As a kid I moved around, a lot. My mom was a military contractor and so, by the time I reached my teen years, I had been to six different schools, one of which was an online home school. That home school was my longest stint at the same institution, totaling three years. I never stayed anywhere long enough to make any meaningful friendships. The most I got was knowing what someone’s favorite animal was, then off again to a new country.
I was a lonely kid. My best friends were my mom and my nanny. For a good majority of my life, I talked more with 30+ year olds than with kids my age. I didn’t have friends. I had my pet cat, and my books.
This sounds depressing: a little girl, never in one place, never with a steady home, never with a steady companion. I never got to play tag with my friends. I had few sleepovers. And yet, I don’t regret it, nor do I hate my mother for it. Instead, I am thankful.
In the absence of friends and peers, one will instead find other playmates. Some will love nature and find their comrades in bugs and trees and sunshine; some will love video games and those complex pixels will be their friends; some will find words and the effervescent beings of imagination will take them through life. I am of the last breed.
As a child I read religiously. By the time I was nine I had a reading speed of over 300 words per minute and I would finish one to two books per day. I spent my recesses in the library, checked out five or six books, and had them returned no more than two days later. I read and re-read my favorites so many times I had them memorized. I loved it all.
As for my socialization skills, which I’m sure you’re wondering about. They didn't suffer at all, in fact they improved and for this reason only: I am on the Autism spectrum, and books taught me what people couldn’t.
When I was five or six, I couldn’t figure out what people were thinking. I couldn’t understand them, much less empathize with them. Humans were a mystery and I constantly asked why they couldn’t just be like me. Then I moved for the first time and started reading instead of making friends.
And everything made sense.
There on the page were the answers to interpersonal interaction I had been looking for. There I had others’ thought processes spelled out on the page. I could follow their words and their emotions and the reasoning behind them. I finally understood others, even if those others were only characters on a page.
But all this acted as my training for real human interaction. Suddenly I was able to empathize with other kids. I could understand why they were so upset or happy over this or that—because I had seen the same thing in a fictional character. I had a reference point.
As for myself, I always knew I didn’t act like other people. They would act one way, I wouldn’t understand why, I’d say screw it, and act another. But then with books, I could see what “normal” was. I could see, if I were in this particular situation, how I should act. And suddenly I could blend in. I wasn’t weird anymore. (Well I was, but not nearly as much.) Suddenly, my peers felt they could talk to me.
And still, with all this training, I didn’t have friends because my mom and I were still moving.
I won’t go so far as to say that books or fictional characters were my friends. But they were, at the very least, companions, constants. If I didn’t have anyone to talk to at lunch, I had Harry and Ron and Hermione and I couldn’t ask them about their day or tell them about mine, but I could read about them. And I could read about them every day. And every day they taught me things.
I mentioned before that books had been my training, a way to “hide” my autism. They were also my training for friendships. Not in the sense that they were my friends, but rather, that the characters taught me how to be one.
In books, there is very rarely a description of your average friendship. In books, there is only the apocalyptic, unerringly loyal friendship. The former is what is true, the latter is what’s good for plot. And as a child, when you’re still that selfish, near-primitive, tantrum-throwing thing, seeing the latter is also what’s good for you. When you’re seven years old, mad at someone because they just wouldn’t do something your way, and you see the villain portrayed the same way while the heroes compromise, empathize, and come out on top, you learn to change.
In the absence of real companions, I learned friendship by theory rather than by practice, and I think I’m better for it. While some people my age still struggle with putting aside their petty needs for the sake of a friend’s real one, I learned, very early on, with that dichotomy particular to children, that only Bad Guys hold on to something unimportant, a Good Guy would sacrifice whatever they’re doing, whatever they want, for a friend in need. And I learned, most importantly, that a Good Guy doesn’t do this because it’s the right thing, rather, because they love their friends.
Books taught me to stand up for my friends. If they are being persecuted, you cannot stand back. A good friend listens. A good friend makes a study of their companions—learns their quirks and quiddities and mannerisms so as to understand, without words, what their friend might need. A good friend loves wholeheartedly, with their entire being.
In real life, learning only these kinds of friendships may have contributed to me only having a fair few friends (it is hard to practice this friendship for everyone you meet), but yet I also feel it has made me a better person on the whole. In books, the Good Friend was also a Good Person. To practice this kind of friendship, to a far lesser extent, on everyone you meet, is what makes a kind and good person. And, accepting my flaws and imperfections, I feel as though I have a done a good job.
I fear bragging when I write that I have been a good friend. I know that I have helped my friends and been good to them, changed their lives for the better, but only because they have told me. With caution, to avoid stroking my ego, I tell you this:
I left my home and my friends to go to college in New York. All of my friends went to the same college. For them, this was almost an extension of high school. I missed all of them dearly, even though I maintained contact. I came home for the holidays and we finally reunited for a late-night meal at IHOP. They told me then, “You’re the glue of the group.” Another time, a friend told me, “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had.”
I do not tell you this to brag, but rather to thank books.
