Son has met someone online

[Soph301]

My 16 year old son has met another teenager online who he now says he is in love with. I have seen/spoken to the other teenager and their parent so I know all that is above board.
The issue I have is my son has sever OCD and is extremely vulnerable. The person he has met - let’s call them Sue, has a lot of issues of their own including traumatic negative experiences online. Which they often offload on to my son, and it is making him sick. My son feels he has a responsibility to Sue to make sure they are ok and happy. My son will spend all day and night if allowed- I have forced him to pull back from this- supporting Sue and ensuring they are ok. To the point where my son is coming off the voice chat in tears because he finds the things they’ve said that traumatic. Additionally Sue I feel strings my son along. Sue says she wants a romantic relationship to my son, then will say in the next breath that they have doubts and maybe they want to be with someone who treats them badly.
How should I proceed? If I banned my son from speaking to her, he would go behind my back and I’d rather he told me what was going on. He wants to meet up with Sue in real life with parents present but I’m very unsure about this. When I explain this to my son he gets hysterical and starts weeping and crying. He says he loves sue.

Our teen has done this a couple of times. He has autism so is also vulnerable but he also obsesses so There is no point telling him no. for the first one we had spoken to her DM and DH drove him there (3 hrs away! So over night hotel £). He & DS met her & friends in town then DH left them to have a wander, a meal etc before driving home next day.

The second one he again wanted to go to hers but they managed to arrange for her to come to us. Parents drive her over, they stayed locally & teens had a couple of days out. DS was then invited to theirs for weekend & he went. We were happy at this only because we had spent several hours with her parents and were happy they were nice people.

Thankfully both of these ‘relationships’ fizzled out fairly quickly after meeting. With any luck, meeting in person will have the same effect for your DS so it might be worth considering. Better that than him deciding he has to meet her & run off & do it alone. That’s the only reason we bit the bullet tbh, although I’m not sure how I’d feel if he’d been speaking to someone like Sue, she sounds very troubled. They’re such a worry aren’t they?

My 18 year old son has met a trans boy online. They speak and game daily and he says he is in love. He wants to spend 4 weeks with him over the summer. The boy lives in a different country and I have never met him or spoken to his parents. I am really apprehensive about this, mainly because I’m concerned about the fact they only conduct their relationship online and I have no idea what type of person they are or what the parents are like. I believe the relationship is preventing my son from socialising at university, which concerns me. I also think he needs to find a job over the summer to earn money for his second year studies which will be impossible for him to do with a bulk of his time spent abroad. Although he’s 18 and technically an adult who can make his own decisions, he’s sensitive and a bit naive. He is upset that I don’t agree with his plans. I think the relationship is complex and I’m worried about him. I just don’t know how to navigate this without pushing him away. Any advice appreciated.