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FACT ONE: I have a new boyfriend.

Fact two: my mother was coming to visit me.

This seemed to lead to only one conclusion - they were going to meet.

It's not a situation I've really had to deal with before - the official introduction of parent and boyfriend.

I can't remember my first boyfriend meeting my mum but seeing as how we started dating in the sixth form I suspect it involved him coming over after classes and her just being there.

Later situations were dealt with in the same way - I was living at home so the boyfriend in question was coming principally to see me and got to meet my mum at the same time.

But with me living in Southampton and my mum in south London, it wasn't going to happen in that casual way.

It had to be a formal "meet the parent" scenario - which is, of course, rife with pitfalls.

What if my boyfriend wasn't ready to meet my mum yet? What if she thought he was an oaf or told embarrassing stories about when I was three?

Tales of my friends' awkward parent/date meetings ran through my head.

Dave, for instance, had a shocker.

"I went around to my girlfriend's parents' place for dinner," he remembers."It was excruciatingly embarrassing as her dad was pretending to himself that we were just friends, asking me if I had a girlfriend when I'd blatantly been sleeping with his daughter for months!"

Faith also had a meeting from hell with an ex's folks.

"First time I met his parents I thought they were OK - a bit conservative with a small c' but nice enough," she says.

"But the second time, I was round for dinner and his mum let slip they were occasional naturists. Then his dad asked me if I'd like to see his holiday photos. Keen to ingratiate myself I said, yeah sure'.

"The first photo was of him, reclining on a sun lounger, stark naked. I'm not joking - you could see everything.

"The other photos were similarly horrific: boyfriend's dad, naked except for hiking boots and a rucksack, grinning by a waterfall; boyfriend's dad, naked except for socks and sandals, preparing a barbecue. All I could do was politely say oh, what a lovely waterfall. What lovely weather'."

Yet somehow Katie's encounter with her boyfriend's parents was still worse.

"My boyfriend lived with his parents. I'd been back to stay at his house a few times and it was really awkward because despite the fact that we all knew I was there, the boyfriend in question never introduced us!

"When we finally did meet it was because we passed on the stairs as he was taking me home.

"Complete with birds nest hair and last night's make up smeared over my face, I had to swallow my embarrassment and muster up a hi, nice to meet you' in my politest voice. I'm sure she must have thought I was an absolute tart!"

And Paula's mum had a fair shot at putting her foot in it.

"I'd been going out with my boyfriend for a few weeks when he walked me home from a date and ended up coming in to meet my parents," Paula says. "As we stepped into the house my mum cried out in irritation: Oh, what did you bring him in for?' She was referring to the family cat, which had darted into the house with us. Thankfully, both my boyfriend and I were too nervous about the meet the parents' situation to register what she had said.

"We'll laugh about this in years to come," my blushing mum assured me after he'd gone.

"I replied in typical teenager fashion: For God's sake mum we've only just met - it's not like we're going to get married!' "Eleven years on and we've just celebrated our third wedding anniversary - and yes, the cat story did make it into the groom's speech!"

Despite my friends' experiences and my concerns, I told my boyfriend that my mum wanted to meet him but was at incredible pains to stress that if he didn't want to he didn't have to.

It turned out that he was far more relaxed about the whole thing than I was, so it was agreed we'd go out for dinner.

Luckily, as neither of them is socially inept - I can't speak for myself - it was a really nice evening. He even scored massive bonus points by paying!

I was less cool. I dealt with the awkwardness of having just kissed him goodbye in front of my mother by saying, as he went to give her a kiss on the cheek, ugh, you're not going to snog my mum are you?' in the sort of loud, embarrassing voice normally only heard coming out of teenagers' mouths.

However, it was pronounced a success. She liked him, he liked her, they didn't actually snog.

The only trouble now is that this weekend it's my turn to meet his parents and he's set the bar pretty high. What if I'm the one who puts my foot in my mouth? I think I'll be ok as long as no nude holiday snaps come out

11:51am Tuesday 24th June 2008

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