Possible Reactions When Your Parents Ask “Are You Dating Anybody?”
By Gaby Dunn
Screech in horror.
Talk about your career accomplishments and how you’re “too busy” to date.
Make static-y and police siren noises into the phone and tell them you’re going into a tunnel. Then, hang up.
Similarly, throw your phone against the wall and run out of the room. If they ask in person, slowly back into a bush like this:
Send them a “photo” of your new beau but when they open it, it’s a screengrab of a Tumblr dashboard and a picture of a carton of Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia.
Say “yes” and then describe Andrew Garfield until they figure it out. “Well, he’s British and super cute.” to “He was just in the new Spiderman movie. No, not as an extra. …As Spiderman.” (This also works with Emma Stone, Donald Glover, Jon Hamm, Kate Upton etc etc.)
Tell them confidently that you will be dating someone as soon as you get the formula from Weird Science down pat.
Get a tattoo of the words “#ForeverAlone” on your forearm — and when they ask, roll up your sleeves.
Condescendingly tell them you’re continuing to be single as part of living performance art, commenting on the societal pressure to always be in a romantic relationship.
Flip the table. Storm out.
Proclaim you have five boyfriends named Liam, Harry, Louis, Zayn and Niall and you all live in a lovely polygamous house in Utah.
Immediately start talking and acting like it’s 1920 and you need them to make a match for you with your weird cousin like on Downton Abbey.
Transform into a bat and flap away into the night.
Bellow, “I am Loki, God of Mischief. I can not be contained by mere mortals! I must date among the Gods!”
Draw eyes and a mustache on a flask. “Kiss” your partner by drinking his sweet nectar of alcohol.
Create a life-size Japanese body pillow with a silkscreen of Benedict Cumberbatch (or another similarly attractive person) and bring it to the dinner table.
Reverse the guilt. Be like, “You created me. You saw my childhood. You know what’s up over here. What do you think?”
Stare them down and say, “Nope. Just getting boned on the reg.” Maintain uncomfortable eye contact.
Throw glitter in the air and prance away. (Also, a good way to come out of the closet if you’re looking for one.)
Sculpt a boyfriend out of delicious foods in front of their eyes.
Bring home a trucker/ex-con named Gus and say you got hitched. When they freak out, remind them that you being single isn’t so bad.
Spray them with mace.
Promise you will as soon as you find someone with the missing half of this golden amulet.
Put a top hat and monocle on a cat and introduce him as your betrothed, Mr. Darcy.
Crouch down and cover your head with your hands like during an elementary school tornado drill.
Say you’re waiting for the TARDIS, Amy Pond-style. Sing lines from Dr. Dre’s “I Need A Doctor.”
Toss a smoke bomb on the floor to blind them and disappear into a trap door.
Throw yourself through a glass window, because it’ll distract them and probably be less painful than answering that question.