Hi Auntie,

Just, first off, I’ve never had a boyfriend. Never been kissed, asked out, or anything like that. My parents expect me to find a nice, decent boy, with good grades and a nice family background and such. I made a pact with my sister when we were five that we wouldn’t date anybody that the other didn’t approve of. I was cool with this, because I thought that I wouldn’t date anybody “trashy.” I’m a good student, with all As, and focus more on my studying and music future. I’m not ugly, but I’m not the best looking person either. Nobody’s ever noticed me before.

Until now.

Z has been a curveball for the entire time I’ve known him. He arrived about four months ago. I noticed him right away, because of his hair. He has a man bun. He likes beaches and reggae music. And this might not sound like much, but that already degrades him in my family’s eyes by a long shot. I didn’t tell anyone about my weird infatuation with the new guy and kept it secret.

Long story short, my friend sorta set us up on an outing with some other people, to get us together. I started talking to him, and then, I THINK he asked me out. But me being me (antisocial, distrusting, totally not a love expert) wasn’t really sure how to respond. At first, when I told my mom, she was happy to let me go. Then my sister described him to her; she completely flipped out. She said she didn’t want me to be associated with that group of people like him, and that she wanted me to stay away. We’re completely different people, and have practically nothing in common. I sleep at 7 p.m., he sleeps at 3 a.m. I play classical music, he listens to pop. My family and I are conservatives, and his are liberals. But we still manage to hold really long conversations.

The thing is, I’m not even sure I like him or not.

I politely declined his invitation, and we are now friends. Really close friends. He’s practically the only person I text nowadays, and whenever I can, we call. I’ve learned that he’s not just the person we thought he was, and that he’s different than I expected. I’m still not sure if I like him or not, because I had just recently had my heart broken, and am now very cautious about falling in love. I think he’s interested in me, but I still sorta holding him at an arm’s length. He makes me laugh. A lot. And he understands me, or at least pretend to very well.

My mom has noticed that I talk to him more and more, and now she’s threatened me to confiscate my phone if I continue to talk with him. She thinks that people will think of me as a slut, and that my reputation would be ruined. Nobody in my family will help me on this, but I don’t want to stop talking to him. I also don’t want to lead him on, OR hurt him. But I also don’t want to disappoint my family. I’ve never dealt with anything like this before, and I’m unsure on how to act.

Er… well, here’s an idea! You could start by not acting like a caricature of uptight, stick-up-the-posterior snobbery who judges people for the most ridiculous reasons and hates literally everything fun. You do realize, sweet pea, that you just wrote the words “he likes beaches” as though it’s a meaningful and defining moral failing?

Of course, I know you don’t actually believe that. You’re just parroting the wildly strict worldview that reigns in your household, even as you’re standing right on the brink of recognizing that you do not necessarily share it. Your friendship with this guy has shown you that people are more than the labels you put on them, and that superficial benchmarks of “good taste”—like conservative politics and classical music—don’t actually make the difference between a great person and a worthless one. In your own words: “I’ve learned that he’s not just the person we thought he was, and that he’s different then I expected.”

Or in other words, you were wrong about this guy, which means that the way you’ve been taught to judge people must be wrong, too.

Which isn’t an easy thing to realize, I know. Your parents clearly subscribe to a pretty classist worldview, and you and your sister clearly drank that particular variety of Kool-aid early and often (to the point where you’d already learned to denigrate people for being “trashy” at the tender age of five.) To disagree with the notion that this guy’s value as a human being is diminished by his manbun is to reject a central tenet of your upbringing.

The thing is, you do reject it—not by choice, but by nature. This guy is, at the very least, an extremely close friend; you care about him, and you see his value, in spite of having been raised to do anything but. And while you could stop talking to him, and while that might superficially satisfy your family’s obsession with appearances, it won’t change what you’ve learned about yourself and your values. You don’t see the world the same way your parents do, and this will not be the last time you make a connection that your family finds unacceptable. So whatever you choose to do about this friendship in particular, the bigger issue at hand is one you’re still going to need to grapple with. Do you want to trust your own judgment and choose your own friendships, even if your family doesn’t understand or approve? Or is not disappointing your family your first and foremost priority, even if it means losing any number of rewarding relationships with people you care about, and even if you’re doing it in service of a worldview you don’t agree with?

This question is yours to answer, and for what it’s worth, you may want to answer it differently now (i.e., when your parents have the power to punish you for associating with the “wrong” sort of people) versus later (i.e., when you’re living independently and are free to be friends with anyone you want to, parental approval be damned.) But if what you decide is that this friendship is worth fighting for, then trust in that. Be big enough to admit that you misjudged this guy by superficial standards—and be brave enough to say so out loud. For instance: “Mom, I don’t want to disappoint you, but this guy is a good, kind, decent person, and I can’t believe you’d ask me to terminate my friendship with him just because you’ve heard that he looks a certain way. That’s not right, and it’s not how you raised me.” (Obviously, that last bit is baloney, but if you hand your parents this opportunity to be a bit more open-minded, then maybe they’ll rise to the occasion.)

The point is, you don’t have to know for sure that you like this guy in that way to recognize his value as a human being, or to assert your right to make friends with people even if they like pop music and have manbuns. What’s important is that you recognize what you’ve learned about yourself in this moment, and let that be your guide, whether it’s in a continued friendship, or a tentative romance, or something else. Trust yourself, and the rest will come naturally.

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