It took 14 years.\u00a0 We really didn’t think it would happen.<\/p>\n
Number One Son is downstairs, playing video games with his friend, who slept over last night.<\/p>\n
When was the first time you had a friend come over and play?\u00a0 Just swing by, hang out for a few hours?\u00a0 You were, what?\u00a0 Five\u00a0years old?\u00a0 Maybe you were all of 8 or 9.\u00a0 I think I was 8, honestly, but I could be off by a bit – I don’t remember the 70’s well, for obvious reasons.\u00a0 But Number One Son has never had a friend come over to play with him – ever.\u00a0 Not one.\u00a0 This past Wednesday, he mentioned to SOBUMD that he was going to step outside for a few minutes.\u00a0 “OK,” said she, “just come in before it rains.”<\/p>\n
This was unusual in and of itself – he doesn’t going outside much, willingly at least.\u00a0 “Dad, I went outside *last* week – sure, the graphics are amazing, but the gameplay sucks.”\u00a0 So SOBUMD wasn’t surprised when he came back in 3 minutes later.\u00a0 She *was* surprised, though, when she heard more voices.\u00a0 She went to check.<\/p>\n
“Hi, I’m Owen,” said the boy we’ll call Owen.\u00a0 “Number One Son has stayed in touch with me over the summer.”<\/p>\n
“Nice to meet you!”\u00a0 We’d heard about Owen from school; they were friends.\u00a0 This is the first time Number One Son has ever stayed in touch with anyone.\u00a0 We just didn’t know he lived in our neighborhood.\u00a0 “Do your parents know you’re here, or are they out frantically looking for you?”<\/p>\n
“Oh, no, they know exactly where I am – after all, Dad dropped me off.”<\/p>\n
Whoa.\u00a0 It turns out, Number One Son had organized this whole thing – he just left out the bit where he told us about it.\u00a0 The boys communicate for hours, it turns out, over their headsets on the servers that they’re logging into for\u00a0gaming.\u00a0 So, fast forward 2 days, and suddenly we’re hosting a sleepover.<\/p>\n
Number One Son and I just drove Owen home, pizza, Coke, and a good time having been had by all.\u00a0 On the way home, I got this question:\u00a0 “So Dad, is this what friendship is like?\u00a0 A loss of interest and enjoyment in the things that you used to enjoy, unless your friend is with you?”<\/p>\n
I said yes.\u00a0 The more I thought about it, I told him that that might be one of the best definitions of friendship I’d ever heard.\u00a0 It took him 14 years, but I’m very glad he’s finally found friends who really get him.\u00a0 There’s hope for us all!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“Is this what friendship is like? A loss of interest and enjoyment in the things that you used to enjoy, unless your friend is with you?”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[47,5],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3829"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3829"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3829\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3834,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3829\/revisions\/3834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}