JB has a girl friend. And Im not breaking any confidentiality laws by speaking it out loud - because he already announced it to all and sundry on Face Book. (and because he doesnt read my blog cos he says its boring...and only for old people. All you 'boring old'readers of this blog can get insulted now!)
JB has a girlfriend. JB has a girlfriend. JB has a girlfriend. JB has a girlfriend. ( Everybody chant with me now...)
If i say it enough, will it make it go away? Ever hopeful.
If i say it enough will it get less painful for me to hear? (Kinda like your face getting numb to all feeling after its been slapped twenty or so times?)
I dont want JB to have a girlfriend. I dont want him to fall in love with anybody. I dont want to think about him holding hands with OR kissing a chirpy cheery female. You know what I want? I want to move back home to Samoa. In Samoa, I could say - 'Who's her parents? Where's her village? Where does she go to church?' And with the answers, I could instantly have this girls entire genetic code mapped out. Chances are high I would go to the same cardio session at the gym with her mother. And would have been in the same class in high school as her father. And probably taught her older siblings English a few years ago. Look hard enough, and I could even have uncovered some connections on our ancestral family tree and 'oh so sorry, but you cant go out with her because shes actually your third cousin twice removed and thats just plain ole nasty...' Yep, on an island where everybody knows everybody - its impossible to keep anything or anybody a secret.
But here? Hello. Dont have a hope in hell of knowing who her parents are. I could google her address but that still wont shed any light on what kind of upbringing she's had. I cant call up JB's teachers and ask them to dish up all the dirt like I would back home - because of course that would be 'unethical'. (Seeing as how I didnt used to teach with these people and so they have no un-professional, unethical connection with me at all.) I asked JB if she goes to a church somewhere/what religion she is and he shrugged and said, "I dont know. I never asked her."
Great, I mutter. She could be a Satanist. A member of the Klu Klux Klan. A Nazi. An avid follower of Shortland Street even. How can you go out with someone and not know what they believe in?! (I try not to shriek.) How do we know shes not a drug addict, a super skanky ho, a FB porn star in her spare time? Son, I'm telling you - girls are evil. Girls are sly. Girls are manipulative. Girls are Bad News. (Approaching hysteria now.) You've gotta believe me! ( I mean, I know Im old and all, but I used to be a teenage girl myself...)
JB tried very hard not to roll his eyes at me. "Mum, you may not know whether or not shes all those bad things, but you know ME. Do you really think that I would choose a girlfriend who was a...drug addict/skanky ho/satanist? You know the values I believe in - heck, mum YOU'RE the one who taught them to me. My girlfriend's none of those things. She's different from the other girls. She was raised a lot like me. She's got parents like I do."
I am suspicious. What kind of parents are those!? (Paranoid, psycho, unwilling-to-let-go, parents who spy on their teenagers every way possible? hmmmm.)
And I am humbled. Silenced. Because JB is right. I may not know HER - her ancestral lineage, her nu'u, her every aunty and uncle, what she got on her report card last term. But I do know my son. And I trust his judgement.
But because I'm a super friendly and loving mother, I'm going to invite JB's girlfriend AND her parents over for dinner one night. Just to be sure we're all on the same page. Stay tuned....