Dinner date

We had dinner with some neighbors yesterday evening, who have a boy who is Graham's age and who shares some of his enthusiasms and quirks. The two of them were very animated at dinner, to the point of loudly monopolizing the dinner table conversation, such that Graham wasn't hardly even eating. I tried to lightly steer the conversation by, for example, looping in the boy's less quirky younger sister, to open things up.

Afterwards, our neighbor suggested we all go in the back yard to watch the sunset, apparently something they do regularly. When we were out there I was, I fear, slightly too negative about some of the things the boy was doing (pursuing ultra-accelerated math, thinking about entrepreneurialism as a path [my gut was he didn't have the people-skill inclination that would make him good at going out and pitching endlessly]). I wasn't overbearing, but the mom did pick up on it a little.

I hope not too much. I think I was ultimately coming from a place of fear about Graham's own social ticks and how they might mess him up and, of course, my own experience -- mom not letting them skip one grade and doing lots of things (getting braces on my teeth early, buying me Izod shirts, etc) to help me assimilate towards the middle socially, which ultimately has given me a bigger pack of people with whom I can associate and more social practice, in a sense, so maybe somewhat less bad social skills, in aggregate.

But last night I was not at my best. My own insecurities got tapped, and I acted out a little. But the kid is truly an excellent kid and we want Graham and him to hang out as much as humanly possible.

There's clearly only one thing to do: write an effusive thank you note and promise to have them over soon.