A parent’s mid-life crisis, or: my dad’s dating a stripper.

So, I talked to my dad a few weeks ago and he told me he was dating someone new whose name is Jessica. I said great and asked where he met her. He stalled, stuttered, and said “on the East side” which in St. Louis basically means “at a strip club”. Slightly shocked (understatement), I paused for a moment before asking how old she is. “21.” …fuck. My dad is 54! I, myself, am 27 and feel slightly weird about dating someone who’s 3 years younger than me. They’d only been dating a week at that point and already he had bought her a diamond necklace.

Now, I know what you’re thinking, because I thought the same thing. Sure. He’s “dating” her, buying her expensive things. But from the way it sounds, he actually IS dating her. He met her mother (who approves of this relationship…how fucked is that?) He stays the night at her place, and I just talked to him last night and HE IS MOVING IN WITH HER.

This is insane. My dad is not rich, by any means. He rather looks like the Unabomber, circa living in the shack time.

Gah. I don’t know how to process this. On one hand, I’m happy that he’s happy. But on the other hand … this is just WEIRD. What if they get married? I will have a step-mother (stage name: Phoenix) who is 6 years younger than me. One of my brothers severely disapproves of this relationship (but he’s a right-wing Christian), and my other two brothers don’t know about it. I kind of want to tell my mom (they’ve been divorced 15 years) just because I think she would find it hilarious/sad that my dad is doing this, but I’m not sure that I even wanted to know, so why would she?

Oh, and my dad is also dating a 28-year old at the same time. She has a 6-year old. Not sure if the two girls know about each other, though.

AWESOME.  Le sigh.