Have you ever petted and walked a dog you hate? Have you had long and polite conversations with a guy who tells you that you need to change your entire life in order to be able to marry his daughter? Have you ever gone to football matches being forced to cheer for the team you loathe?
Have you taken long and boring cooking, sowing, cleaning, washing and ironing classes from a bitter woman, pretending you enjoy them tremendously?
If you have, it means you are very much in love, ready to do just about anything in order to obtain the love and appreciation of your significant other and the benevolence of the all-mighty in-laws-to-be.
My advice: it would be best to go see “Meet the parents” first and get an idea about how it feels to make a fool of yourself.
Here is a list of things you are most likely to start doing if you think they will help you land the long-awaited prince/princess.
Change of looks
You are a hot brunette, but he likes diaphanous blondes. So, no matter if you hate even the concept of blondness, you decide to humour him and you take this dreaded step. You go to the hairdresser’s, you pay tonnes of money and, when you get home, he says you look awful.
Or let’s say you weigh a couple of pounds more than you should, but he keeps calling you chubby. This destroys your last shred of self-confidence and you don’t feel sexy anymore. In fact you end up feeling like something that’s going to be eaten soon, since he refers to you as “pork chop” and “my cute beefsteak.”
So you decide to go on a diet. Several months and a dozen of kilos later, he starts complaining that you look like a Nazi camp prisoner and that all your appealing curves are gone. So he breaks up with you and, the next time you see him, he is accompanied by some very Rubenesque girl. Bummer, huh?
Change of lifestyle
You are a barfly, a rebel without a cause, long hair, blue jeans, leather jacket and a cigarette hanging in the corner of your mouth. Then you meet her – an old-fashioned girl, a college student who gets only good grades and lives with her parents.
She is not the kind of girl you usually date and that’s precisely why you fall for her. After one or two years of hardships (her parents won’t have you, your friends say you must be crazy), you decide to get married.
Then the troubles begin: “I need a provider, not a dreamer. I want a house, a car, a bank account and later on a face lift,” she recites incessantly.
Because you love her, you say yes and you gradually turn into the successful businessman she wants you to be. But troubles are far from being over.
As your company is skyrocketing to success, you don’t stay around the house all day and she gets lonely. She complains about your prolonged absences, about you never being there and missing out on every important event (such as her first visit to Armani and Cartier).
Eventually, you end up divorcing and she gets the car, the house and an alimony the size of five monthly corporate executive salaries.