I'm the parent of a 14 year old girl, and am still very close to my ex - we parent really well together, even though we didn't turn out to have a great romantic connection. For the last few years, I've had a boyfriend, who I'll call R, who has a daughter 2 years younger than mine.

R was an acquaintance before I split with my husband, and my daughter knew him a little bit already. Even though she knows I'm now dating him, there hasn't been a big change in terms of how often she sees him. They're friendly, but have only seen each other at events where her dad was also there, and she was distracted by other kids. Until recently, we had only met R's daughter twice, also at public events, and hadn't really interacted with her. Her mother is very possessive, and R didn't want her to know that he and I were dating, or to feel threatened by the presence of another woman in her daughter's life. Plus he had the normal and healthy concerns about letting her get attached to someone in case the relationship ended.

Now that his daughter is older and he and I have been together long enough to feel really committed, R wants us all to know each other. In the last few weeks, we met up briefly at a flea market, and he brought her to a party at a mutual friend's house. Both times, he introduced her to me (not telling her that we were dating). She was perfectly polite and sweet, but I could tell she was uncomfortable meeting a new person. We talked about it afterwards, and he said she's just very quiet and hard to draw out of her shell. She lives with him half the time, and he said he still has a hard time getting her to talk about things other than TV and their dog. He's a quiet guy too, so it's not surprising, but I'm not sure how to talk to her.

R has the idea that his daughter should get to know me before he tells her that we're dating, but I'm worried that if she doesn't know why she keeps getting forced to talk to me, I'm just going to come off as overbearing and weird. I'm a teacher, so don't mind talking to kids, but I'm not sure how to draw a kid out in a situation where it doesn't come naturally. Plus what if she just doesn't particularly like us? I would prefer he tell her we're together and just ask her if she's interested in knowing me, but he's afraid she'll just say no, and then he'll be stuck.

I hope I explained this decently! What do you all think?