Going to a new school for the first time is a hard thing to do. No matter if it’s college, high school, middle school or elementary school, any time you start your first day in a new place full of new peers, it’s a big deal and takes at least a small amount of courage.
When I was in the fourth grade, I went to a new school for the first time after having gone to another elementary school in the same town for Kindergarten through third grade. At my new school, my teachers saw it fitting that I was qualified enough to be in an ‘enrichment’ class, and on the first day of that class, I sat in a group with two other students- a guy named Bryce and a girl named Laura. I remember it like it was (almost) yesterday.
Both of them seemed like really cool kids, and they both seemed like they’d been at the school for a long time, so in my mind, it made total sense to try to be friends with them. I gave it my best go, and here’s how it went:
Me to Bryce: “Hey, so do you like sandwiches?”
Bryce to me: “. . .Leave me alone.”
We’ve been the best of friends ever since.
Sixteen years ago around this same time of year, I brought a peanut butter & honey sandwich to a new elementary school where I knew relatively no one, and that historic sandwich got me a lifetime friend. I knew what I had in my lunchbox, and I knew that most other kids probably had sandwiches in their lunchbox too. If I could forge some sort of commonality based on that guess with at least one other person, it could be the ‘Start of Something New’, as High School Musical puts it. (Note: Bryce did not have a sandwich in his lunchbox that day, but that’s okay; it still worked out.)
To paint a simple picture of what happened, I asked a random kid if he liked sandwiches because I knew I liked sandwiches. It was that foundation that started a conversation (kind of?), which, in turn, started a friendship. Bryce became one of my best friends, and weird questions, outlandish conversations and inside jokes no one else can understand became a staple throughout that friendship- all because of one seemingly unimportant question.
I was talking with another friend the other day about what it was like to meet people and connect with someone for the first time, and she made an interesting point: “It’s the seemingly unimportant questions that mean the most- how else are we supposed to forge connections with people?”
It was a side comment in another, broad conversation, but it was that comment and question that I’ve been thinking about most of the week because
- it’s so true
and - that’s how I’ve met a majority of my best friends
When we ask seemingly surface-level questions, it gives us the opportunity to ask deeper questions in the future, not as a means to an end, but because you always have to break the surface to get to the depths. All questions are important in their own way, and how people respond to those questions, surface-level or not, speaks to who they are (i.e. do they answer genuinely, sarcastically, etc.). What questions do you ask?
-Cliff
Cliff’s Note: Always ask if they like sandwiches- you’ll make a friend if you do.