It's so awful being a teenage girl that I can still remember how horrible it could be forty years later - and I'm not being sarcastic. My father was very protective also, made worse by the fact that I was the eldest and only girl. One night my boyfriend's car broke down and we got back home at 10:30pm instead of 10pm. My father was standing in front of the door to the house with his belt in his hands. I wasn't hit, fortunately, but I was grounded for a while. I was 16. I really, really wanted to be a boy, they had so much more freedom.

You didn't say how old you are, and that can help us with a response - though perhaps others who have been here much longer already know. Did you get the impression that if you had said anything first about the boys coming over that the reaction would not have been as bad? Did your father react as though you had gone behind his back? What you are seeing is his initial reaction, which is always a little extreme. Be reasonable and don't try to do what he told you not to. When he's calmed down, perhaps he (or more likely your mom) will listen to you as you talk about what a good friend Dylan has become. If that works, he may be able to come over for a family meal.