Validate her anger. She is allowed to be furious. She did not spend an hour on her eyeliner for a mirage. Why You Have to Take the Call Here is the uncomfortable truth: Listening to your mother’s bad date is a form of emotional inheritance.
There is a strange, silent pact between adult daughters and their mothers. We imagine our mothers pre-us: as superheroes in shoulder pads, efficient and untouchable. We forget that before she was Mom, she was a woman who got nervous ordering pizza, let alone sitting across from a stranger holding a single carnation.
It is annoying. It is time-consuming. It is also holy. When the bad date is particularly egregious, you will be tempted to hunt the man down and key his Toyota Camry. Resist. Instead, use this script. Mom: “He asked if I ‘used to be pretty.’” You: “What an odd thing for a man who smells like menthol cough drops to say.” mother%27s bad date
Then comes the divorce. Or the death. Or the conscious uncoupling. And suddenly, at 52, your mother is back on the battlefield of modern romance. She downloads Bumble. She updates her profile picture (always a slightly blurry shot from that one vacation in Cabo). And finally, the text arrives: “Going for coffee with a man named Greg. Wish me luck!”
This is when you pour the wine. Over years of research (read: listening to my own mother cry-laugh on a Tuesday night), I have identified four universal archetypes of men who ruin a mother’s evening. Learn to spot them. 1. The PowerPoint Barry This man has confused a first date with a TED Talk. He arrives with a mental slide deck covering: his blood pressure numbers, his recent knee surgery, the exact square footage of his timeshare, and a detailed critique of his last three jobs. Barry does not ask a single question. Barry does not know your mother’s name by the end of coffee. Barry believes he is irresistible. Validate her anger
“I think I’m just going to give up. Get a cat.” You: “No. You’re going to take three days off, delete the app, and then next week, we will go through his profile line by line. I will be your bouncer.”
This is the longest stage. She will replay the date like a Zapruder film. Did he talk over her? Did he let the door slam? Did he mention his “live-in mother” as a positive attribute? She will parse every text message leading up to the date. You will learn more about Greg’s 401(k) and his gluten intolerance than you know about your own father. Why You Have to Take the Call Here
Tell your mother that being ignored is not a personality test she failed. It is just Barry being boring. 2. The Nostalgia Vampire He is 60 but dresses like he is still in a 1980s yacht rock band. He only talks about “the good old days.” He asks your mother if she remembers The Dukes of Hazzard . He brings up his high school girlfriend. He is not looking for a partner; he is looking for an extra in the movie of his own youth.