14 Important Life Lessons You Only Learn By Accident

4. Talking To Parents About Relationships

Most of us knew better than to talk to our parents about relationships when we were teenagers. We were too rebellious and drunk on Radiohead to care what our parents thought about our romantic choices, especially because they were usually short-lived anyway. Something changes when you're an adult, however, that isn't easy to understand. You start to befriend your parents, sort of. It's easier to talk to them about your life because you've reached a level in your dynamic where you're both adults going through adult situations. It's kind of nice. We learn the hard way that we still shouldn't talk to our parents about relationships, but it's not for the reason you think. Parents typically give decent advice, and you're not around them all day for it to be an issue that always gets brought up. No, the lesson we learn is that introducing new love interests to our parents regularly puts them through an emotional rollercoaster. You're at an age where they're expecting the next person you meet to be "the one." That means that every time you bring someone up to them that you're only dating casually, they start hearing wedding bells. Once this has happened 3, 4, 10 times, you start to wear your parents out emotionally, and they actually become the ones who don't want to meet your most recent fling.