family affair

The problem with dating someone whose family is not merely a tree but a forest is that you have a lot more people to impress.

I used to be so insecure that I felt I had to go out of my way to prove myself to a boyfriend's family members--as in all of them. I thought that if I endeared myself to a boyfriend's family members, our relationship would be more "permanent". A far out illusion.

I have, since then, confined myself to being good to those who are the immediate family members of who I'm with. I do not anymore go so far as try to be who I am not. I do not intend to portray myself as perfect. I do try to be extra nice.

In the case of large families, it is extremely difficult to be nice to everyone. Especially when I know that some of them have something against me--not that whatever that may be is my fault. At such times I remain polite. But I do not go out of my way to try to "win them over". I'm sure everyone will agree that it is very difficult to be nice to people who aren't nice to you.

Case in point: Mr. Tanduay has these two cousins (2nd degree I think) who have been nowhere near nice to me. During last Saturday's celebration of his great grandmother's 100th birthday, they threw me looks. And girls, you know what I mean by those "looks". I let it pass. Later that night, there was a band. While me, Mr. Tanduay and Lovely were enjoying the music on the dancefloor and dancing together, we were interrupted by tweedledum presumably because she somehow unearthed one of Mr. Tanduay's old friends from Canlaon. Again, I let that pass even though she did not even say "excuse me". They chatted and she swept Mr. Tanduay to their group leaving me and Lovely alone. When Mr. Tanduay returned to me a few minutes later holding my hand in his, tweedledee literally grabbed him by his sleeve back towards their group---all this while looking right at me and never even bothering a half-meant "join us" to me and Lovely. I was humiliated.

This spurred a series of arguements between me and Mr. Tanduay because he thought I was being "selfish" while I thought my actions (which was getting pissed) was only a reaction to the rudeness of the aforementioned tweedledum and tweedledee.

We women have a nose for other women who dislike us. We can smell them even if they're standing at the other end of the room. I am a non-confrontational person. I try to stay away from fights of any kind. Which is why I was enraged by the thought that I was being tagged as the one who is the "bad guy" in that particular situation when I in fact, never made any direct or indirect action to offend them. To make matters worse, they even teased Mr. Tanduay that he is "under" the next day.

Let me ask you, did I do anything to justify their rudeness? Was my reaction out of line? Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I rest my case.

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Me and Mr. Tanduay made up immediately after every arguement we got into the past three days that he was here. In one such occassion (after the band thing and after an arguement) we went to their veranda and made tambay there. It was raining and I felt cold. We were huddled together in two chairs pulled close together...

Mr. Tanduay: (with his arms wrapped around me and his chin on my shoulder) I wonder why I love you so much...

It's another one of those moments when I didn't know whether to get mad or be kilig. hehehe