My mom wants a son-in-law

During my last phone conversation with my mother, she informed me she's ready for me to be in a relationship.

"I want to meet somebody when I come visit," she calmly demanded. "I'm getting impatient."

She's a firecracker, my mother.

There was a time when I would've freaked out and immediately been in the bars and clubs and talking to dudes in grocery stores and stuff, 'cause pleasing my momma was that important to me. But when she said she was ready to be a mother-in-law, I just chuckled indulgently. As I think I've made pretty clear in this blog, while she might be ready, I'm certainly not. And when it comes to having a man in my life, I'm the one who matters, right?

I know I've put my poor mom through the wringer. I'm sure it's not easy to have such ... quirky offspring. And I know it must be hard when most of your friends have married-off kids (some of them even on their second marriages) and a passel of rowdy grandkids, while your only child, at the ripe old age of 12, announced that she was never going to have kids and now looks to be sashaying towards 40 without ever tying the knot. (And she broadcasts such information over the Internet, to boot!)

We've had mental tug-of-wars over me and men for years. While I was in college, my mother was not-so-pleasantly surprised to find out I was dating black guys ... and non-black guys. She was probably proud she had raised such an open-minded daughter, but maybe a little horrified as well. "I would prefer it if you married a black man," she said quietly, but that's all she said. Fast-forward to years later, after I broke up with my last boyfriend, who happened to be a blue-eyed blond. I went on an international tear that included a Moroccan, a French-Algerian, an Albanian, a Nigerian and a couple Mexicans. I went to visit my cousin in the Netherlands and swooned over the tall Dutch men.

By this time, my mom was over the black thing. "Can't you date Americans?" she asked, exasperated.

And now I get this: "I want to meet someone when I come visit." No race preference. And you notice she said someONE, as if she might even be OK if I was snuggled up to a chick when I opened my front door. (Don't worry mom; he'll be a he.)

While her demand may seem a tad petulant and selfish, I know where it's coming from. I'm not getting any younger, and neither is she. I know she worries about me, so far away. She wants me to have someone who loves me, takes care of me and keeps me safe when she can't. She doesn't want me to be lonely and alone.

But she's gonna have to be wait a while longer. What's that the Supremes sang? "You can't hurry love." Not even for impatient mothers.