Overprotective. I've seen it many times. Then the person gets to college and lives away. Suddenly everything they were denied/forbidden as an adolescent is literally thrown in their face full force. Then they end up partying too much, studying too little and failing or near failing out of college. It's very common.

I was pretty close to this. Not REALLY overprotected, but enough where when I got to college I lost all study habits to revel in the amount of "freedom" I had. And I went to a hardcore military school so you can imagine how much freedom I had at home if military school was 'free' to me.

If you have a date, you tell your dad. You say, "This Friday I have a date with ______." If he gives you some speech or something what you might have to do is work out some sort of deal. Tell him that as long as your grades are high you should be allowed to go out.

Of course I don't fully understand how bad your dad is, and this might not be an option, but it's certainly worth a try (unless the situation is much worse than I'm thinking right now).

Alexi