Friends, Buddies, and Kiwi

I've always been fascinated by the social interactions that culminate in friendship. It is particularly interesting to watch the process happen among children, who are so fearless and unguarded, but who still make obvious decisions about who their friends will be. In my opinion, one of the funniest indicators of friendship among really young children is the inevitable declaration about whether one child will be invited to another's birthday party.

They'll be on the playground, and things are going well, so one child will tell their friend in a super-secret whisper, "I'm going to invite you to my birthday party!" And then five minutes later, someone's feelings get hurt, so they shout out, "I'm not going to invite you to my birthday party!!" It's like they have this running list of their birthday party invitees, even 6-8 months in advance. In addition, each child also has a running list in their head of the parties they're attending. They'll come home from school, heartbroken because "Johnny said he's not inviting me to his birthday party."

So how do they decide? What is it that holds these delicate friendships together? Two situations this past week have helped me understand this phenomenon a little better.

First, my 9-year-old attended Cub Scout Day Camp. There were ten boys in the group, and for the entire week, the boys were required to have a "buddy." I was only there for two days, but it was completely intriguing to watch how the pairs kept migrating. Two boys were buddies for awhile, then one would approach another pair and ask if they wanted to switch. So they'd switch and hang out with their new buddy for awhile. At the pool, everything changed again based on swimming ability, but sometimes a good swimmer would choose to be buddies with a non-swimmer, just for the social impact.

One day, when my son came home, I asked him about who his buddies had been for the day, and he replied that a particular boy had been his buddy all day. I asked why, and he explained that he'd gone to the Trading Post, bought some candy, and then he'd shared the candy with this boy. I'm guessing that the conversation was something like "Hey, if you share that with me, I'll be your buddy for the whole day," but either way, everything in that particular relationship revolved around the possession of a tiny container of soda pop candy.

Then on a separate day, we were babysitting. The boy was a somewhat new acquaintance for my children, so there was a lot of personality experimentation happening. At lunchtime, though, it all became clear.

Sometimes friendship simply comes down to the food.

I was cutting a kiwi, asking the kids if anyone wanted a kiwi. I knew that my own children would never want anything so adultishly decadent as a kiwi, so I suspected I'd be eating the whole thing myself, but I wasn't sure about the other child. Sometimes other parents are more successful in exposing their children to the fabulous foods that are out there, so I just didn't know. Not surprisingly, though, he gave a wrinkled-nosed "No thanks" to the suggestion of eating weird green food.

My daughter, at that point, nearly jumped out of her seat. "You don't like the same things that I don't like!!!" Now, really, this is not a difficult feat. She likes very few foods, so as long as you DON'T like food, you're going to have something in common with her. But she was excited, nonetheless.

She started asking him about other foods -- "Do you like green apples? ME NEITHER! How about zucchini? Peppers? ME NEITHER! We're the SAME!!! You should invite me to your birthday party!"

OK, wait a second. When in the world has anyone gotten a birthday party invitation solely because they didn't like kiwi and green apples? And when do you decide to stick with a friend indefinitely, simply because they're willing to share a soda pop candy with you?

Maybe I need to reevaluate my friendships. Anyone out there hate Macaroni and Cheese? Because after 12 years of having kids, I've decided that I can't stand the stuff. And hey, if you hate it too, then you can come to my birthday party next summer. Let me know, because I'm making the list now. I'll even share my kiwi with you.