Getting Friends

By Landon

Let’s start at the beginning. Nico and I met a really long time ago. We had always been interested in the same things, like sports, but we had really never had a common interest in the group of sports. Meaning we would both be interested in sports but not the same teams/players This started at a young age (like 3 or something) when Nico said, “The 49ers are the best football team.”

This was something I didn’t really have a meaningful input on since I didn’t know anything about football at the time but I responded saying, “No, they’re not!” And now I still don’t like the 49ers. We had always been competing against each other in the most pointless things, and when we got into kindergarten, I decided not to go to Synapse rather to another school. 

After one month at my first school, I decided I didn’t like the school, but I had to stay till the end of the year. Then, I came to Synapse. I was in a class with Nico, and he seemed to have not really remembered me that much. I then started playing soccer outside of school where Nico was too. I saw him and after our practices, we said hi to each other. We talked about it at school all the time. 

Moving on to 3rd grade, we were on the same basketball team. Nico had more practice in basketball, and it was quite obvious. We did a team scrimmage. He was playing great. I don’t really remember much about it, so I’ll move onto a topic that I do remember, because it was this year. Every lunch, we go to Sports House and usually play soccer. It’s always super competitive and there is lots of arguing. In a fairly recent game, I was playing against Nico. In the end my team lost,  the game Nico has always been a good challenge in any sport I play, and we’re really good friends yet still super competitive, whether we’re playing soccer, basketball, football, volleyball.

*Meaning we would both be interested in sports but not the same teams/players

Another person I’m now friends with is Zev, this is how we met. I walk into my class, it’s the first day of 2nd grade. It’s a pretty standard day; I hang out with my group from last school year. But at the end of the day, right before we’re getting picked up, I decided to talk to one of the new students, Zev. I walked up to him and said, “Hey, want to be my friend?” (I’m not even making this up, I really said that.)

“Sure,” he replied. The next day, he was showing me his Pokèmon cards when I asked him, “Hey, do you play any sports?”

He quickly replied, “Yeah, I play soccer, what about you?”

“Oh, cool I play soccer too!” We then made plans to join the same soccer team. One practice, we had a scrimmage. I was on one team and he was on the other. We had played against each other before but that was just at school. I could see that I had a bit more practice, but it was a tough game. The next day, we talked about it. We would continue playing soccer at school and outside of school, and we would still sometimes play against each other. We now play soccer against each other or with each other every day at school. Sometimes it gets pretty intense because most people there are pretty competitive.

On my first day of 3rd grade, I walked to my class and saw many new faces. After a while in class, Silas introduces himself to me: “Hi.”

“Hi,” I replied, “Do you play any sports?”

“Yeah, I play basketball, what about you?” He sounded more interested in the conversation.

“Oh, I play soccer, and I’ve never really tried basketball before.” I said interested

“Cool, you should try it out,” he responded. In and out of class we were talking a lot, and socializing a lot. Later that year, we did expert talks. They were like presentations that we would do in class; they could be about anything you want. My expert talk was about myself. Silas’s expert talk was about basketball and his favorite basketball player, Kevin Durant. Later that year, we had a Synapse basketball team which we both played on. A lot of my other friends would be playing on the team. 

At our first practice, Silas was clearly the most experienced out of everyone there. After a little bit of practice and introducing ourselves to the team, we played a scrimmage. The second time we scrimmaged, I was against Silas, and it was very clear how much practice he had put into basketball. I don’t remember that much about it, but I do remember more about the game we had in 6th grade. It started when we were put on separate teams. When we first did a scrimmage, Silas and I didn’t really interact that much during the game. The 2nd time we scrimmaged we interacted more; it was close to the end of the game and we were only down a few points. *Tweet!* The ball was inbounded to Silas, and I was guarding him. I was trying to foul him to stop the clock; I kept pushing him, but the referee wasn’t calling anything. We eventually lost that game. After the game, we were talking about how the referees weren’t calling any fouls.

When I woke up and realized that it was the first day of 6th grade, I didn’t expect anything to be new, but when I got to school that changed. Since it was my first time going to school in person in a while, doing everything was a big surprise. After around a week of school, my friends introduced me to Jordan. After a little bit he told me that he likes soccer, and so do I. When our Synapse soccer season started, he was really good, and it was clear that he had been practicing for a long time. He was also really fast. When the soccer season ended, we had track. 

When track practice started, he was easily the fastest person there. Then came time for our first track meet, the first few events we weren’t participating in. After a while of talking, it came time for our race, the 200m. When we lined up for the race, Jordan, Silas, and I were talking about the race, waiting for the person to tell us to start. “Good luck,” I said to Silas and Jordan

“Thanks, you too,” they replied. Once the race had started, Jordan had a clear lead. No one was even close to him. After that race, we had two more. The 2nd race was pretty similar to the first race, as it was the 100m. On the other hand, the third one was longer (400m). When we started, Silas was way ahead of Jordan and I. But, after around half the race, Silas got tired and we passed him. I was ahead of Jordan for a while and then in the final stretch, he passed me. It was almost like he hadn’t been trying the entire race. It didn’t even look like he was trying. Anyways, I lost all the races I had against Jordan. Some things these all have in common are that I’m always meeting someone new, and in some way bonding with them through a competition. This has helped me grow as a person in lots of ways such as, learning that there’s always room for improvement.