Friends who are Boys: The Educator

I have a lot of friends who are boys.

Funny, they're like friends who are girls. But instead they are boys. Or men, of course, at this age.

They're talented. They play organ brilliantly, pursue doctoral degrees in literature or geography, and still woo co-eds at dive bars with success. They dance bare-chested in tights on stages and sing at piano bars. One runs races in 6-minute miles and doesn't brag about it. A few have egos.....but will still walk me to the bus after-hours, use Starbucks discount numbers to buy me coffee, and give me countless rides home when it is clearly out of the way.

They're like girlfriends....mostly because we don't date each other. But we hang out. We go for beer precisely so I can ask what some other boy who isn't returning my e-mails could POSSIBLY be thinking. They tell me to chill.

In return, we discuss the the Democratic presidential primary. And sometimes talk about their love lives. But they are uniformly good-hearted to let me go on....and on....and on.... about mine.

These are the guys my grandma has to wonder why I don't date. I try to tell her it is complicated.

One friend who is a boy, Michael, is a singer and violinist who, at the same time, writes computer code and is beginning his PhD in educational statistics at the University of Illinois. He's a thinker.....witness his blog with his observations on science, philosophy, and theology, sometimes all at once. He's relentlessly problem-solving....that person in the raucous party of church musicians (yes!) who makes sure the check gets paid with 5 separate debit cards.

Above all, he is an educator. Not only as a tutor in classrooms, which he is, but in our friendship. I often leave our conversations knowing he's asked me to newly consider how I think about a situation....and that because of something he said, I'm doing so.

Here is link to a video from this weekend's New York Times Michael sent along. He thought I might want to use it to compare against my own observations of match.com. It contains interviews on the Manhattan street, asking pedestrians:

"What do online daters lie about?"

Again, educating.

Thanks Michael.