and now for the rest of the story...
Even though he has better social skills than I do, even though he can talk to people of all ages because he seems to know a little bit about everything, even though he makes witty comments and all that there is still that one big problem--the lack of common interests, not just with age mates but with most of the people in our small football loving rural community that voted down a library more than once but has a very nice football field. Even worse, he does not fit in our family. It is difficult for him at things like the recent going away party for his star high school football player cousin. Everyone in the family went to the football games. Only two older family members go to my son's musical theater shows. My son is an outsider in his own family. He feels invisible to them. He feels ignored. I feel so very sad for him but that is just the way it is here. I have trouble making conversation with them also. When one of my family's football obsessed, school security cop friends talked about how he tells the kids at school when he first meets them that whipping is allowed in our public schools and he would just love for them to try something, I walk away wondering if he was a schoolyard bully in his younger days. My husband said he was just "talking trash." They do that a lot here. To fit in you have to talk trash, not use big words, and pretend to love football.
So our biological family doesn't feel much like family and we have to look elsewhere for a place to connect with other people, which is where the musical theater group comes in. Several of the kids who have been in the group with my son for years feel they are like family--a different kind of family, but a real family. One of them has mentioned this several times and they all agree.
I finally asked one of the college kids in my son's acting group "family" who has known my son since age 4 if he would be interested in coming to an after birthday party for my son. He said he would love to. He said my son reminded him of himself. He said he never had close friends his age. When he made jokes with kids his age, they didn't get them. Only the adults got them. He said my son is the same way. He asked if my son was still reading his sister's college psychology textbooks because he is interested in that also. He said he is especially interested in how music affects learning. He said it really is okay for kids like my son to have adult friends. I said I had thought about inviting him over before but he was so much older and... my son said "she worries about what other people think."
So I have four college kids on our after birthday party list--four kids who have similar interests in music or games or learning. I probably should have done this a long time ago.
