Trying to Find Friends

If there's one area I feel Shane's life is lacking it's in really close friends.

Shane is a super extrovert. He has a ton of acquaintance-level friends and people he knows through school and activities. He's really good at going up to random kids on playgrounds or places and introducing himself. He's been around a lot of younger kids and does well with them, too.

However, that requires a different set of social skills than nurturing close connections over time. Shane can say, "Look at me! Let's do this!" Then he'll charge off and inevitably someone will follow because it looks like Shane is having so much fun.

Shane has more trouble listening and learning to compromise. He wants to do what he wants to do. Then he wants other people to join him and share in the fun. If Iggy and Sam say they'd rather play soccer, Shane will wander off on his own and hope they join him. He will call over wondering when they're done as they play rather than going with the group decision. One of the reasons I suspect he's good with younger kids is because he can normally direct/talk them into different games or activities he has at least a passing interest in!

My family was large, so I grew up with my siblings wherever I went. I've, also, been blessed with friends I've known for many, many years. The earliest family my family bonded with was the Jeffers when I was three.

I have not found that for Shane. He loves his cousins and knows a lot of my friends, but none of them live in Charlottesville.

I don't regret meeting anyone I'm about to mention, but it's not been the same as my childhood with spending the night at a friend's and spending tons of time and experiences together.

The first candidate were the Lutfis. I really liked both parents, their parenting philosophies, they were our neighbors, and went to our church! I hoped Shane would learn Arabic with Daniel. We moved, and then they moved, though.

Shane spent a lot of time with Bryce the month before we left NOVA, but that was destined to be short-term. We've seen him on some of our trips when we go back north and will continue to do so. I've known Bryce's dad for years and years as a family friend of my parents.

After we came to Cville, Shane met Raheem. We've done a lot with Rah, but he's over 3 years older than Shane and can disappear on weekends. I've talked to two of his step-dads and his mom and trust him around Shane, but the age gap means they're going through different stages. We don't see Rah anymore at the bus stop since he's going to a different school. We've seen him less and less outside with the lower light levels and Rah coming out less, but he's still probably the friend we see the most of. (The day I'm writing this Shane and Rah are outside goofing off while I listen through a few open windows to keep track of them! It really helps I can trust them to not get into too much trouble or stray far!).

Charlie was our other neighborhood friend. She was younger than Shane, but I enjoyed talking to her parents, Matt and Lindzi, a lot. They moved after a year, though. They live in Texas now and have three kids of their own.

We started to get closer with Dylan and Eli for a long while, but that ended abruptly. I want to get the boys together at some point, so that the relationship doesn't stay ended the way it did. Carrie is still iffy on that. There's been tension in their house and a change in living situations that complicate things. That's not my business, so I won't air it other than to say it's affected things. We never made it to sleepovers or the like.

There have been multiple other families I would like to get to know better, but everyone seems to stay in the "nice people but busy" category rather than "close friends" one.

I tried to reach out to Iggy back when they were on the same tee-ball team. Their family stays super busy with both parents teaching in college. Iggy's dad teaches at a Catholic university in DC and is gone all week. His mom teaches at UVA. Iggy started the year in Shane's 2nd grade class, but they pulled Iggy out of J-Via. In an email they said, "J-Via wasn't the best fit for Iggy."

Sam is the friend we've seen the most of. He's come over for a couple of hours at a time, met at a park, or Shane's stayed at his house to play. Sometimes we go two or three weeks in between seeing him outside of school, though. Both his parents work, there are lots of grandparents in the picture due to divorces, and over summer they do a lot of traveling (Sam's dad is from the UK with family over the pond).

I traded contact information with Tae Tae's mom (from the neighborhood, but  moved) and Brett's grandpa, as well (from Pokemon Night, but we haven't been).

Honestly, this makes me stop and think about how blessed I was. I enjoy being around all of my family and I have friends who grew close enough I consider them family. That may be a rarer experience than I realized. I met Jesse Havard and Nate Newell when I moved to Beaumont for 2nd grade.

I'm definitely wired for community-building and I hope to help Shane find and grow with a healthy group of friends. I encourage Carrie to hang out with horse-friends and check in with people I haven't heard her mention in a while, too! Many of my students don't have what I consider a positive family and/or friend network which keeps the topic on my mind.