850: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Thread as I Walk Away
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A quick warning, there are curse words that are unbeeper in today's episode of the show. If you prefer a beeped version, you can find that at our website, thisamericanlife.org. This is not a setting where Chris was used to learning anything important, much less having his whole world rocked by something somebody said. He was 15 in health class in San Juan, Capistrano, California. As Chris remembers it, it was the beginning of the period, class was just beginning to settle down. The teacher was also the school's basketball coach. You know, in my memory, he's sort of the standard issue, I don't know, tallish white guy coach with like neatly parted brown hair, and you know, the bell rings, class is supposed to start, and we're all just, you know, talking over him, not listening, and he's trying to get class started, and I think he's getting understandably a little annoyed. And then at one point, one of the girls said loudly, like, we're all going to be friends forever. And then he gets our attention and said something like, you know, just for your information, you're not going to all stay friends forever. And let me tell you a little bit about like how friendships work. He says like, in a couple of years, you know, high school's going to end, and you're going to all scatter to different jobs or colleges, and you're going to start falling out of touch with each other. And eventually you're not going to talk to most of any of these other people. And now you might, I remember him saying, that is such, it's real, it's very true. But like, what a funny thing to say to a bunch of kids. Yeah, it's like suddenly he had our full attention. But then, the teacher kept going. He wasn't done. He got very specific and said, okay, you might stay in touch with a few friends from high school. He said like, well, then you're going to get into your 30s and your 40s, and it'll be harder, you know, you'll be working, and then, you know, some of you might get married, and your free time, a lot of that should go towards your spouse. And if you have kids, oh, like whatever little free time you have left, like that'll go to the kids. And finally, he said like, the only friends you're going to be left with are the parents of whatever kid, your little toddler or whatever randomly sidles up to because they both like the same part of the playground. Like that person, that parent, that's going to be your friend. That is a very thorough and vivid and not inaccurate like picture of the future, that it's amazing that he went into that much detail. Yes, by then, we were like, I remember a sort of like stunned silence at that point. And maybe there's like one person who said like, no, or like, no, he's wrong, or we're going to stay friends or something. And then the class, and then the class began, and I don't, I don't remember anything else from that day. This is actually one of the producers on our show, Chris Bedderive. He says he remembers the other kids in class kind of striking this off, like, yeah, whatever. But he couldn't. Did you think it was true? Absolutely, I thought that he, I remember thinking, oh no, I hope that he's wrong, but it sounds like he's right. That's what I remember thinking.
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