Kinda serious topic; how well do you guys/gals get along with your dads?

[Feldschlacht IV]

This came to mind when I was reading an article in a magazine written by a guy who lamented the lack of connection he ever really had with his (deceased at the time of his writing it) father. The overall point of the article was to discuss the fact that a lot of adult males have rocky, distant, or sometimes nonexistent relationships with their fathers, and to implore its readers to improve their relations with theirs if they can, before its too late.

It made me think about the relationship I have with MY father. I don't hate the guy or anything, but it always has been pretty distant. My parents divorced when I was pretty young, and afterwards my dad was pretty successful with his auto detailing business, so he never had time (or made any, really) for me and my siblings. And then he moved to Arizona. Sure, he was good at throwing money around sometimes, but my relationship with my dad was pretty much like how Fight Club put it in a conversation between Tyler and the main character, if you've ever seen it;

Tyler Durden: My dad never went to college, so it was real important that I go.
Narrator: Sounds familiar.
Tyler Durden: So I graduate, I call him up long distance, I say "Dad, now what?" He says, "Get a job."
Narrator: Same here.
Tyler Durden: Now I'm 25, make my yearly call again. I say Dad, "Now what?" He says, "I don't know, get married."

I'm not at the 'get married' part yet (I'm not done with college yet either) but it pretty much sums up in 'call him every now and then and he gives me some one liner advice/words and I call him next year ad infinum'. I dunno, when I think about it, I'm not really resentful about it, since I'm an adult and I don't really NEED him anymore, but hey, I figure it might be an interesting thing for everyone to talk about.

What type of relationship do you have with your dads? Close? Distant? Nonexistent? Is Father's Day something you actually circle on the calendar or forget until someone casually mentions it? Discuss.

[NotMiki]

Father's day, huh?  I barely ever remember it without prompting, but that's precisely because my father's the type of person I feel comfortable calling whenever I want; I don't need an excuse.  I guess in a way you could define closeness as the ability to just call.

[superaielman]

Dad? I get along well enough with him. Better than I do with my mother at least.

[Meeplelard]

I get along with my father rather well, I'd like to think.  No real tension with him or anything, can get into interesting conversations, etc.  My mother's the one who I don't get along with, and even then, that's mostly just a relative thing, as its not really a serious issue here (she more just does typical things that get on my nerves rather than actually being scornful.)

[Shale]

I once went three years without seeing my father. I wish it had been longer.

[Yakumo]

I live a couple miles from my dad and we hang out a lot, especially for football/hockey games. 

[Taishyr]

I get along with him alright when he's in a good mood. If he's angry or upset I do not even bother attempting to talk to him, however.

[Luther Lansfeld]

My father and I have a pretty weird relationship. He and I live in completely different worlds (I am a student and very uninterested in partying, he is a drug addict who wishes he was in high school), and I resent him for treating my mother like shit, but we never really argue and we give each other a  lot of hugs. He realizes that I think badly of his lifestyle and it seems to make him feel bad.

(I'm female, for the record, so I don't fall precisely into the conditions of your article.)

[AndrewRogue]

Hit and miss.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Hrm. He seems to labor under a lot of misconceptions about me, I suppose, and I have to correct them. I dunnow, is it popping his balloon if I tell him I'm only ever going to get married for tax purposes, and that I have no interest in ever having children, let alone buying some house for the little shits to bash up? He'll occasionally mention something I need to do so I can be ready for that kind of thing, obliquely, like it's just generally assumed that I'm going to get married and move to some suburb.

We get along decently enough most of the time, but I have an underlying feeling he just doesn't understand what makes me tick. To be fair, I'm the same way. Oddly enough, outside of the wildly divergent views on the sort of life paths we seem to think I should be leading, we have mostly the same views about the world. My mother is the one I usually disagree with more, as she's so right-wing I'd call her a reactionary.

[Yoshiken]

This came to mind when I was reading an article in a magazine written by a guy who lamented the lack of connection he ever really had with his (deceased at the time of his writing it) father.

I'd assume he's still deceased, personally.

@Topic: I get on pretty damn well with my dad, outside of one small factor. I'm bisexual, my dad's completely homophobic, so he has no clue. Otherwise, yeah, we get on great. Kinda have to, since I'm living with him again now, and there's nobody else around to stop any arguments we might have. We tend to stay out of each other's way most of the time, with me staying in my room and him in his study. Only times we really talk are over dinner during the weeks, but that's usually fine, so... all's good.
My sister, on the other hand? Hardly talks to him, when she does, it's via e-mail and she's bi as well, except actually has a girlfriend. (Whereas I've only ever had one relationship since my dad's started paying attention to us, and that's with my current girlfriend.) She's very feminist, while my dad is a sexist, homophobic dick most of the time. (This is why I make an effort to hide away in my room most of the time.)

So... yeah, I get on well enough with my dad. Wouldn't particularly care if I didn't talk to him any more, though.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

I barely talk to my father due to us living two states apart. I respect him a lot, though, and so does he, and we're in pretty good terms. We don't see each other - or talk to each other a lot - but I'm fond of him. It's kinda sweet.

[DjinnAndTonic]

My dad died before I turned 3. And I've never really found a suitable replacement father figure. It is psychologically troubling, if I had to analyze myself.

My younger siblings' father is generally cool, but we didn't really develop a relationship until I was old enough that I didn't really need a father figure.

[Grefter]

I get along well with my Dad.  We know when to leave each other alone when we are frustrated or angry (which is normally at the world, not each other). 

He loves his music and was a huge influence on my taste in music from the 80's when I was younger and then when I broke through the "OH MY GOD 1960s music is so oooooold" barrier that you kind of get he certainly introduced me to some of the heavier stuff from the 60s and 70s that I am into (The Residents on the other hand is all me and my obsessions baby), so outside of my Sister he is probably one of the bigger direct musical influences in my life.

If you have seen my ranting and raving about music you will realise just how important that is to me.

I grew up helping and watching him fiddle with computers and he is generally a gadget freak.  He isn't super crash hot with PCs these days, he is in the knows enough to be dangerous to himself region, but such is life (easilly the biggest pain point in our relationship is trying to help fix things that have gone awry with some kind of expansion card that I don't even have a clue how it works.  No Dad I don't know how to get your TV Tuner card working in Ubuntu).  If you have talked to me ever you would also know that I kind of like my tech bits and I am a little into gadgets, more so in recent years than previously and I tend to at least need a function for them (unlike my father who bought an iPod Touch just to have one and he doesn't like Apple much either).  So there is certainly a great deal of resonance between things we both like.

He is into cars and is a fitter and turner by trade which is a job he enjoys it seems since he practices it in his spare time as well with his obsession with steam engines and whatnot.  There is plenty of stuff we have no overlap with at all.  I care nothing for any of that (Other than a passing appreciation for a good bit of engineering, like say I don't get bored sitting through an episode of Top Gear for example because they showcase some very delightful pieces of mechanical engineering there), but that doesn't really bother us.

So yeah, the volatile aggressive foul mouthed one is fairly well adjusted once again.

[Cmdr_King]

I'm not fond of my father at all.  While many of my interests stem very directly from things he introduced me to as a child (sci-fi, fantasy, my musical tastes, to a degree how my thought processes work (he tends towards crazy tangents and conspiracy theory ranting, which I'm more than a little prone to)), I also recognize in the views he holds views I held and decisions I made as a child that trouble me a great deal now.  I have memories of elementary/middle school which, in retrospect, feature me being an anti-social jerk who thought everyone was unworthy due to being so much dumber.  I'm pretty well diametrically opposed to him in social and political matters now as well.  Being generous his relationship with my mother would be described as abusive, but since this was limited to her we've all seemingly decided to consider it as ancient history now.

soooo between all that and all the conversations we have tending towards "so when are you going to get a real job and start your life?" I can't say we ever find much common ground these days and he does considerably more talking than I do responding, to say the least.

[Lady Door]

I've always gotten along pretty well with my father. I really look up to him.

We definitely don't see eye to eye politically -- he's very conservative, though not religious -- but it doesn't get in the way of anything. In fact, I've had some really great conversations with my dad based on this inability to see things the same way.

[Sierra]

My dad is pretty awesome. That said, since this topic is about communication, I'm not sure how much we actually talk about anything of note. This is admittedly hard to do when I spend 99% of my time living in a dream world, of course. I personally tend to avoid conversations about any real-life concerns because, well, I figure it's pretty obvious that the one I lead is fairly aimless. And he's not a very talkative guy, but he doesn't really need to be--strangers visiting the house might think he's antisocial or unfriendly, but as kids we always knew that if we wanted ice cream or something and mom said no, dad could be relied upon to say yes. I suppose it's possible that at this point there's a lot that just doesn't need to be said.

[Glen Veil]

I would say I get along with my dad fairly well personally.  Honestly I see so much of him in myself that it honestly scares me sometimes.  Our thought processes and the way we act to things are so eerily similar at times that I find my jaw dropping when I think about that stuff in retrospect.  Honestly the only thing I can truly think of that might be slightly different is that he might be slightly homophobic, though I don't think it's to the extreme of being against the relationships themselves so much as just feeling slightly uncomfortable around those people.

That said, we don't hang out much, my parents got divorced  when I was fairly young, and even though we only live half an hour apart, both me and my father HATE driving, compound this that my dad isn't technically welcome in my home for more then 10 minutes since I live with my mom, and I hate my stepmother with a passion, we only really see each other maybe a day each month.  Both of us would probably like to hang out more, but we pretty much find ourselves incapable of tolerating the others homes long enough to do so, which is a bit sad.

The ironic part of this is I pretty much hate my moms guts almost as much as I despise my stepmother, both of their life's philosophies clash completely with my own.  My mom basically lives her life to work, and honestly her inability to enjoy things baffles me, the only reason I can tolerate being around her is that she has to work out of state so often that the time I have alone gives me enough time to cool off between her lectures of how I need to overwork myself to secure my future, this of course has the complete opposite effect on me since I take once look at her overly stressed faced and realize that's exactly how I DON'T want to end up.  I'm sorry, but I don't see the point in working for a retirement fund when by the time I'm actually able to retire my body will be so broken down that I'll have essentially just worked my life away for nothing.

[Cotigo]

I see my family around once a month, and we get along pretty well.  Not much else to be said on the subject.

[Dark Holy Elf]

My dad and I get along well and we have no real trouble talking about things. I wouldn't say we are omg bff and I don't talk with him about absolutely everything but overall we communicate well and talk about many things.

[Dunefar]

We get along alright enough, nothing too shocking either way.

[Niu]

I don't get along with my dad. I don't know how to put it really, but I can't take him more than a preachy hypocrite or out right being superficial.

[Carthrat]

My dad's a pretty cool and indulgent guy. He's cool because he seems to know everything, and indulgent because he's not kicking my ass for slacking off the past five years at home. He's got this weird sense of humour that sometimes I synch with, and other times I find really, really irritating.

How can I say this? For most of my life I didn't really think about it, but just how much I owe my parents has kinda hit me lately. Really don't want to put any distance between us.

[Scar]

The only reason I remember Father's day is because it's right around my Dad's birthday.

Now, my relationship with my father is a very perplexing one.

You see it was never a real close relationship to begin with. My parents divorced when I was 2 and I only occasionaly visited my dad on the weekends, sometimes. He was a pretty far gone raging alcoholic during this time too, so my mom only let me see him even less often then I'm sure he wanted, but since he had another son with a new wife, that made it all the easier that I went visited him, to at least get me to have a decent relationship with my brother.

The two of us lived our youths in fear of our father coming home after a hard day at work and the bar, obliterated by booze and hardships he would sometimes let out his rage on us. So, I enjoyed going over there to play and hang out with my brother, but at the same time, I was scared for a couple good reasons.

Anyways, that was just a flashback, or a quick glimpse of my past relaion with my father. It was a good start and he never did pay for child support, but my mom wanted a good relationshiop between all of us, so she never pursued him legally.

Fast forward to like three birthdays ago. Now, since getting older, my father seemed to have realized he had a strained relationship with his two sons, and it seemed like he was trying to build something of a working, loving father to son type of deal. Or at least that's what it always seemed to me that he was trying to attempt.

Anyways, my birthday right? We have a party at his house, and naturally we are all drinking. One of my friends is there from out of town. A black kid, but I only mention that for forshadowing! My dad gets it in his head that he is trying to hit on one of my cousins so he starts to try to kick this kid out of the house. I get in his way and try to calm him down, but he then proceeds to put his hands around my neck.

I'm no boy anymore. I lost that nerve that made me afraid of this man a logn time ago. When he put his hands on me, and the combination of booze built up inside of me caused me to ignite and start wailing on my father. I punched him a good two-three times right in his eye. Yeah, i punched my father. Of course this didn't sit well with him so he ran inside.

I proceeded to tell everyone to leave the party. I knew he was running to get his gun. everyone b-lines it to the cars and my dad runs out with his gun (I'm no gun expert, can't tell you what kind it was.) and then starts flashing it around and pointing it in my direction.

I goad him into shooting me. Couldn't really tell you what kind of mindset I was in, but I had a pretty good feeling my dad wasn't going to shoot me in his front yard. I saw the insanity in his eye (one was swollen shut.) and was mixed with adrenaline, rage, and a good amount of fear. Thankfully he didn't shoot me. He shot the grounf right by my feet and my friends finally grabbed me and we all took off in cars.

Did I mention this was my birthday party?

Since then he has appologized, and I guess I did too somewhere along the lines, but the relationship is pretty damaged right now. I hardly call him, and he doesn't even bother anymore. When I go to his house, I can see that he wants to have a working relationship with me and my brother, but I see him as a person that I strive not to be in life. That is my father's biggest impact on my life.

A model for everything I try not to become.

[metroid composite]

Note: female

I get along with my father just fine, although it should be noted I'm much more likely to have an emotional chat with my sisters or mother.  Interactions with my father are...businesslike I guess (nagging me about taxes and stuff).  I can tell he cares; he'd drive a long distance to help me out.  I suspect he's just not very socially adept (or maybe he is but he just feigns ignorance most of the time...seems like the kind of thing he might do, actually >_>).