At some point in any romantic relationship, there comes a time when it’s necessary to meet your significant other’s parents. In an ideal world, this would be something that is planned and that you can prefer for. Perhaps it’s a holiday meal that you know is coming up, or perhaps you’re meeting up for coffee.

In a less than ideal world, you meet your significant other’s parents when you least expect it and when you’re the opposite of prepared for it. Instead of giving off your best first impression, you probably find the whole situation terribly awkward. Many people have had experiences like this.

Reddit user drunkiemonkey asked, “What are your worst “meeting the parents” stories?” Some of the answers are so awkward it’s almost painful to read. Hopefully you’ve never had an experience like one of these 13 awkward stories.

1. Not Mature

   Reddit user Mister_Dink wrote:

   When my father finally met my mothers parents, the first thing Grandpa did was pants my father in public. Grandpa is not a mature man.

2. It Started Well

   ZadocPaet shared:

   Met the parents, had drinks, dinner was great, had after dinner drinks, girlfriend and step dad get into a screaming/throwing fight over how she accused him of molesting her. I took her home in tears.

3. Didn’t Know His Mom Was Home

   ohsnapitsdevin added:

   My ex and I started out as a casual relationship. One day after having sex, I went from his room to his bathroom to clean up, and because no one was home I didn’t cover myself up. I’m halfway down the hallway and his mom comes around the corner (she had JUST come home) and laughed at me saying, “oh hey! It’s good to know you’re a true redhead too!”I wanted to die.

4. Star Trek and Pizza

   pattiaa explained:

   Brought my first college boyfriend home for Thanksgiving – we were greeted by my parents in full Star Trek uniforms, dad was wearing spock ears, both giving the “live long and prosper” salute. They ordered pizza and the delivery guy asks my dad why he didn’t just have the pizza beamed over.

5. “Her Family Scares Me”

   SuperSpy wrote:

   I once met a girls family and found out that they were super old fashioned; the women cook and clean while the men sit around drinking. It felt like I steped into the 1950’s. I helped clean the dishes and all the guys were looking at me with ‘WTF are you doing’ faces. Very uncomfortable feeling. Nice girl but her family scares me a bit.

6. Trying to Help

   Another Reddit user explained:

   I was off to pick up a new gf in high school one day. She was super late, so I just chilled at her house. Hey, look, wood to split! Yay! So im chopping away, on the side of the house where I cant see the driveway. I never heard her and her dad come home. So I get a text, “were here, where are you?” I go to knock on the door, and dad opens it to see me on the threshold, sweaty, breathing hard and holding an axe. He stopped, stepped back, and we stared at each other for about five seconds. I panicked and dropped the axe, trying to say “oh hey just trying to help”, but dropped it right on my foot, so it turned into “oh hey ow shit!”Im no smoother today.

7. How Rude!

   Another Reddit user shared:

   I met my boyfriend in his hometown of Tampa for New Year’s early in college.I had heard horror stories from my boyfriend and his twin brother that their mother was overbearing and had no filter. I thought they were exaggerating and showed up at their house for our first meal all together. After a prayer (we’re in the south) we were making small talk about college life. My boyfriend and I were discussing how our lack of funds had forced us to condition ourselves to only have 2 meals a day. His mother, without missing a beat, looked over at me, handed me the mashed potatoes and replied, “Well you can afford to skip a meal or two”. I was mortified. I didn’t say anything. Nor did my boyfriend. I took an earlier flight home.

8. Miscarriage

   jc1435 wrote:

   The first time I met her dad was when she had to go to the hospital…due to complications from a miscarriage..

9. Parents Walked in at the Wrong Time

   Another Reddit user wrote:

   17 years old, girl is 19. Have her on her parents big ottoman, legs in the air and I am going down on her when the lights turn on and both parents walk in to the room. I jumped up and ran out the back door and broke my foot jumping their back fence. Her Mom drove me to the hospital and called my parents. i asked the nurse if she could give me something before I “die of embarrassment”. Girl turns in to one of my life long best friends and her parents have just about gotten over it.

10. Fell Down the Stairs

    Typical_Canadian explained:

    To preface this ill say that im a big guy, 6’5″ about 210lbs and very clumsy. The first time I met my ex’s parents was at their house and I fell down the stairs. This alone is bad enough as it is, but sitting at the bottom of the stairs was her parents beloved chihuahuas. I killed one of them and paralyzed the other, I also fractured my patella on the way down.We ended up dating for about 6 months afterwards and broke up for unrelated reasons

11. “Laughed and Said No”

    IamtheBiscuit explained:

    My first grlfriend’s dad called me about 2 days after the first time I slept with her. He asked for for my parent’s phone number so he could call and inform them what I was doing to his daughter.I just laughed at him and said no. He still hates me to this day.

12. She Pulled Off the Duvet

    Ninjaushn shared:

    The first time I met my mother-in-law was first thing on a Saturday morning, my SO and I were in a long distance relationship at the time and I had driven down to see him, arriving the night before. So we were lying in bed (he lived in a house with 4 other guys and none of them were terribly concerned about safety so the front door was always unlocked), when his bedroom door bursts open and his mother rushes in wailing (his Grandmother had a heart attack that night). It was all very dramatic (something I’m now used to but back then it was a bit full on); she went to his side of the bed and as he turned to her, he managed to take the entire duvet with him, leaving me lying stark naked. I waited a few seconds thinking that she would soon realise there was a naked woman in his bed and as a ‘woman to woman courtesy’, leave the room for a minute or two to allow me to dress, but no such courtesy was shown so I got up, searched the floor for my clothes (as you can imagine when in a long distance relationship the first night together is… well, I wasn’t to worried about folding my clothes when we got to bed) and then had to scurry down the hall to the bathroom still starkers hoping to hell his housemates wouldn’t see me.

13. Too Spicy

    Eode11 added:

    First time I drove my friend (now fiancee) home from school, her mom told me to try some of her “home made jelly”. Turns out it was super strong jalepeno jelly, and I don’t do well with spicy foods. Ended up drinking a bunch of milk, then having awful shits in their bathroom.Turns out the chain had fallen off the handle in the back of the toilet, so I had to pull the thing apart and fix it, all while my friend is apologizing outside of the door to me. Nowadays they know not to feed me spicy stuff without warning me first.