It’s Smokey Goretooth back again with another “Do I Suck?,” MetalSucks’ version of “Am I The Asshole?” where we take real life horror stories and bring them to our readers to decide if the OP sucks for some bullshit they may or may not have done.
This week’s entry comes from a user who’s willing to sacrifice their ears for the sake of fatherly love. Let’s read on…
My dad (59) and I (27) have never really been close because he and my mom had a terrible relationship. He definitely wasn’t a saint, and I remember resenting him a lot because of how chaotic he made our home life growing up. We eventually became estranged and didn’t really talk for years but a few months ago he popped back up wanting to spend more time together and fix our relationship. Now that I’m older I’m super down to try, but there’s one thing that I don’t think I can sustain—listening to Pantera all the fucking time.
Like, so much Pantera. A while ago my dad mentioned how they’re his favorite band and I think I shrugged it off by just saying “oh yeah, they’re good” or something like that, but I honestly cannot stand them. It’s just really not for me and my response at the time really was just a throwaway comment, but my dad took this as the linchpin for bringing us back together again. He’s always playing them whenever I’m at his house or in the car with him, he’s bought me shirts and records of theirs, and he’s even bought us tickets to that festival they’re playing in New Orleans next month. We live on the West Coast, and he’s already booked our plane tickets and hotel out there. This man has literally dropped a couple thousand on this whole ordeal, and it’s not like he’s rolling in the dough or anything, so apparently it’s super important.
He’s legit so goddamn excited but I REALLY don’t want to go, but I feel like I’m already in too deep. I’ve even slowly started selling some of the Pantera merch he’s gotten me so far because I’m never gonna wear it or listen to it on my own. I just don’t know how to tell him how much I think that band fucking sucks and that I’d rather repeatedly bash myself in the head with a hammer to the point that my eyeballs launch out of my skull like ping pong balls than have to listen to them ever again, let alone see them live.
But the thing is that I have really enjoyed having my dad back around and seeing him so happy that we have something we can “enjoy” together. I’ve tried to show him some of the bands I actually like but he’s definitely not as into or excited about any of it as he is Pantera. I can’t decide if I’m a shittier person for lying to him this whole time and potentially having to commit to this Pantera bit for life, or for bursting his fucking thrash bubble and telling him how much listening to them makes me want to die. I’m worried it’d change our relationship yet again, and I don’t think he’d have anyone else to take with him to New Orleans if I back out.
Do I suck for lying, or would I suck for actually being truthful?
I’m definitely glad I’m not in this position, since I wouldn’t be able to keep up the rouse either. Feels a bit like he’s damned if he does and he’s damned if he doesn’t. What do we think readers?