This is sad but true. I can remember on more than one occasion in the late 1960s being on a date with a young lady and after pizza and a movie going out into the country to "park", then getting in the back seat of my car, with my guitar, and leaving the girl in the front seat. Needless to say, I didn't date much.
I have played guitar for around 45 years, I read guitar music and learn the classical pieces I play from sheet music. For that matter I started learning to read music at age seven. But for every thing else, I either had a music book with chords and lyrics, sheet music, or in most cases, sat in front of my record player and learned the songs I wanted to learn playing along with the records. Most of you older guys remember the drill. Put the needle on the track you wanted to learn, listen and try to play along, lift the needle put it back down at the beginning of the track or at the section you were having trouble with and just keep doing that until you learned the song. Learning to play guitar that way trains the ear to hear music on a much deeper level, forces you to learn a lot more about your guitar, and gives you a deeper understanding of song construction and chord progressions.
I don't advocate doing away with tabs, early Renaissance and Baroque lute pieces were written using tablature then later transcribed to notation. But ear training is probably one of the most important aspects of learning any musical instrument.
It's not helped by his having two parents who treat him like he's the most perfect person to walk the planet since Jesus.
