It’s Hard Dealing With Boys.
When Dylan went back to college, I was ready. He was ready. Bill was probably ready, although he worked through a lot of Dylan’s days at home.
But I’m not sure Shane was ready. In fact, I think Shane may have had the best time with Dylan out of all of us. He actually hung out with Dylan. They did stuff together.
As parents, we tried to “do stuff” but it usually ended up with Shane and Dylan complaining about Bill or me, or both. There was some fun reminiscing about their childhoods – done mostly by Dylan – but when Shane and Dylan were together, they really enjoyed alone time.
So now that Dylan is gone, Shane is – well, alone again. And I don’t think I realized how much time he spent alone until Dylan left and Shane started thoroughly enjoying the electronic gifts he got for Christmas – by himself.
So I’ve been trying to encourage him to do things with other people. I’m particularly trying to get him to hang out with guys his own age – which, it turns out, is nearly impossible.
It’s hard dealing with boys, and I didn’t know that. Boys don’t really respond well to other boys. As a female, I’ve never been very comfortable with male communication styles.
And in high school, male communication is not comfortable for anyone – not even boys.
Dylan always texted girls, invited girls over, wanted to hang out with girls. And I never understood that – until I was reading a book and the high school guys joked about how “only girls text each other.”
So that explains a lot. And Shane has some wonderful girl friends, and they do a lot with Shane. But I still try to push the guy friends on him – and I think, as I am writing this today (having had a rough morning with Shane already), I am going to stop pushing the guy friends. Shane has guy friends, and if they don’t want to hang out after school, that’s going to be okay.
As long as Shane is okay with it.