From a young age, my Dad had always said that I couldn't date and that when I did he would give me the hardest time about it. I had always fully envisioned that he would act like the dad in the song "Cleaning This Gun" by Rodney Atkins. Now, keep in mind, my father has never owned a gun, but I expected him to sit down my first boyfriend and give him a stern talking to, but to my surprise, that did not happen.

In the song, there is a lyric that says "She's her daddy's girl, her mama's world." This is true for most daughters, and I like to think it's true for me too. Taking that line into account, I start to understand why my Dad didn't do the macho man thing when I had my first boyfriend. My Dad knows me better than I know myself, which means he knows how intense my anxiety is. He knew that going on my first "date" was probably one of the scariest things I had done, he didn't want to add to this. Thank you for this Dad. I don't think I could have handled anymore added stress, your coolness about the situation put me at ease.

The other lyric that sticks out to me from this song is when he says, "I'll have to put the fear of God into some kid at the door." I can tell you my Dad sure hasn't done that. To be fair, I've only had two boyfriends and he has only met one of them, but he has been nothing but cordial with him. My boyfriend was even surprised that he didn't get pulled aside for the typical dad talk. Now, I like to think I know why this may be. First off, my Dad trusts me to know who is a good person and who isn't and he trusts me to make the best choices possible in life. A boyfriend doesn't control the relationship, I have my say in it as well. Another reason why my Dad doesn't feel the need to "put the fear of God" into my boyfriend is that if my boyfriend truly cares about me, he shouldn't have to be pressured into treating me right, he should just be that way.

With all of this being said, I haven't talked to my Dad about this at all, so all of this is just my interpretation of the events, my Dad could have whole different reasoning. Whatever his reasoning may be, I'm glad that he acts the way he does, it makes me feel trusted and makes my boyfriend feel comfortable.