Boy Communication vs. Girl Communication

When Kiki left for college, I wasn't worried that I wouldn't hear from her. She is my communicative child. All throughout high school, Kiki always kept in touch. Whether it was a call at break time or lunch to remind me to do something or a furtive text from class to let me know a great grade on a paper or test score. She has always kept in touch. It has been the same way since she has gone to college. She routinely calls me when walking to class to let me know what is going on in her life or to catch up on hometown gossip. She still texts to let me know a great grade or to see if I remembered to make a tuition or housing payment. I am pretty much in constant contact with her.

I always said that it would be different when Snake goes to college. His communication genes come from Chizz's side of the family tree. While as Kiki texts or calls me almost on a daily basis, I know that my contact will be quite different with Snake. I will most like drop him off at college in September and I won't hear from him again until the day before Thanksgiving when he checks in to find out his travel arrangements to come home for the holiday.

So why am I surprised at his lack of communication on his trip to Peru? Perhaps I thought the international nature of his trip would prompt some desire on his part to keep in touch or he would just be homesick. So far the communication has been minimal to say the least. He has been gone a week. I have heard from him directly twice, maybe three times. I say maybe because I am not certain about one time. It is not that I expect to him to be in daily contact with us but since there have been some developments in that part of the world, I have been wishing there was a bit more contact.

Or maybe it is because the quality of his communications have been less than satisfactory. The communications so far have been brief. His first email was about 4 lines. One line to tell me he was having difficulty texting on his phone. But not to worry as he can get internet on his Ipod through the hotel. He asked me to respond to let him know that I got his message and oh, by the way, he was doing great in Peru. I responded back with about 6 paragraphs, describing completely what he needed to do to send a text internationally, advising him of our travel plans in detail, what was going on here, reminding him to take photos, asking what he had done so far, advising him that I had followed the 5 paragraphs of instructions he left me on getting concert tickets for a concert that went on sale last week and that I was successful in getting a difficult ticket, inquiring about the weather and wishing him a great time on his trip. He responded with 4 lines (again) thanking me for getting the ticket, indicating that it wasn't a dialing problem with the texting - he just wasn't getting service, wishing me a great time on our trip and that he was, indeed, having fun so far but he was getting very little sleep. I sent him back a 4 paragraph email, detailing the results of my 45 minute communique with ATT about his difficulties in texting internationally and what he needed to do now, reminding him of the exorbitant costs of telephone calls and the prohibitive costs of data downloads or internet d downloads from his phone and reminding him not to do any of that under ANY circumstances, reminding him to try and get a good nights sleep when he can and to take photos. His 2 line response the next day was to advise me that Iron Maiden was set to make a big concert tour announcement on Thursday and I needed to stand by in case he needed to get tickets for whatever concert they were about to announce. And he was doing great in Peru.

That last communication was about 6 hours before the 8.8 earthquake in Chile, the country right next door to Peru. So I waited, and waited, and waited. Thinking any moment he would email or text me to let me know that although he had felt the earthquake, things were status quo in Peru. Nothing. And more Nothing. So I send him an email, asking him if he had heard about the earthquake and perhaps it might be nice to let his poor old mom & dad know that he was "doing great in Peru". Nothing.

Until this morning, when I got a text from an unfamiliar cell phone number in our local area code. It said "Snake is doing well and sends his love." Hmmmmmm. The second part so doesn't sound like Snake, but in a way the message is all Snake. It is all about him reading my email after the earthquake, and thinking he has to communicate with me but forgot to charge his phone and doesn't have internet service to communicate. Soooooo he talks his friend at 925xxxxxxx into sending me a quick text to let me know he is fine, the "sending his love" is the editorializing of another 16 year old boy. You just need to read between the lines (or the words if there are hardly any lines).

Gosh, I can't wait for college. I just hope I hear from him before graduation.