buying your way out of a relationship: some dads just miss the point

I generally like to avoid venting about my personal life--but my story is really anecdotal of a larger point, and so I will share.

When my dad asked me to watch some youtube videos with him, my first inclination was to stay yes--but instead, I decided to stand up for myself. I reminded him that whenever I ask him to do something with me, he says no. But whenever he asks me, I generally say yes. I made the point that a relationship works both ways, and both people do things to spend time with one another.

My dad said, "Fine, don't watch the videos."

Okay, I would love to watch videos with my dad--that is not the point. The point is that spending time with my dad happens on three occasions: me doing something with him that he asks me to, me talking to him about what he wants to talk about, and eating with him.

No wonder he doesn't know me.

Well, he absolutely could not connect the dots and grasp what I was telling him, and so I said, "What have you done with me recently that I have asked you to?" He gave me that "are you kidding me look?" And so I clarified, "Besides paying for me."

And I hit the nail on the head. Just because he foots my bills all the time, in his eyes, he has won father-of-the-year and bought himself out of actually doing something with me.

I am deeply saddened that my father's idea of successful parenting is creating a proactive person, instead of caring to understand and get to know that proactive person.

I am thankful for my private school tuition, my nice car, my ability to live beyond comfortably, my easy access to whatever I need, the luxuries of personal maintanence and leisure, my ability to persue activism because I don't have to work, my ability to do really well in school because I don't have to work, my ability to take an unpaid internship, et cetera--I genuinely appreciate all of these things. But that doesn't take away from the relatability I wish I could have with my dad.

I don't know what it is like to actually have a meaningful relationship with my father, so I cannot say what I would give up to have one. And there is nothing I could even give up to buy back my relationship with him, so the argument is moot.

In the end, I am sad for two reasons. First, if my dad does not know me, I feel his love for me is unfounded and based on very external, shallow, and/or (consciously or unconsciously) obligatory reasons. Maybe this is why I try so hard to keep topping myself, and to attempt to win some legitimate love. Secondly, I am sad because my dad is getting older, and I am getting older. I am leaving for the semester, and soon enough I will be away in law school, and soon enough I would like to move out of Los Angeles. It's not like I have all the time in the world to try to catch up with him.

And the funny thing is, he thinks he knows me so well.