Posted on: Tuesday, July 5, 2005

ABOUT WOMEN

By Christie Wilson
Advertiser Staff Writer

Love is in the air in our household.

The 17-year-old is getting her first taste of couplehood, and the 11-year-old is still flying high after professing his like to a 5th-grade classmate. Even the dog and cat have been spending an inordinate amount of time together.

Our daughter always had a lot of male buddies and did the sensible group-dating thing. She's a level-headed girl and has seen how pairing off turned some of her friends into a real drag. But she also wondered if she wasn't sabotaging potential relationships by becoming friends first, since, she reasoned, boys would tend to think of her as a sister and not appropriate dating material.

Then, one of those friendships turned into something more.

My advice to her, not that it was asked for, was to take it slow, since teen romances have a high flameout rate. She rolled her eyes and replied, "I'm not in love or anything, Mom."

Yet.

Our son had waited until the last day of school to profess his feelings for a classmate. A few days earlier, he told me he had been considering telling this girl that he "liked her a little," and wanted to know what I thought. I said there wasn't much point, since they wouldn't be seeing each other over the summer. In fact, she would be attending a different school in the fall, so why try to spark something — especially if he only "liked her a little."

On the other hand, why not? He had nothing to lose, I told him, and sometimes you have to put yourself out there and take risks.

He was beaming when I picked him up on the last day and couldn't stop grinning all the way home. "I gave her a hug," he confided.

Emboldened, that night at his elementary school's graduation event, he gave her a lei and another hug — but only after rehearsing by putting the flower garland around my neck a couple of times. On the way home, I told him he should have given her a peck on the cheek, as is customary when presenting a lei. In that same dismissive tone his sister had used, he said: "I think she's a little young to be kissed, Mom."

It's exciting — and a little scary — to see your kids experience the first flickerings of romance. You can share some of their exhilaration when a mutual attraction is realized, but for the most part they'll have to ride the rip-your-heart-out rollercoaster of love without you.

Meanwhile, Ol' Pa and me keep moseying along after 25 years together. I will admit that once in a brief while I get a little nostalgic for the flirtatious first days of a new relationship. But you can take only so much Romeo-and-Juliet melodrama in one lifetime, and I treasure our relaxed and mature romance.

Young love — it's a nice place to visit in memories, but I wouldn't want to live there.

Reach Christie Wilson at cwilson@honoluluadvertiser.com.