First impressions

The other day I was talking to a friend about meeting his girlfriend's parents for the first time. He was pretty nervous about it. I told him the story about the time I was dating a girl (whatup Dana), and I went to her house to meet her parents. I was nervous too. I got even more tense once I met her father. Not because he was imposing or menacing, but because he had a lazy eye. It was swimming around in his head like a dolphin in a tank at Sea-World. I didn't know what to do. You can't make a good first impression on pops if you can't even look him in the eye. I couldn't even concentrate because I was sitting there trying to decide whether to look him in the eye and risk him thinking that I'm staring at his eye, or looking away and having him think that I can't look him in the eye. I decided to try and act busy when I was talking to him—looking for things in my pocket, petting the dog, moving food around on my plate—so I never really had to look at him. I purposely stepped on my shoe laces to untie them so I'd have to bend over and lace them back up. I went to the bathroom a lot too. That was the only place I could take a minute to decompress. I could go in there and laugh to myself or regain my composure. Luckily the relationship didn't last too long. I don't know if I could've kept doing that. And everybody knows how dads are. When a relationship is over they give each ex a nickname. I'm sure I'm the guy with IBS who couldn't tie his shoes or look a man in the eye.