Evan, Jackie and the rules

Evan is certainly having a fun time with Jackie.

Jackie is at a cross-roads of sort. She has been talking to her social worker about some options. One of them is to see if she can get into the permanency program that Evan is in. Another is to go into an emancipation program. I asked her to describe it and she said, "Well...you know Evan doesn't have any rules?"

Say what?

"You know, how Evan can do what he wants and he doesn't have to ask for permission?"

Uh huh. Right.

That was this afternoon. Just a bit ago Evan told me he had a date, not just a hook-up, an actual date. He is the same age as Evan, been out for about as long (this is very important), and lives with his parents. He is out to his parents, but they are not very happy about it. Evan was even willing to tell me his name. He might, someday, even introduce him to us. Not yet, of course. It would just be too weird for me to making a fuss over a boy. But maybe, soon. (Of course, Evan has recently realized the advantages of having a real boyfriend he has introduced to us.)

Anyway, he told me that the young man's parents have a policy of locking the doors at 10:30 at night, but I shouldn't worry, he already told him that it was too early for him to spend the night here.

Uh huh. Yeah. That's going to happen.

I actually allowed myself to argue with him for a while. He told me he was 19 years old. I told him that I knew that, but that he lived with a family and having a boyfriend over for the night was not acceptable. He went back to about how he was 19.

It finally clicked that this was a performance for Jackie's benefit.