In my family, Thanksgiving is all about family. So much so that, while we mostly stay in our individual homes for Christmas, we travel for hours to spend Thanksgiving with the entire extended family. And I love seeing them all, just like I’m sure most people do.

But let’s be honest: us college kids have to deal with a lot when we go home for Thanksgiving. In many cases, our families haven’t seen us for months, which can lead to some pretty painful moments, as detailed below.

1. Being grilled about your love life

“Do you have a boyfriend yet?”

I can’t tell you home many times I’ve been asked this. Probably the same amount of times my family has asked if I’m still a virgin. What it is about the holidays that makes family members think it’s okay to ask questions like that, I’ll never understand. But it happens every time, and only serves to remind me how bitterly, painfully single I am.

2. Passive-aggressive guilt trips

“You never call us!”

Every time I go home, I hear the same thing. “Why don’t you call more?” And I’m sure I’m not the only one. Of course, you could try explaining to your family about how your worthless English degree courses actually keep you so busy that you’re pretty sure your body is now 99% caffeine from all the triple-shot Irish cream mochas it takes you to get through hours and hours of reading each night and well into the morning, and how you have absolutely no free time whatsoever between school and studying and work and attempting to have a social life.

But it’s easier to just apologize and promise to call more often, even though you know you won’t.

3. Rules

“You’re going out? At this hour? Wearing that?”

Maybe not actual rules. Maybe you don’t have a bedtime and a curfew again. Maybe no one has explicitly told you that you can’t eat an entire package of Oreos in one sitting. But there are definitely expectations again, expectations that you’ll continue to follow the rules you were given when you still lived at home. You can feel your parents’ disapproval when you tell them you’re going out at ten o’clock at night. You can almost hear the gears stop in your mother’s brain when you argue with her about appropriate makeup and clothing. You spend a ridiculous amount of time and energy reminding yourself that you are Officially A Grown-Up and have been living on your own for months and...and...screw it. They’re still your parents. One week of pretending to be their doting daughter again won’t kill you.

4. Remembering why you left, and wishing you could stay

They get on your nerves. They try to tell you what to wear and what to do and how to act, and they do it all with that patronizing parental tone that makes you want to retroactively emancipate yourself. But these are the people who raised you, the people who have been with you through thick and thin, the people you know will always be there for you. You might be stuck with them, but they’re stuck with you, too.