Hi! My Name is Andy! What's Your Name?!

I have been teaching Andy that, when he meets a new child, he should say, "Hi.  My name is Andy.  What's your name?"  If he says this phrase, then it is certain that he will make a new friend.

What's heartbreaking is that he has listened to me and now approaches kids and says, "Hi.  My name is Andy.  What's your name?"  I did not count on the lack of social skills in other children, who mostly dumbly stare at him and do not reply, thus making poor Andy repeat himself a couple times.  "Hi.  My name is Andy.  What's your name?"  I also did not count on him yelling to children down the street, expecting them to hear, understand, and yell back.  "HI.  MY NAME IS ANDY.  WHAT'S YOUR NAME??"   Of course, no one ever yells back BECAUSE THEY'RE DOWN THE BLOCK, and Andy turns to me sadly and says, "They don't say hi back.  They don't say their name."

And here's one of the first lessons of life, my dear sweet son.  Despite your best efforts, you can't always make a new friend, and the only thing you can ever count on from other people is that they will likely disappoint you.

Of course, I'm the last one who should be teaching Andy how to make friends.  I mean, I'm probably the first one who should teach him, since I am after all his mother, but, socially, I'm just as lacking as many of these asshole children.  I only use the phrase "asshole children" in the hopes that this blog will be the number one web site listed on Google when some distraught parent one day searches for "asshole children."  Welcome to my blog, sir or madam.  Teach your child how to say hello.

I say I'm the last one because I always struggled to make friends in my youth.  I always had friends, but they were few in number and generally the kind of other kid who also ached to be part of a certain group.  Also, I clearly remember my mother asking me one day, "Don't you have any other friends beside Samantha?"  No, Mom.  I don't.  Maybe you should have taught me how to properly introduce myself.  Also, these clothes from K-Mart and the mullet from the hair cutting "academy" sure aren't helping matters.  I could only hope that one day I would embrace my awkwardness and have it be a quirky part of my adult persona that other, cooler people would find strangely pleasant. Or at least not wholly unpleasant.

Andy tries very hard to make new friends, and his friends are important to him.  Children who are not as interested in conversing with him are a source of major agony for him, though.  He doesn't understand why or how someone would not want to be his friend, and he becomes distraught when an older child tells him to go away, which happens far more than we'd all like to acknowledge.  He is also interested in becoming friends with adults, which generally works out a little better for him, although at some point I will have to sit him down and tell him that any adult who is not a trusted family member or some other already thoroughly vetted citizen who is interested in being his friend is likely someone that I don't want him being friends with.  I tell you, this parenting stuff is complicated.

I am also trying to reinforce- daily, dozens of times per day- that he already has a friendship that he needs to work on nourishing.  Alex, man!  Be friends with Alex!  Play with Alex, who so yearns to be your BFF.  Hand Alex a single building block to hold, even if it's just out of a begrudging source of pity.  Don't be so quick to try to push Alex down the stairs.  Alex is amazing.  He's everything you could want in a buddy.  He has an undying adoration for Andy that cannot be matched by some asshole child (just in case the aforementioned Googling parent decides to go for the singular).

And just a few other reasons why Alex would be an amazing friend:

He's going to grow up to be a hot young man.  I can already tell.  Is it wrong for a mother to refer to her son as hot?  Hmm.

He loves to eat.  I have built many a friendship around a shared love for Smash Burger or the giant, 5,000 calorie potato at Jason's Deli.  It's the tie that binds.

He giggles and claps at practically anything.  Everybody needs a good audience!

He waves at you- sometimes with BOTH hands!  Look, another kid who likes to say hello!

Andy, on a successful day of
friend making.

He sleeps in your room.  You don't have to go far to find him.  He is your brother, and he will always be there for you.

He tolerates your bad moods.  This is very important.  If you treated anybody else the way you've been treating Alex, you'd definitely be down a friend.  But Alex just turns the other cheek and offers you a smile and a sticky hand.  Because, like I said, he's amazing.

Anyway, I am not really about to quash Andy's efforts to make new friends, and I keep encouraging him to use his introductory phrase.  Sometimes, he'll say his piece and then turn to me and demand, "Say hi, too, Mommy."  I feel like this is his way of calling me out on my own hypocrisy.  Sure, I can tell HIM how to make friends, but I myself am rarely interested in doing the same.  Whatever, Andy.  I'm not a little boy, I'm a mommy.  And unless I know for sure that someone else likes Smash Burger, I'm not going to bother.

But if you're reading this, and you have a young child- please teach him how to say hello back to my eager little boy.  For real.