Asking Eric: I don’t love my mom. That doesn’t make me a sociopath.

Dear Eric: I am a 35-year-old gay man. My mother is a duplicitous, bitter woman and my father is a weak-willed, hateful homophobe.

I don’t particularly care for either one of them, and have never felt especially close to them in any capacity. Thankfully, I have many younger siblings and plenty of friends. I am emotionally stable and mentally healthy.

Although busy with my career, I frequently date. During the dating phase of a relationship, how does one tactfully make it clear that he doesn’t like to talk about his parents at all?

I feel like people hear that I don’t have a relationship with my parents and they pity me and/or assume that I am a sociopath because I don’t “love my mama.”

It’s nothing like that, it’s just that when I am getting to know another man, I couldn’t care less about the relationship he has with his parents. I’m not trying to garner their approval (although other people’s parents tend to love me) or get to know his family members.

Why is there such a societal importance on (specifically gay) men to keep up some fantastic relationship with their mother?

– Never Been A Mama’s Boy

Dear Never Been: Through dating, or, really, any social interaction, you’re likely to find people who have all kinds of relationships with their parents – close, estranged, complicated, and more.

Part of getting to know other people involves filling in the biographical details with context, color, and, most importantly, empathy. So, if you’re encountering people who are putting an expectation on you and your relationship with your parents, know that that’s less about you and more about them.

This can be a cold comfort. However, by processing your feelings about your parents, you’ll better equip yourself to navigate these interactions.

Notice, I wrote process, not bury. I’m not suggesting you suddenly attempt closeness or reconciliation for the sake of dating. Instead, I’m suggesting that by talking with a friend or counselor about the difficulty you’ve had with your parents, you’ll be able to own the narrative and communicate it clearly on dates.

One of the most attractive qualities that someone can bring to a date is emotional intelligence. Your letter already has a lot of that, so further processing will only help bolster it. This quality can help you to say to a date, for instance, “my parents are complicated people; they’re on their journey and I’m on mine. I’m working on healing and some of the ways that I’m healing are …”

Even when trying to find a love story, you don’t have to live in someone else’s narrative. Not your date’s and not your parents’.

Dear Eric: My parents recently died a few months apart. Around that time, my sister told me that she went to prison for human trafficking years ago. She wasn’t sorry for it in any way and defended her actions.

She may as well have told me she was a serial killer. I can’t even look at her now.

I discovered my other sister, who became my dad’s caregiver after Mom died, was neglecting my dad by not giving him his medication, leaving him unsupervised (advanced Alzheimer’s), and recklessly spending, using Dad’s credit cards.

This didn’t surprise me since she abandoned her kids and then gave birth to another child while on meth. Her past is why I investigated the present, discovering she hadn’t changed a bit.

My extended family is pushing me to forgive and forget.

Am I wrong for turning my back on my sisters? I don’t want their toxicity touching my life or my children’s lives. And with the pressure my relatives are putting on me, I’m ready to let them go, too.

Somehow, I’ve become the villain for refusing to kiss and make up with these two terrible women.

– Eyes Wide Open

Dear Eyes: In your letter, I see your family pushing you to forgive and forget but I don’t see any apology, remorse or amends from your sisters. So, in reality the family members are not asking you to forgive, they’re asking you to ignore. To what end?

Turning a blind eye, for the sake of family peace, to transgressions that hurt a stranger and hurt your father is like trying to cover rotted floorboards with a throw rug. There’s so much wrong underneath that even if the appearance is normal, the damage will pull you down.

What your family is asking of you isn’t healthy. And, perhaps more importantly, it’s not right for you. They don’t get to dictate how you feel or how you process this disturbing information.

Anyone who is pressuring you doesn’t have your best interests in mind. You can, and should, put a boundary up for your own health and safety.

Send questions to R. Eric Thomas at eric@askingeric.com or P.O. Box 22474, Philadelphia, PA 19110. Follow him on Instagram @oureric and sign up for his weekly newsletter at rericthomas.com.