Adolescent logic

(If any of you have alerts set for my mostly-defunct political blog, I first posted this entry on that blog by mistake. I've moved it over here now. Carry on.)

Remember how much fun we all had going through our teenage years? Me neither.

Anyway, here's a somewhat amusing story. One of Tanner's friends from school, Logan, invited Tanner to spend a weekend in Germany for Logan's birthday celebration. (Side note: Families who attend the international school come in two varieties: middle-class expats whose companies are paying the outrageous tuition, and wealthy families who can afford the outrageous tuition on their own. I'm guessing that Logan's family is of the second type.)

That's fine with us. The kids will be supervised the whole time, and it should be fun for Tanner. The funny thing is the story of how this came about. Logan is allowed to bring five friends with him. Logan was telling Tanner what a dilemma this presented since there were six friends who Logan really wanted to bring. Logan thought and thought and agonized about whether to invite Tanner or another boy in the fifth spot. In the end, Logan selected Tanner.

Now, try to imagine this happening in a group of adults or teenage girls. An adult would never tell this story in the first place, and if he did, it would be horribly offensive. If a teenage girl did something like this, there would be shrieks and hurt feelings and hate notes and tears and grudges and all sorts of trouble.

Boys, though, are different. Instead of being hurt or offended, Tanner is just thrilled that he made the cut. It hasn't even occurred to him to feel slighted by the fact that he's at the bottom of the invite list. And it never even occurred to Logan that telling this story would cause offense. To a boy, that's just how life is, and no one gets upset or bothered by it. I think we could all learn a lesson from this experience.