What To Do When Meeting His Family

Since Thanksgiving is coming up and if you're outside of America and you don't celebrate Thanksgiving, then just use this for an appropriate occasion. I know that the awkward time is when you have to go and meet your partner's family for the first time. And if you're doing it on Thanksgiving, it can be particularly difficult because you feel like you're doing it on this important occasion where everyone is coming together and you don't just meet one member of the family, you tend to meet them all in one place together. So kind of nerve wracking. So I wanted to give you something in this video to help you get through that situation. So I have 10 of these quick fire tips to help you get through the Thanksgiving with a family. I'm going to read them out. 1. Don't try to impress too much or be too eager to agree with everything everyone says. When we want to be in rapport with everyone, we tend to be sometimes overly pleasant and we end up coming across like with just this amorphous blob, this gray matter in the room. And we don't actually have any opinions of our own. That doesn't mean get antagonistic. It just means, you know, be prepared to have your own opinions and be passionate about them. Even if they're different to other people's. You'll get respected for it. Second, don't be cold with the coldest person in the room. There's often that family member who's just a, in the beginning, a bit of a dick. They're just cold to you. Maybe they try and alienate you. I don't want you to then reciprocate by being cold or alienating them. Cause that's exactly what that person wants. They want to be negative towards you and then they want to feel your negativity so that they have justification in saying, oh, I didn't like her. She was this or she was that or I don't like she was bitchy or she was whatever, she was stuck up. I don't want you to give that person a reason not to like you. So just because someone is cold with you, don't be that way back. Kill them with kindness. Give them love. Anyway, don't drop your standard just because there's a difficult family member around. 3. If in doubt, be affectionate. Many of us, when we feel awkward, we tend to pull back our affection. We maybe give like a weak handshake. We don't hug if we're a hugger. Normally we don't hug. We're kind of tentative we tend to follow other people's lead. I want you to maintain your standard for affection. When you see someone and for example, if you were South American and you're used to like giving a hug and a kiss, you don't just stop doing that because you're around people that aren't from your country, you still give them a hug and a kiss. That's just your way. If you're an affectionate person, give someone a hug and a kiss. You don't have to be overly concerned with it. If they're going to feel uncomfortable, let them feel uncomfortable. But be that confident person who can be as affectionate as you are. There's only so much trouble you can get in for giving someone a hug and being loving. Compliment liberally. Don't be afraid to compliment the big stuff and the little stuff. The big stuff, like, oh, I love your house and you know, you have the most amazing son and whatever the little stuff as well. Like I love your shoes today. That necklace is so cute. Where did you get it? Compliment people. You can't get in trouble for it. It's never gonna go wrong. You just need to be kind and make people feel like you've noticed the good things about them and their family. This one's important. Respect the protector in the family. Now, if you're going to your guy's house, the protector very often is the older sister or the mum. The equivalent from the guy side is the the dad or the older brother. When you meet the protector, the most important thing that you can show them is respect. However you need to do it, show them that you respect them and that you value them. So you could show that you respect them by talking about something you know they've achieved. You know. Oh, Susan, I heard you ran a marathon last year. That blows my mind. It seems so brave for someone to do that because I could never imagine taking on a run like that. That scares me to death. How did you train for it? How did you do it? There you're showing your respect then. Or you could say, you know, John, John speaks so highly of you. I've been so excited to meet you again. Respect, that's what that person wants from you. Even more than they just want love. They want your respect. They want to see that you don't take them for granted. If you ignore the protector in the family or you're at odds with them, they will ruin your shit. So be good to that person. Next, help out where you can and at least always offer. Then sometimes they won't let you but offer. If it's doing the dishes, if it's cleaning the table, if it's setting the table, offer to help however you can. You're a guest now. You might be with your partner, and they might be sitting there not helping. But remember, you and him aren't in the same boat. He's been in the family 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, 20. Don't be that person who comes along and expects to be on the same level as him. You're a guest in the house. So in that sense, regardless of what his habits are, regardless of what he does, you've got to be the person who steps up and says, how can I help? Bring something that shows you thought of them. Now, we're accustomed to bringing gifts to someone's house. When we're going there for dinner. We might bring a bottle of wine, some flowers, but see if you can make it slightly more tailored to them, if you know certain details about them. Maybe you do buy them wine, but maybe you find out the region of wine they really love. And then you go and you select the wine from that region and you say, hey, I heard you love Spanish wine. You know, I got you a bottle for dinner. That shows just a tiny bit of extra thought. I'm not saying that you go crazy and, you know, you hear the dad likes whiskey, so you get him a beautiful whiskey, a vintage whiskey, and get his name engraved on the box or something. I'm not saying you go nuts. That actually shows a creepy amount of thought. I'm just saying that a little originality and a little specificity in the gift that's tailored to them can go a long way. Okay, number eight, don't be in a hurry to prove how close you and your partner are. Sometimes when we're insecure around the family, we want to show that family how in love we are with that person and how in love they are with us. So we sometimes get over affectionate with our partner. We don't want to leave their side. We want to talk about them so much. And we kind of. It's almost like, you know, me think he does protest too much. Me, like, you're trying to be so close to that person so that the whole family gets it. You want them to get the relationship you have. Don't try too hard with that. You don't want to be moving at a pace that the family isn't comfortable with yet. What you do with him outside of the house is one thing, but when you're in the house, your job isn't to show how amazing your relationship is. They'll decide that for themselves and they won't appreciate your help in making them decide. What you need to do is get them to a place where they are comfortable with you and they feel like they have a great connection with you. So don't focus so much on the person you're with that you forget about the family. 9. Don't be too eager to state your achievements. We have impressive things about us. We have things we've achieved that we're proud of. But going out of your way to state all of the incredible things about you and, oh, you know, I have this job and here's what I've done, here's the award I've won, and here's where I've been. And all of that can come across like you're trying too hard. If asked a question, give an answer. There will be questions that are asked that give you a chance to talk about the great qualities that you have. But you don't want to go into a mode that makes it look like you're seeking attention or you're seeking status. Allow your personality to shine through and give you status on its own just by how great you are to be around, how much fun you are, the fact that you're funny, or that you are clearly loving or clearly a generous person. Let them find out about your achievements at a more measured pace. You know, I know for me, one of the most impressive things I find in people is when I meet someone and I've maybe known them for a month or two months, and then a month in, I find out something that's really impressive about them that they never even told me in the first place. When I hear that thing, I suddenly think that this person is like. I'm like, wow, what else don't I know? This person. It creates a sense of mystery. If they're not telling me this good thing, God, what else haven't they been. What else haven't they been telling me? So that's a, that's a cool thing. Let them find out about your achievements over time. Don't feel like you need to state them all in this one moment. And number 10, don't gossip. You gossiping at the table about other people who are not at the table, whether it's your friends or your family or anyone else in your life sends out a message that you're a gossiper. And when we see that person, when they see that person, they're going to think, well, when they. When she breaks up with our son or our brother or whoever this is, she's going to be gossiping about him next. So don't show a mean side to you. Don't show a side to you that's catty or makes fun of other people behind their backs or anything like that. Show kindness. Be the person that's kind even behind other people's backs. So that's it. Ten Quick rules. Quick things you can do to make this Thanksgiving better with the family that you're around to leave yourself walking away while they talk about how amazing you are. If you have them on side when you leave, they will talk to him about how much they love you, about what a great choice he has made. Even though we shouldn't be out there to try and try too hard to get on with everybody, we do want to make a good impression because the chances are he listens to those people and they influence his decisions and you want them saying great things about you because if they say great things about you, he's internally going to I knew I made the right choice. This validates my decision to be with this person. Enjoy your Thanksgiving, people. I love you. I'll see you soon. I hope you've enjoyed the video and good luck.