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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   2229 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for October 20, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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What are some fun activities I could do with my father in law? Grillin'? Fishing? Idk I'm at a loss for manly activities to do with a man you don't know very well. What's the standard?

Is the goal to know the man better? Assuming you're shtupping his daughter, he may prefer to keep you at a healthy emotional distance. I think "the standard" is avoiding each other whenever possible, and at Thanksgiving watching football in the same room without ever making eye contact.

I recognize that our new, purportedly "emotionally healthy" age would suggest you bond, say, over shared hobbies, or perhaps by sharing your individual hobbies: fishing, shooting, drinking, or for the higher-brow castes having oblique political or religious discussions. This is plausible too, though the closer you are in age to your in-laws the more likely it is to stick. On the other end of the extreme, if you have a poor relationship with your own father, some fathers-in-law seem to enjoy a kind of paternal surrogacy, especially if they have only daughters.

It's so bizarre for me to see... Being close with your marital family lampooned as fruity new age emotional stuff, and the celebrated trad option is to be so sexually repressed as to poison family relations.

Hanging out with and going into business with your in laws is trad and Lindy. Anthropologists across primitive tribes have found a common answer to why incest is bad to be "Who would I go hunting with if I didn't have in laws?"

@TheDag two things

  1. Your FiL wants you to be morally staid. My FiL drinks like a fish, he prefers I have one beer after he badgers me repeatedly to do so.

  2. Get his help with something. Ask his advice on something. Take him to home Depot to help you pick out cabinets or paint or whatever, get him to help you shop for a car, ask his advice on a home improvement project, whatever as the case may be. Show him that you know what he's good at, respect him for it, and that he still has a role to play in your lives going forward.

Hanging out with and going into business with your in laws is trad and Lindy

Well, the Psalmist wrote,

Listen, daughter, and pay careful attention:
Forget your people and your father’s house.

And the New Testament gives similar advice to men:

For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife...

My answer was intentionally lighthearted and broad, as the question seemed lighthearted ("Grillin'? Fishing?") and broad. A more serious answer might be a boring "do whatever you want, either it will work or it won't, you can't force a relationship with anyone, not even with in-laws." Or maybe an even more boring "have you asked your father-in-law?"

But while I am sure that being close with your in-laws is "trad" sometimes, it's at least as often very much not.

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