This morning I found an electronic-mail message from my No. 1 son in New York City. He shared with me a message he had sent to his mother in the boondocks west of Boston, which focuses on his activities over the last weekend. And I was delighted to come across a tidbit in his story having to do with meeting “in real life” with a woman he had long known only on the World Wide Web. This is apparently rendered as “IRL” among the cognoscenti. I included a few words about the felicitous acronym in my response, but I skipped my main concern. That is, the sort of people my son is close to appear to have very few opportunities to meet themselves in real life. They are too busy not only working, but also socializing on weekends. And forever in vain, like atoms in a gas. Be that as it may, I hinted that meeting himself IRL would be a real boon. I can only hope my hint will not be entirely in vain, as well. To my chagrin, it went by electronic mail.