When do we meet the mother

Nice to meet you! I'll be over here studying and definitely not making out with your son in his bedroom! But, like everything else in life, the question, " When should you meet each other's parents?

Introducing your partner to your parents, and vice versa, is no longer as simple as a quick hand wave before a "study" session. As an adult or whatever it is that we are? I turned to a handful of guys and girls to find out when they knew it was time, and Burns was right: Everyone's got a unique way of knowing if and when to introduce their partner to their parents.

Some have set rules, others have cute stories, and a few have no real idea. For one, the entire series has a framed narrative: As the title implies, we're watching a story being told to the main character's children. Ted Mosby starts the series as an older man, sitting his kids down for a long-winded story about the way he got together with their apparently absent mother.

After a bit of throat-clearing, we flash back to Ted's late 20s in New York City. Ted is an underemployed architecture school grad who makes rent in the city by splitting a place with two of his college friends. Marshall Eriksen is a law student hoping to get into the field of environmental justice, and Lily Aldrin is a kindergarten teacher who dreams of making her way in the art world. Marshall and Lily have been dating since time immemorial.

Though Ted seems happy as a single man, his hopeless romanticism and the presence of Lily and Marshall's seemingly rock-solid relationship fills him with doubts about how he's living. They only get louder when Marshall proposes. Once he sees his friends moving into the next phase of their lives, Ted begins to take stock. As he's unfulfilled both romantically and in his career, he starts thinking about settling down.

Shortly thereafter, he meets Robin Scherbatzky and believes he's stumbled into the love of his life. Ted reveals his feelings for Robin, only to have the Canadian journalist tell him to pump the brakes. When Robin tells Ted that she'd rather be friends, Ted outwardly understands.

Robin becomes the fifth member of the core cast and the audience learns that she's not the mother via Future Ted calling her Aunt Robin. Not one to be down for long, Ted turns to dating a woman named Victoria. True to form, he falls fast for this rising baker, even agreeing to be one half of a long-distance couple when Victoria lands an apprenticeship in Germany. Things quickly fall apart on Ted's side of the Atlantic. Seeing Ted in a happy relationship brings out feelings of jealousy in Robin.

Diving into the root cause of those pangs of envy, Robin realizes she has feelings for Ted in spite of her initial brushoff.

Ted sees this and decides to lie about his relationship status: He tells Robin that he and Victoria ended their relationship, finding the long-distance situation too difficult. Ted and Robin start dating, but their relationship isn't long-lived. Ted's lie comes back to bite him when Victoria calls Ted and Robin answers.

After learning that Ted deceived her, Robin breaks it off with Ted and tries to distance herself from him. Victoria obviously ends things with Ted over the phone, and he's left back at square one.

At the same time, formerly static relationships are shifting. The cracks are beginning to show in Marshall and Lily's relationship following Marshall's proposal. The impending matrimony has Lily thinking about paths not taken, and she starts to wonder if she needs to make a break so she can give living as an artist another go. She breaks off her engagement to Marshall and moves to San Francisco to take up an art fellowship. Marshall has dated Lily for all of his adult life. He has no idea how to date.

So the show's serial womanizer and resident skeeze, Barney, takes the devastated man under his wing. He attempts to teach Marshall his unethical and gross means of tricking women into sleeping with him, something the good-hearted and still heartbroken Marshall can't pull off.

He does manage to get the number of a barista named Chloe, who the gang warn him away from because of her "crazy eyes. Lily comes out of hiding to reveal she broke the picture, then leaves the apartment crying. When Marshall goes after her, Chloe destroys the apartment, proving the gang's theory correct. At the same time, Ted and Robin have reunited. Once again, it doesn't last long: They split over a disagreement about the future. Ted is dead set on marriage and children, while Robin is much less committed to either.

They call it off but keep their breakup a secret from the rest of the gang, so as not to distract from Marshall and Lily's rescheduled nuptials. Around the end of the second season, the show starts to dive into the backstories of its core cast. While we know that Robin is Canadian and a journalist, little is known of her life outside the U.

When she reacts strongly to the idea of going to the mall, the show introduces the concept of a slap bet, a bet where the wager is being able to slap the loser with no repercussions. Marshall and Barney come up with different explanations for Robin's aversion, diving into her still largely unknown past. Barney believes she was a porn star, while Marshall thinks she's secretly married. The show also makes an attempt at humanizing Barney.

We learn that his ideas of manliness came up in a vacuum, as his father wasn't around and his mother lied to him about his parentage.

He obsessed over the show and finally getting to meet his "dad," studying the way the show worked so he could guarantee a spot in the final showdown where he could talk to Barker. He eventually nails the price of everything in front of him and, after being rejected by Barker, gives the winnings to Lily and Marshall for their upcoming marriage.

The next season focuses on a once-again single Ted being led around by an ecstatic Barney, who is happy to have his go-to wingman back. Robin comes back from a trip to South America with a gorgeous new boyfriend named Gael played by Enrique Iglesias. Marshall and Lily make the decision to move out on their own and are suckered by a pretty but shoddily built apartment in a terrible neighborhood.

After moving in, they realize that the apartment is severely tilted and that its trendy name of Dowisetrepla stands for "downwind of the sewage treatment plant. Back on the romance front, Ted begins dating a dermatologist named Stella. Robin sleeps with Barney during a vulnerable moment and a furious Ted ends his friendship with him. Barney and Robin opt out of pursuing a relationship. Ted's relationship to Stella falls apart, and he gets into a car accident shortly after breaking up with her.

Though they are estranged, Barney wants to be there for Ted. In his rush to get to the hospital, he gets hit by a bus and ends up recovering in the same hospital room. The two men realize that their bond is stronger than their squabbles, and they decide to be friends again. Ted worries that his life is too short to dither away on casual relationships, so he proposes to Stella immediately after leaving the hospital. Seeing Ted propose brings out the romantic in Barney.

He realizes that he has deep feelings for Robin, even if they've opted to bury those under a layer of callousness. These only grow stronger when Robin lands a job in Japan. She quickly returns, quitting her job and coming back to New York for Ted's wedding, citing homesickness. Ted gets left at the altar by Stella, and his singledom coupled with Robin's precarious situation leads the pair to move in together.

Robin gets a job as an early morning anchor to avoid being deported. The close quarters breed resentment between Ted and Robin, who learn to vent their frustrations with each other by having sex. This situation doesn't sit well with Barney, who is secretly in love with Robin.