I Facebook friended a guy I met swing dancing last night. He told me he was still in college, but it wasn't until I saw his birthday that I realized he's younger than some of my students.
Relating to him, totally peer.
Relating to them, mostly still in teacher mode.
It's crazy how we get cast into the roles we meet people in. I almost understand it, and then, shocked.
I have a fair number of friends older than me. Old enough to have been my teacher. Or baby-sitter. Even some who that baby-sitter is really when I was a baby. But I don't have many friend more than, say, 3 years younger than me. Those people were my sister's friends growing up. Or didn't overlap enough in college. Or I haven't run into in the "real world" yet.
But it's happening. And I'm excited for it.
2 comments:
I remembered this post recently, so I looked it up.
Friends younger than me? Sure thing. I seem to have something of a knack for that. But older? Well, if they were closer to your age, that was your territory.
But now I've started hanging out with people from contra. Friday after dancing, one guy pointed out he was no longer the youngest of the group. His age? 27.
So now it's happening in the reverse.
I guess I hadn't really thought about the friends I had in middle and high school. Theater crowd in middle school was almost always older than I was. My favorite lunch buddies after 9th grade were older than me.
At graduation I realized that one of my best friends here is the same age as one of the students I was visiting. (To be fair, I was her TA too.) This time it made it feel more okay to be friends with the high school students than it did at the time.
And yay for you having friends my age! Heeee
Post a Comment