Making a young friend

[arty]

# Making a young friend

I thought I'd keep this tale to myself but I'd like to share it now. It happened on the 8th of September 2025.

It's intriguing how these friendships form, It all felt like a stroke of luck to me. I was rather direct in this instance, usually I'm quite reserved when it comes to conversations. It might upset some but fear not, I had no ulterior motives. We had a fun time.

We've met on a few occasions after this. One of the most memorable was when M and R walked off a little distance out of hearing range and whispered to themselves (hmm, keeping secrets from me!). When they came back M whispered in my ear "Who amongst us do you love the most?" I was over the moon. I whispered back, 'It's you. But tell R that it's her.' She did. I felt a little insincere about this, I should have said 'I love you both the same!'

A few days after this I had an encounter with my little darling B, she's 7, this was possibly the happiest moment I'd experienced this whole year. I just don't get why I never wrote about it, I write about each of my encounters with little girls. I was probably just too happy to focus.

Enjoy!

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There's this 7 year old boy J that likes to hang out at my place and play video games. Today he came over. There was a power outage and I suggested that we should go for a walk, check out a church a few minutes away. He was down with the idea and down the road we went.

Along the way we came across a girl I've known for about 2 years now, M, she's a 9 year old but looks like a 6 year old, she's very outspoken. I once had a fun conversation with her and her friend R when she was 8.

I said hello to her and that opened way to a conversation. I told her I had no idea that she lived there (a little lie) and she replied with a question.
'You've seen me play around here right! How could you not know?'
'Playing someplace doesn't mean that you live there!' was my response. Stupid!

This little sequence led to a series of back and forth questions between us, I learnt that M wants to be a doctor when she grows up. I asked her
'If I showed up at your hospital sick, would you treat me?'
'No. The male doctors will take care of you.'
'What if I want only YOU to take care of me?'
'No.' She insisted.

She didn't seem to trust me. I asked her to tag along with us and she accepted. During our walk there I told her she could hold my hand if she liked but she outright refused. I then asked her 'Are you afraid of me?', she tried to deny it at first but a little later on said 'Yeah,' when I teased her by trying to reach out to her hand.

We had a sit down close to the church entrance, it was quiet with a few people praying inside. I wanted to find out why she was afraid of me so I asked her,
'Why are you afraid of me? I am nice.' and she responded with
'Nice boys like you are bad.'
'Why? I have not hurt you, why am I bad?'
'I know of a boy like you and he is bad.'

Quite the harsh remark, I thought. How was I to break through her shield? I reached out my hand and asked her to shake it. The little darling laughed but refused to shake. Further and further into our conversation I made several more attempts but she wouldn't budge. Finally she decided on a compromise, she would be OK with a fist bump, but I wouldn't give in, I really wanted that handshake. So we went back and forth, her offering her little fist, me extending my open palm to her.

It was a bit of a surprise when she told me I could shake her hand, I had left off asking her for a while and was stretching(got tired of sitting). I reached out my hand and she crept her little fingers towards it, at first she gave me the tips of her fingers then pulled back a little, saw that I wouldn't bite and extended further in. I held her hand for around 5 seconds and she asked me 'How are you?' I replied 'I am fine.' Yay!

Behind the church there's a little school M used to attend and behind that school is a playground. I asked the two what we should do then, M suggested we go to the playground. This playground is quite big and situated in it's center is a giant tree, beneath this tree were hundreds of purple colored fruits. A little distance to the right of it lay a swing and slide.

We stayed there a while, spoke some more. I had a chance to observe M as she played around, her little body was very captivating, she wore purple tights and a white shirt that had the words 'The Amazing Spider-man' written on it. I couldn't stop staring at her flimsy legs, she noticed this and told me 'Stop peeking at me.' That made me laugh.

At some point she showed me the palm of her hand and I told her,
'Your hands are pretty.'
'Stop praising me!' was her response, she smiled when she said this. I was starting to win her over hahaha.

Below the church we visited there's a home with a pond full of fish and strange plants with purple leaves. Behind this house is a grove of eucalyptus trees. J and M wanted to show me the place so I followed them. M was walking beside me and I tried to put my arm around her shoulder, she told me 'No, don't touch me.' Hmm, another barrier to break through.

We went by this home, the inhabitants where outside, their fence gate was left open so you could peek in, they were having fun. We also looked at the pond.

There was a little mound that I climbed to get a better view of the scenery, the sight of the trees was wonderful. By luck my eye chanced upon a car, parked inside the home's garage, hidden behind a fence. I pointed and said
'Look at that car!'
'What car?' J asked
'There.' I pointed again
J and M came up the mound but still couldn't see it. J asked me to lift him up. I did and he saw it. M became curious and asked me to lift her up too. I did just that. She was light.

During our walk back to the playground I reached out my arm and she held it. I was happy she trusted me a little more. We also came in contact with R, M's best friend, she's 8 years old. She decided to tag along. Back at the playground M would ask me to lift her up to this or that swing every so often, she had no problem with me touching her. I even tickled her one or two times,that made her laugh.

Later on it was getting late so I suggested we leave but M didn't want it to end so I said '15 more minutes.' And she replied with '100 minutes', she pronounced 'minutes' wrong. I told her if we waited 100 minutes it would be dark out by the time she got home, she didn't want to get on her mother's bad side.

I stayed with her a little longer, at the end of it we walked home, I went off with J and waved goodbye to M and R.

[BLueRibbon]

Nice.

This reminds me of posts from the MAP boards of yesteryear.