The Gay Uncle recently received a report on his six year old “nephew” Max. Apparently, a girl in Max’s class was behaving strangely toward him: hiding his windbreaker, grabbing the ball away from him on the playground, offering to be his math partner and then saying “psych”. The girl’s older brother–who is also in their class–wondered what was going on, so he asked his sister point-blank after school one day: “Truth: Are you in love with Max?” The girl reddened, and nodded. “Yes.”
The next morning, the kids were back on the playground. It is unclear whether or not Max received confirmation of his classmate’s amorous attentions. It is unclear whether or not, had he received confirmation, he would return these affections. It is even unclear how the adult who told Gunc this story achieved her insider insight. But despite all of that, the concrete events of that morning are indisputable: The girl approached Max with a request; Max was busy doing something else; The girl was persistent; Max pushed the girl into a tree. When asked why he did it, the boy looked at his feet and shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Administrators were alerted. Parents were called. Punishments were meted out. The classroom dynamic returned to its normal, fraught state.
The lessons of the story are as follows:
1) Men are assholes
2) Six year olds should not be entrusted with concepts like being in love
3) Trees are hard, but useful in fighting global warming
Although I’m (almost) never in favor of pushing someone into a tree, I identified with this boy, because I remember feeling rather terrorized as a first grader upon learning that a girl “liked” me, and somehow knowing that I could never like her back, at least in the way that was expected of me. I’m not saying the boy in this case is (or will be) gay, but I do think it can be very alarming to be confronted with these expectations at a young age. (Also tangentially: parents should stop assuming their kids are (or will be) straight, just because they’re “straight-acting”!)