I've been dating my boyfriend for almost a year. He's 25, I'm 27. I asked him to have Thanksgiving dinner with me and my mother at my house. He said no. I also invited him to have dinner with my father, my brother, my stepmom and me the day after Thanksgiving. He said no again. His reasoning: "It would be too awkward." He has met both sides of my family before, and I have met his parents as well. His parents are having Thanksgiving dinner with family friends and he doesn't have other Thanksgiving plans. This is not the first time he has turned down invitations to spend time with my family. I've told him the only way for us to feel less awkward with each other's families is to spend more time with them. He just said "I know" via text.

I believe he loves me, he is a wonderful partner in many areas of my life, but this is bothering me. What should I do, Dan? At this point I am fighting the urge to tell him that maybe our relationship is "too awkward" and we should part ways before Christmas rolls around. What do you think?

Single On Thanksgiving

I'd like to speak your boyfriend, SOT, so I could ask him the obvious followup question (OFQ): Why does it feel awkward? You either didn't ask him the OFQ... or you did ask the OFQ and didn't like his answer.

Assuming your boyfriend is actually into you and wants to keep seeing you, his answer to the OFQ went or would go something like this: "We've been seeing each other for less than a year and to me it feels like it's too soon to be spending the holidays with each other's families—it's also too soon for us to be calling each other 'partner.' So let's take a deep breath, stay calm and keep being wonderful to each other. If we're still together this time next year then, yeah, we'll do Thanksgiving with your folks or mine."

If you asked and your boyfriend the OFQ and he didn't give you an answer, SOT, then it's possible—and possibility ≠ certainty—that your boyfriend doesn't want to keep seeing you and is operating/dating under the mistaken-but-all-too-common belief that stringing someone along is less cruel than dumping someone right before Thanksgiving/Xmess/NYE. He may not want to spend Thanksgiving/Xmess/NYE with your folks because doing so will be held up as evidence of his lying jerkiness after he dumps you on November 27 or December 26 or January 2.

My advice: Take "it's awkward" for an answer (or whatever answer he gave to the OFQ), tell him you'd like to catch a movie or have dinner on Saturday, and don't make a BFD out of his reluctance to spend Thursday with at your mom's and Friday at your dad's. It could mean nothing at all or it could mean something pretty dire. But there's no way for you to know what it means, SOT, so you'll just have to wait and see.