A girlfriend for my son

For the past couple of months my son has been telling me he has a girlfriend. He is turning 15 next month and girls had never really been on his mind. Just computers and icq and soccer. But his teen mind is expanding and although I never met the girl formally (he never brought her home), he shows me messages they write each other, which I think is sweet.

But then he tells me she isn't that good-looking and there are prettier girls than this one.

"So why are you going out with her?"

"She ran after me. She's the one who wants to go out with me."

Oh, I see.

"What do you talk about when you go out?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

I guess talking isn't what he's into. They probably just walk alongside each other with nothing to say. I can see it. Two computer geeks have found each other.

He pointed her out to me in the supermarket last Friday.

"Right, she's not pretty?" he asked me.

I thought she was really pretty. Long dark hair, nice features but they didn't speak to each other, just a shy "hi" when they passed each other. Perhaps it was she was with her Argentinian father. Perhaps she's not ready to meet the folks of his yet either.

Later that evening, we teased him for being shy with her in the supermarket and the fact that they don't have these verbal conversations.

But I see him "chatting" away until the wee hours of the morning on ICQ. With her. She types and he types. And if they ever get married, they'll send each other typed messages and SMS's when they want to tell each other something - like pick up the kids this afternoon or buy some milk and bread when you come back from work.

But it looks like they won't be speaking much to each other soon.

Not those two computer geeks.