Our Beginning and Family Acceptance

I met my boyfriend, who I will call P, during my final year of college. He sat behind me in class, and we started making small talk. I had just come out of a four-year relationship, and I planned to stay single for awhile. But I soon found myself having feelings for P. I developed such a crush on him that I found his full name on a class sign-in sheet and went home and added him on Facebook! Looking back, that was probably a pretty creepy thing for me to do, but it worked because we started IMing each other. He was very shy at first, but he told me a little bit about Nepal, his family, and his friends.

After we had been talking for a few weeks, I ended up inviting him to hang out with my friend and I at my house. I also started giving him rides to and from school, since we had most of our classes at the same times. Being the fiercely independent person that he is, he always tried to turn down the rides and walk instead. I found this ridiculous, since I literally had to pass his apartment to drive to school anyway, so I always insisted on driving him. One day, when I was dropping him off, he invited me to come into his apartment. We had only known each other for a short time, but I completely fell for him that day. He showed me photos that he had taken in Nepal, and some that his family had taken and sent to him. He also showed me a video of him leaving Nepal and saying goodbye to his family, which was obviously very personal to him. We really connected that day, and despite my previous plans to stay single, I immediately felt an intense bond with him.

My birthday was a few days later, and he asked to see me at midnight. It was really important to him to be the first one to wish me a happy birthday. He gave me a beautiful bouquet of flowers, and also brought me a few of my favorite snacks. At that point, it was completely obvious to me that he was an amazing person, and I knew that I wanted to be with him. Two days later, we would officially become a couple.

I definitely expected that P would hide our relationship from his family at first. But he strongly felt that they'd be accepting, and chose to tell his mom over the phone right away. She took the news well, and although she was a bit concerned that he might become distracted from his schoolwork, she told him that she just wanted him to be happy. She told his dad, who also had no objections. I haven't gotten the chance to meet them yet, but I definitely feel that they've been very accepting so far. I've spoken to his dad many times on Facebook, and his mom has even talked to me on the phone, despite a major language barrier.

My family actually had more objections than his did, at first. My mom was being very small-minded and ignorant. She didn't trust him at all, and even implied that he might be a terrorist! My dad was more accepting of his race, but still against the relationship, because he felt that we were just too culturally different to ever make things work. I don't live with my dad, so his views on the relationship really didn't affect anything. My mom made things really hard for me at first, though. She would start fights with me whenever I would go to see P. She felt that I was "chasing" him, and kept telling me that he was not right for me and that I was embarrassing myself by being with him. Luckily, after a few months, she really started to come around, and now she loves him. After reading about what some other couples have been through, I truly feel that P and I have been lucky so far when it comes to family acceptance.