'Am I wrong for going on a date with my mother's friend?' UPDATED 3X
"Am I wrong for going on a date with my mother's friend?"
My mom is in her 50s, I'm 35, and Clara is 43 for context. My mom helps run a few clubs for her church at the community center. One of those is a hobby club where they try all sorts of crafts and activities.
Clara joined the club around a year ago and a few months back my mom and Clara got close so she started inviting Clara over to hang out at her house a lot. I met Clara when mom invited her to dinner and I was over that night too.
After awhile whenever mom and I would plan to hang out Clara was always included and I suspect this was intentional by my mom trying to play matchmaker. Well it worked and week ago Clara asked me out.
I asked my mom if that would be awkward for her and she laughed and told me she thought I should do it. So Clara and I made plans for a date. Plan is to go out in a couple days. Thing is I mentioned this to some of my friends and their partners and they all seem to think this is weird of me to date someone who is a friend of my mom.
Everyone I've spoken to about this other than my sister and mom are creeped out by me dating Clara and I cannot understand why. I just get vague "you're being weird/creepy" or "ick" when asked why its wrong when even my mother approves. Am I missing something here?
Here were the top rated comments from readers in response to the OP’s post:
This isn't abnormal at all. Before online dating it wasn't uncommon for people to meet through family friends or people their parents knew socially that were younger or who had similar aged kids they wanted to introduce their child too etc. This is just a long form version of that basically. Plus you don't have to stress about her liking your mom if it gets serious, she already does. Sounds like a win win 🤷♀️
Right. People act like this is some unheard-of thing when it’s literally how people met for most of history. If your mom’s cool with it and you two get along, who cares what anyone else thinks?
Dude your mum as every mum wants their kids to have the best partner possible and pretty much Clara has your mums deal of approval.
Three days later, the OP returned with an update.
For context I'm 35m, and my date is 43f. We actually met because she's in a hobby group with my mom and she encouraged us to go out together. 2 of my friends and their girlfriends didn't approve when they found out.
At first it was because she was a few years older than me and because she's a friend of my mom's, but after pointing out that at our age 8 years is not a big gap and my mom was supportive they just called it "weird and creepy" to date her.
Eventually after everyone else I asked seemed confused about the problem like I was they came clean and admitted they had been talking to my ex that left me a year ago and she had been missing me. My ex is friends with the 2 disapproving girlfriends and they all have been planning to try and get us back together like some kind of trashy romance plot.
My ex left me after we were together for a year because she "just didn't feel right" about our relationship. Hurt like hell at the time, but I've moved on. I've run into her a few times and been polite, but I have no interest in a relationship or even a friendship with her. She's not part of my life anymore and I'm keeping it that way.
My friends made me feel like I was crazy and weird for wanting to go on a date with a woman I get along with (we've hung out a lot in other settings just not a date yet) all so they could try and force my ex back into my life.
Ex texted me this morning asking if we could meet up and talk and I told her that I wasn't interested in anything she'd have to say and that I'd like to keep my distance from her.
I'm also putting some distance between my two friends who were playing along with their girlfriends' stupid game. On the plus side I'm really looking forward to our date tonight. Dinner, drinks, and a walk through town to enjoy the nice weather we're getting.
Update:
Just got home. Did NOT expect this much support. Figured I'd let anyone finding this late or checking back in know.
Date went very well. Haven't had a first date go that well I think ever tbh. Second date has already been planned. I'll be cooking dinner and we'll be watching a few terrible movies we both share a love for.
As for my crappy ex friends I've already told them we're done being friends. Luckily they are part of a separate social circle from my main group of friends so it's a very easy "breakup" process there.
Ex tried calling me. Went ahead and blocked her everywhere I could think of. Not letting those idiots ruin an otherwise amazing night. Thanks again for everyone's supportive words. I know I made the right call but its nice to be validated ya know?
Update 2:
Wow this got a lot more attention than it deserved. Came back to hundreds of messages. People wanted to know about date 2. It went just as well as the first date I'd say. I made chicken parm and she got me my favorite cider to drink.
We watched Velocipastor because that movie is truly art at its finest. She's an incredible woman and now we're official so I get to brag about my awesome girlfriend to anyone who will listen. She's confident, smart, funny, gorgeous, and she knows what she wants.
She's very straightforward which I appreciate. Obviously it is way too early to tell what the future of this relationship looks like, but for now I'm happier than I've been in a very long time.
Also my mom is being smug as hell and teasing me relentlessly, but my gf is getting it even worse because mom and the girls from the hobby club are all ganging up on her. It's all in good fun. I just think they haven't had much new relationship gossip in awhile.
Ex, her friends, and my two ex friends seem to have accepted the "breakup" and I don't expect them to show up knocking on my door demanding we hang out or anything like a few people suspected.
With those "friends" out of my life I'm no longer likely to even run into my ex as I only ever saw her when hanging out with those particular friends. Might see her at the store but even that's unlikely because I go at odd hours to do my shopping.
That's it. No big fun drama. I'm happy, gf is happy, family and friends are happy. Life is good. Thank you for listening to me yap about my love life on the tail end of a post I wrote just to work off some steam.
Here were the top rated comments from readers in response to the OP’s post:
Trying to manipulate you into canceling a date because they care more about the feelings of the girl that dumped you doesn't really sound like something real friends would do.
ChaffChampion (OP)
Yeah I was pretty disappointed that they were willing to play along with all this. They aren't my closest friends so I'm strongly considering just moving on from them completely.
The movie they watched is VelociPastor, for anyone else wondering. The plot summary on Wikipedia starts "Roman-Catholic priest Doug Jones witnesses his parents die in a VFX car fire", which has sent me. Did that mean that in-universe, they died of a VFX fire? Saw the pixels coming for them and went, welp, I'm out.
It’s literally an empty shot with [vfx car blows up] superimposed on it. It’s actually a hilarious movie and I do recommend it.
A relationship based on a love for Velocipastor is the healthiest sounding relationship I've heard of in a while!