Should You Meet Her Parents?

She?s more than a one night stand. After your hook-up, after that first night of wild, passionate, highly experimental sex, you went out again. You really like her. It turns out the two of you get along great. She has shown no signs of trying to pressure you into monogamy. You text and FB each other every day?sharing jokes, gossip, and other intimacies. You occasionally meet for drinks or a meal and then go back to your place or hers for sex. It is the perfect twentysomething relationship for the twenty-first century. It fuses elements of the drinking buddy, friends-with-benefits, and proper girlfriend relationships.

The genius of what you?ve got going is that everything remains scrupulously undefined. That is why she feels empowered to introduce you to her parents. If there are no agreed rules or boundaries, what has she to lose?

She may have brought the idea up casually, as if it were no big deal. But you are right to worry over the implications of making this move. No matter how easy going a woman appears, she will not introduce you to her parents unless she is reasonably sure the relationship is going somewhere.

Much like yourself, your pretty, fit, vibrant, sexually liberated girl is just starting out in life. She?s got her college degree, a new job, and a new apartment. She is, for the first time, able to live independently?even if she shares with roommates?and she is having a lot of sex, with men up to and including you, well away from the view and judgment of her parents.

Although she knows that they know she is living such a lifestyle, she has no intention of acknowledging it or giving any definitive evidence of it. In other words, she is not going to introduce her parents to every man who has stuck his dick in her mouth.

If she has invited you to meet her parents, it means she wants to turn what has so far been a hazily defined relationship into something much more concrete and stable. She is plotting a future with you, and getting you to meet her parents is the opening gambit in this venture.

What to do?

You have four options. The first is to flat out refuse. If you do so and she backs off, it means she is willing to go on as before. It will also give you more power in the relationship, as you will be able to decide when you want to take things further, assuming you will ever want to.

Your second option is to stall. Tell her you want to meet her parents, but not just yet. This will give you time to decide your true feelings for her?that is, whether you really want her as a girlfriend.

The third option is to say yes?without condition. This is the obvious choice if you have already decided on the matter above.

The fourth option is a bit riskier. You can say yes while making it clear that you commit to nothing afterward. Make the most of your visit with her parents. Be kind, polite, and charming. But avoid all discussion of a future together with their daughter.

The first and the fourth options give you the best opportunity to sort out what you want the immediate future to be with this woman.