Parents say that my BF (21M) "smells weird" and have other strange gripes about him. It's ruining my relationship with my family.
For starters, I (21F) do NOT have a good relationship with my parents right now. That's an entirely different conversation for maybe another post, but I cannot, for the life of me, understand why my parents don't like my boyfriend.
They refuse to be around him and have only met him twice total (my dad has met him twice, mom only once), and we have been together for 3 years.
From the get-go, they have been standoffish when he is spoken about (so I don't speak about him much), they don't like his parents (which, fair enough I guess... despite the fact that they've only met one time in passing), they said that he "smelled weird" when they met him, and they overall refuse to have a relationship with my BF. Note that my boyfriend is Italian.
With my sister (24F), however, they adore her partner of 6 months and involve him in everything that they do with my sister. It's, quite frankly, fucking annoying as they're already engaged and my parents barely know the guy.
My BF is a shy and VERY anxious guy. He hates meeting new people, but has an awkward charm that I find attractive and hilarious at times. He is on medication for anxiety, but he tried to make an effort when meeting my parents to talk and to be presentable (he had on a nice sweater and jeans, wore cologne, etc.). He loves video games and books (my dad does, too), and loves architecture and plants (like my mother). So I don't get the issue??
It's like they've already made up their mind about him, so I've been forced to just pick and choose what parts of my life to involve them in, which is something that I don't want to do anymore.
I would say that I am definitely my mother's favorite, but I honestly don't think that my dad has a favorite kid. But what's the issue here? Why do they refuse to meet this guy when he's a decent guy and are willing to harm their relationship with their kid because of it?
Thanks, Reddit. This is my first post, yes, but I am not a bot, so please be kind to me. Am half posting this for a class assignment, and half posting this because I'm frustrated as hell over the issue.