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Being friends with someone much younger than him was something of a new experience for Geordi. He was never someone who had lots of friends, but the ones he had were always around his age, two or three years older or younger, but not much more than that. There was, now, an exception.
Wesley Crusher was his friend. And Wesley Crusher was thirteen years younger than him.
When Wesley had been born Geordi was entering his adolescence. Wes was now entering his adolescence and Geordi was nearing thirty.
It wasn't hard to forget that Wes was still a kid, what with him being a genius and always around adults rather than people his age, and with him working around the Enterprise, on the bridge and engineering and all.
And Geordi had never been great with people in general, regardless of age, and being friends with someone so much younger now presented him with new difficulties. Because regardless of how mature and well-adjusted Wes is, he's still a kid, and Geordi, as an adult, has a responsibility over him. Has the responsibility to remember that Wes is a child, and that there were things that no child should know, hear, see or do. Mostly because there were things no person should know, hear, see or do, much less children. There sure were things Geordi wished he himself didn't know, hadn't heard, seen or done.
And Geordi didn't really know how one was supposed to talk to kids, no matter that Wes was closer to an adult than a kid. He figured that treating everyone like an intelligent person, listening and respecting boundaries was a good guideline to interact with anyone, kid and adults alike, so that's what he did.
He had a conversation on the topic with Doctor Crusher, once. Both because she was Wesley's mother and because she was probably the most equipped person on the ship to have that discussion. She agreed that the 'treating him like a person and listening' strategy was probably the best thing that there was. That had helped calm his anxiety about the whole thing for a bit, but sometimes he couldn't but overthink everything a bit.
On days like that, when he worried about how his friendship with Wes affected him (Wesley), there wasn't much that could pull him out of it. But seeing Wes run into engineering, hands full and all but tripping on his own feet, seeing him break into a smile when Wes finally spotted him, the "Geordi!" and excited rambling that followed, that sure did help.
With an amused smile Geordi pulled out a chair for Wes and focused on the words coming out of the boy, allowing his mind to finally stop worrying so much, and instead he allowed himself to enjoy the moment, the interesting conversation and the ideas shared.
He was glad to have Wesley Crusher as a friend, no matter how old either of them were.