We hung out with friends yesterday whose children are girls. Their 8-year-old was in the process of repairing a friendship that had been on the rocks. She had been exchanging emails with the estranged friend, and the day that we were there, they spent some time on the phone working things out. By the end of the day they had decided to give their friendship another go, but to take it more slowly this time.
I was fascinated. Jordan is the same age, but he doesn't do anything remotely resembling what our friend's daughter was doing. He has friendships that I think matter to him very much, but he has never once talked to a friend on the phone that I know of. He has sent a couple emails (through me), but they were not chatty, more of the "let's have a playdate" or "look at this Lego thing I built" variety. I realize that Jordan is getting no practice having phone conversations. He's not interested. Does this explain why the boys I tried to talk to on the phone in middle school (and high school!) by and large had nothing to say? Did they have no experience talking on the phone? Was telephone just not a medium of interest for them?
Meanwhile there go the girls, not only having a relationship (on the phone!) but explicitly working on their relationship. Talking about the kind of friendship they have and how they will conduct it. I have just never seen my kids anywhere near such a thing. When my kids have a friend over they start doing some physical task, or talking about the items they've collected, or acting out an imaginary battle or quest. And Jordan's friends are very much all boys. I would venture that Jordan hardly interacts with girls socially at all; he's in class with girls, but he doesn't hang out with them by choice. Yesterday, the only time Jordan interacted with our friends' daughter was when she got out her skateboard. Is that what would have made sense to the male friends I was trying to cultivate in middle school?
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This is so fascinating, R! Prompts me to ask questions about my own phone-talking habits in elementary school. I think I rarely used the phone, although I do remember having a guy friend that called and talked to me several days a week. Usually asking for advice about some girl or another. My parents thought it was weird. Especially because I had a 'boyfriend' (whatever that means in 5th grade), and he never called. :) I'd guess I talked to a girlfriend on the phone 2-3 times a week, 5 minutes tops.
My son is surprisingly good with the phone, and probably even more comfortable than me as an adult. He's nine. He has friends he will talk to on the phone when he has an action result he wants. Like helping a friend get a Pokemon special character. Or calling a friend when he found out what teacher he got. But they usually want to stop talking sooner than him. He has several friends who are girls, including one of his best friends. He never calls any friends to just talk.
But right now he's on the phone talking to his grandma and is telling her about people he sits with on the bus. One of them, he just said, "I kind of like that she is talkative because it makes the ride home go faster." So, there you go.
I think it's just another example of characteristics that are on a spectrum. Perrin is good friends with several girls and doesn't hesitate talking with them. And just now he said to me he has friends who wouldn't sit with a girl unless they were required to.
I think it's just who they are.
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