Strong Allies

The Cards

"Identifying clients:

It is important to note that most kids can make friends on their own, given a little time. Do not try to interfere with a kid who does not need help; it only leads to awkward situations. Your targets are kids who are actively floundering.

It can be difficult to spot them because they like to hide. They will choose to eat lunch in the bathroom rather than come out into the open and admit to their lonely state. Then again, would you?

Seek these kids out where they live. But go discreetly. And DO NOT try to make your hobby an official school sponsored club. You will be avoided like the plague.

Your other clients are kids who have bad friends. Do not allow your own prejudices to blind you here. A kid has bad friends when those friends are hurting him. He may not always realize this, but it will come out in his body language. He may defend even kids who are blatantly ruining his life because he has known them for so long, claiming they are just kidding. Do not be fooled. Bad friends are worse than good enemies."

Carly was going to be a long term. I"d held off a few days on choosing any freshman clients, wanting to give nature a chance, taking the time to watch and connect with the emerging freshmen friend groups. But I figured it had been long enough now that I could sort out who was struggling, and she was definitely on my list. There was nothing wrong with Carly, exactly; she was just playing from a different rule book than the rest of us.

"I still don"t get this," she said as we walked down to the cafeteria. "Why can"t I just go up and say, "Hello, I"m Carly Bode"? Why does everyone laugh at me for being polite?"

"I don"t know," I said. "I guess because there are just too many people here to follow the same rules you would in a smaller group. You don"t have time to introduce yourself to two thousand people."

"Well how did you meet all the people you know?" Carly asked.

"I introduced myself," I said.

Carly threw up her hands. "Why did it work for you then, Mr. Smartypants?"

I shrugged. "I did it right."

"Well how"s that?"

"I"m a ninja at it," I said. "See, you can"t make it too obvious you"re trying to make a friend. It"s too much pressure to put on someone."

"Why?" she asked. "I"d love it if somebody did that to me."

"Yes," I said. "You"re trying to fill up your slots. A lot of people, well, they don"t have as many slots open. One day you won"t either. Then you"ll avoid pushy awkward people, too."

Carly pushed her hair behind her ears. "I"ll never get so popular I don"t have room for one more friend!" she declared.

I groaned inside. I used to hold that same view. In the old days, I"d thought I could just adopt every stray that crossed my path. After awhile it had turned into chaos. I"d had dozens of "friends", most of whom I kind of didn"t like at all, and none of whom I had time to hang out with anymore. That"s how I ended up in the business I"m in now.

My lunch table acted as a sort of waiting room. Sometimes people met each other there and left to start their own table. Others just took shelter for a few days or weeks until they made it into an existing group. I had sort of a point system with myself where I gave myself half credit for kids that met in the waiting room and full credit if I matched them directly with another person that ended up becoming their friend. And occasionally I did adopt one myself. I needed friends, too.

"Carly," I said, "the problem is, you only have so much time, or effort, or give-a-damn. Everyone does. Nobody wants to waste it on a person they have nothing in common with or don"t naturally get along with. Oh, sure, you want to be nice, you want to help. But you don"t get to just straight up lie about who you like, out of pity. That"s not actually nice at all, see? For you or the other person. Believe me, they always find out, and the longer they"ve been hanging around you, the worse it is. You just have to try a few people until you find a good match."

She nodded sadly. "I guess."

I planned my lunch carefully that day: chicken chunks, fries, and Skittles. All foods you could share. I placed my trusty red stocking cap on my head for maximum recognition factor. I showed Carly my cards. They read:

"Hello, I"m Philio X. MacDonald. Come have lunch with me."

For this trick, I needed a bit of advice. Jonas Borgaard was in this lunch period, so Carly and I stopped by his table.

"Hey," I said.

"Oh. Hi," he replied, as if surprised that I would approach him a second time.

"Hello, Jonas!" said Carly.

Jonas laughed. "Hello ... Carly," he said, clearly looking at her nametag.

"Question," I said to Jonas. "Where do people eat that don"t want to eat in the cafeteria?"

"You can eat anywhere as long as it"s on campus," he said. "Some people go to the courtyard."

"Yeah, but ..." I looked at him significantly. "Where do the loner kids go, where it wouldn"t be obvious they were on their own? Like, at my grade school, some of them ate in the bathroom ..."

"That"s gross," said Jonas. "I don"t think I"ve ever seen that happen here."

"Well, we weren"t allowed to really go anywhere," I explained.

One of Jonas" friends cut in. "Band room, locker room, the part of the library where you can have snacks ... Any place where you could pretend to be doing something else," he said.

Jonas looked at him.

"I spent like the first two months of freshman year eating in the library, reading magazines," said -- according to his nametag -- Elijah Salvi. I was starting to love nametags.

Jonas shot Elijah a mildly empathetic look. "Bro," he said.

"Oh yeah, we didn"t meet you until the end of the year," said their friend Morgan. "Now I"m glad we kidnapped you."

"Thanks so much for your help," I told Elijah.

"Why do you ask?" he said.

I"d had to explain about my friend matching many times to many complete strangers, so much so that I wasn"t shy about it at all anymore. I showed him my cards. "So I have this hobby where I help people make friends that can"t make friends on their own. I"m going to go to the library and pass out these cards."

"Oh, got it," said Elijah. "That"s kind of cool. But like, how"s that going to work? You"re going to spend half of lunch wandering around campus with a bunch of strangers trailing after you?"

"Yeah, that doesn"t sound like a good idea," said Morgan. "High school is, like, different than grade school. People might not react very well to ... this. Those cards are kind of ..."

She didn"t complete her sentence, but I understood the implication, having faced the same one for years. The cards were weird. The whole thing was weird. But as long as it worked and people needed it, I didn"t care.

"I kind of like the cards," said Elijah. "Just like, be low key about it dude; don"t make it a big show. Maybe just try the library today, and then another room tomorrow."

"Okay," I said. I set off for the library. Carly came with me.