#103. 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 like the type to go out of my way to develop (or maintain, #121, #112) social relationships.
Which is why this particular day stands out. I had met Derek Dunlop just two-and-a-half months earlier, at the start of fifth grade at my new school, and he became my self-appointed best friend (#123) when we were forced to work together on a math project. For a while, our relationship alternated between good and bad; but after one major incident a few weeks earlier, I considered him my worst enemy.
What resurrected this friendship? Magic: The Gathering (#113), 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 the proper rules to them. And soon, Derek and Mike got their own cards, another guy, Stewart, dusted off the old cards from his basement, and we were talking, playing, and trading Magic regularly.
Side Note: The guys would often 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 ripping himself off badly in Magic card trades then whining for a trade-back five minutes later.
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 of tries to work out the logistics, as my parents were afraid that Derek and I would get into a serious fight if at home by ourselves (not unreasonable, all things considered). But finally, 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 couldn’t come. Sure. I just went back to playing my Pokémon Trading Card Game Game Boy game, making it all the way to the final bosses.
But in the evening, Derek did end up coming to my house and we hung out for several hours in my basement. We played basketball (with a mini hoop from 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 my Pokémon game. (Derek, who’d made no progress in his own Pokémon game to this point, was shocked to find out he could create his own decks—like I’d been doing, and was the entire point of the game—and not just play the crappy deck he started with.) Through all that, we just kept conversing non-stop: about other games, about school, about our lives, about everything. I still don’t know how we did it, but it was like our eyes were continually focused on both each other and our respective screens, without interruption, the entire time.
Looking back, it was impressive how quickly Derek and I became friends and started hanging out like old buddies. Though we’d continue having our share 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 valuable (unsleeved) cards from the old sets. One time, he posted a list of cards that some idiot kids had stolen. The kids were doubly idiotic, because the list had a bunch of big Wurms and Sea Serpents that were worthless, rather than weird preacher dudes that were worth $40 a pop.