#96. A Friendly Visit (Friday, November 24, 2000)

What was your best day…of intentionally going out of your comfort zone?

If you wanted to form a broad assessment of my personality up until this point, it would be fair to say that while I definitely enjoy social interaction, I don’t seem the type to go out of my way to develop (or maintain, #113, #104) social relationships.

Which is why this particular day stands out. I had just met Derek Dunlop two-and-a-half months earlier at the start of fifth grade at my new school, and he became my self-appointed best friend (#116) when we were forced to work together for a math project. Now, for a while, our relationship kind of alternated between good and bad; but after one major incident a few weeks ago, I considered him my worst enemy.

What resurrected this friendship? Magic: The Gathering (#105), of course. Specifically, Mr. Napier our (awesome) French teacher ran a “games club” at lunchtime for students to play with his board games as well as his personal Magic decks¹, which he had 20+ of. So naturally, Derek and Mike wanted to play Magic, and I – having been indoctrinated in that game at my previous school where it was king – spent several of these sessions explaining them the proper rules. And soon, Derek and Mike got their own cards, another guy Stewart² dusted off the old cards from his basement, and we were talking, playing, and trading Magic regularly.

This Friday was parent-teacher interview day, and so I – in a strange moment of social awareness – had the initiative to suggest a get together at my house with Derek and Stewart. It took a couple iterations to work out the logistics³, but the plan was for Stewart to come hang out in the afternoon and Derek in the evening (separately).

Well, after lunch I called Stewart, and he told me he had spent the whole morning at the arcade and was burnt out and hence couldn’t come. Sure. I just went back to playing my Pokemon video game⁴, making it all the way to the final bosses.

But in the evening, Derek did end up coming to my house⁵ and we hung out for several hours in my basement. We played basketball (with a mini-basketball hoop that came in one of those 10 in 1 mini-sports sets), NHL Powerplay ’96 on PlayStation (where, despite losing badly, he took great pride in doubling the other team in body-checks), then of course some Magic.

For the last hour, he played my Spyro the Dragon on the PlayStation; while I kept trying to beat the last bosses on the Pokemon game. That entire time, though, we just kept conversing non-stop – about those two games, about other games, about school, about our lives, about everything.

Thinking about it now, it was quite impressive how fast Derek and I became friends and started hanging out like old buddies. Though we’d continue having our shares of conflicts in the coming years, there was something about that day that gave me just a bit more confidence for making friends moving forward.

Looking back, in those decks he had a lot of really valuable (unsleeved) cards from the really old sets. One time, he posted a list of cards that were missing from his decks, presumably because some idiot kids had stolen them. The kids were doubly idiots, because on the list was a bunch of big Wurms and Sea Serpents that were worthless, rather than weird preacher dudes that were worth $60 a pop.
All year, many of our classmates would make fun of Stewart to his face for being “STEW-pid”. Which was pretty mean, but motivated by things like him insisting the teacher call him “Sarge” on the first day, and often ripping himself off badly in Magic card trades then whining for a trade-back five minutes later.
My parents were afraid that if Derek and I were at home by ourselves, we might get into a fight that could escalate badly. Which, all things considered, was not entirely unreasonable.
The Pokemon Trading Card Game Gameboy game, to be specific.
About a 30-minute drive.