Age

This has always been a curious topic to me. As many wise people plus Jack have noted, age is but a number.

It isn't uncommon to have friends who are a year older than you are. It isn't uncommon to have friends who are a year younger than you are, either. Indeed, by meeting people through your friends, people two and three years apart have become great friends at TJ.

I was actually weirded out in German 2, the first time I had classes with people a year younger than me. I wondered what they would be like. Immature brats, no doubt. Foolish freshmen that knew nothing about German or life in general. How could they compete with our full extra year of experience and wisdom?

This thinking is of course, completely immature and foolish in itself. On the first day, I saw the freshmen in my classes. None of them had diapers. None of them were carrying Barney lunch boxes. They were perhaps a little lost, but in fairness, so was I.

In German, who you sit next to is a big deal. Frau Vaden was a huge fan of partner activities, and we'd regularly have to practice speaking with our partners. I of course attempted to sit next to Eric on the first day, but Frau Vaden was having none of that. She switched me with another student, and I ended up partnered with Renjie.

Renjie was as apathetic as they come about German. In truth, I got lucky. Whenever we were sent off to do partner work, instead of speaking in German, we would speak in plain English. Usually about math team. It was a great first quarter, and the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Renjie will deny this, but too bad.

Making friends across even the smallest of age gaps has been tough for me. I've always been too intimidated, and sometimes even too intimidating (or so I've been told), to start up conversations with people who are in a different year. It has always taken some sort of special circumstance to bridge that gap - be it German class, starcraft, or shared friends.

Cue my arrival at college. One thing I've noticed is the apparent insignificance of age. No one cares that I'm a freshman. I've been introduced to people who never bother to ask. Inquiries into what I'm majoring in are far more common. Even hobbies, sports, TV shows, etc take priority over age. In all honesty, I didn't even know the year of some of the people I talked to until some one month after I met them.

Maybe that's made it easier. Maybe it's that, as we get older, the significance of age differences means less. I mean, if you're 45, you'd have to be a real snob to care in the slightest if the person you're talking to is 44. Whatever the reason, it's easier to talk to people older than I am now. It's not just a difference of one year. One of the most interesting people I've met is a 24 year old exchange student from Spain. He's learning Chinese as his fourth language, but this is the first time he's had to learn a language through English, rather than his native language. I can't imagine how difficult that must be, but it doesn't stop me from trying.

The shrinking of the age gap doesn't stop at 6 years. My Chinese teacher, a graduate student at University of Pittsburgh, is another person I've found common ground with. She sadly no longer teaches Chinese because she is expecting her second child soon.

Wow. A friend of mine is pregnant.

6 months ago, I would've laughed at the notion. But it's true. I don't hesitate to call her a friend. I really can't give her advice, or relate to anything even remotely close to what she's going through. I don't have to, though.

When I was little, I used to be immensely proud of my age. I used to know when I would turn four. I used to know when I would turn four-and-a-half. I used to know when I would turn four-and-three-quarters, and even when I would turn four-and-seven-eights. My friend Jeremy was about 6 months older than me. Whenever I would attain a "new" age, I would run over and inform him. He would, unfortunately, always have aged the same amount. I vowed that one day I would catch up to him.

In some sense, maybe I have. Whether it's a difference of 6 months, 6 years, or a full decade, it no longer matters as much as it once did. I would be lying if I said these people were my closest friends. There are countless things they know that I don't, and many challenges they face that I don't understand. But to have their support - and to give them mine - is a challenge that I myself am starting to overcome.