Son 2 has a girlfriend

Yesterday Son 2 called me. He often calls on the weekend to say hello, though he's not strict about it. Anyway, this time he really said he had only one piece of news -- namely, that he has a girlfriend. I said this was much better news than his stepping in quicksand. He said, "Now you can decide that I'm normal," and I chuckled that I wouldn't go that far. He told me her name, and corrected my attempts to spell it. And that was about it. Then he said he was going to call Wife and tell her.

You will notice that this call told me almost nothing about her. Son 2 texted me a couple of photos, including one of the two of them together. She looks very pleasant; he's smiling. It's not quite what I've called a "goofy grin" but close. But he told me nothing else about her besides what I've told you here, and I didn't ask. My father was always really pushy and intrusive about wanting to know the details of my private life, and I want to spare Son 2 that same inquisition. I replied to his text saying that I'd be happy to hear any stories he wanted to tell me, but on his schedule. And that means that right now I know virtually nothing.

Son 2 did suggest that Wife won't be nearly so lenient. He left a message on her phone, and said that he expects "a barrage of questions." 

The call sounded rehearsed, and the abrupt way he ended it made him sound awkward. I assume that this relationship really isn't new, but that he got to the point of wanting to be able to refer to her by name when talking about her. Or maybe she pushed the issue, the way D once pushed it on me. Either way it didn't really feel like news. The last time or two that he stayed with me, whenever we talked he seemed to start a lot of sentences with "My housemate." ("My housemate did this," "My housemate did that.") Now he can give her a name, which is shorter. And one morning while he was sitting at my kitchen table, he got a phone call that prompted him to stand up and step outside right away; when that call wrapped up, I heard him sign off with "Love you." So as I say, it didn't really feel like news.

Doing the math, I realize that Son 2 is 23, and this is the first time he has said anything about dating anyone. That doesn't mean he hasn't dated, of course. He went to boarding school for high school and he went away to university, so anything is possible. But if he was dating before now, he never bothered to mention it. So it is possible that he started his romantic life kind of late, the same way I did.

Meanwhile his older brother, Son 1, has never said anything about dating at all. He has had the same opportunities as Son 2 for carrying on a romance out of sight of his parents, but I just notice that he has never said anything.

Twenty-three years old? When I was that age, I was already married. Not that my example is necessarily the best one to follow, obviously enough.

Anyway, that's the news.