice cream, and pretend iced tea (because, why not?) - all from a delicate set of chinaware that she keeps in better condition than the dishes Agatha and I have in our kitchen cabinets. We talked about silly, non-adult things, like Halloween costumes and pool parties and "The Little Mermaid." I told her how much I love Ariel, and she told me that the scenes with Ursula sometimes scare her. I was honest when I said those scenes sometimes scare me, too.
At the dinner table, my niece pointed at my boyfriend and whispered in my ear, "Is he your husband?" I don't think little kids understand the concept of dating as opposed to marriage, but I know they can see when two people love each other the way in which mommy and daddy love each other. She will probably tell my mother that Uncle Toby and his husband came to visit her on Sunday, which will lead to a very interesting phone call from my mother or perhaps none at all.
