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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]First, stop talking to your kid about whether she is attracted to men or women. Just stop. Let go of this.

Focus on how you can support her meeting more people. Talk to her about joining a club at college, etc. talk about her plans for the summer. Is she coming home? Is she getting a job? Brainstorm a plan that will put her around various groups of people.

She needs to make friends, not love interests. Let the girlfriend situation just play out. Focus on expanding her ability to meet people and find friends.[/quote]

This is what I am doing exactly. trying very, very hard. I never talk about dating with her just ways to connect with others and form consistent friendships. But then I get frustrated on a Saturday when GF is coming to visit. very frustrated.

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this is an unhealthy level of enmeshment. you need therapy. [/quote]

Really? You don’t worry about your kids when you know they are making dumb decisions ?  Oh, you don’t have kids, do you?[/quote]

OP has not explained why this is a “dumb decision.” OP monitoring what her daughter is doing every Saturday at college and getting upset that she is not socializing the way she thinks she should be is extremely enmeshed. [/quote]

OP here--I get that. truly. I wish she were more independent. I think she's starting to realize that. [/quote]

You say you wish she were more independent yet you keep trying to micromanage her social and romantic life. She sounds anxious and you’re enabling her. Every time you start trying to fix her problems, you’re telling her she needs your help fixing her problems and can’t do it without you, otherwise why would you be stepping in and trying to manage her dating life. Catering to someone’s anxiety reinforces their belief that there’s a need for that anxiety. If she told you she’s hungry around noon, would you bring food to her? Give her a list of options she could eat? Tell her she’s an adult and knows how to solve the problem? You can’t create independence for her, but you can stop enabling her dependence.

If you need help, you could talk to a therapist and find out why you’re so involved in her social life and how to extract yourself from it without alienating her. If your daughter can’t handle you stepping back or if you think she has anxiety, you could encourage her to talk to a therapist on campus to help her take steps toward independence and how to put herself out there more to try to make friends.

It’s also strange to me that you’re not hoping she has some life experience while she’s still a student. You sound like you want her to be dating to find a husband, not dating for fun. Some of the things you’re saying sound like what my church youth group leaders would say about it being a means to an end (marriage) and should be approached more like interviewing for a job than a way to have fun. Or like when the main purpose of college for women was to find a husband. Does she really need to be looking for a partner to last the rest of her life at 20? [/quote]

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