The 1st grade dating scene

I had another of my gloriously enlightening chats with The Bandit last night.

I can’t remember how it got started or how we ended up on the topic of girlfriends, but there we were anyway. He admitted that he was currently without a girlfriend and that didn’t seem to bother him too much.  I assured him there was plenty of time to get a girlfriend later. He confessed that he thought he’d stay single for a while, that really he had no intention of finding a girl real quick when school starts up next month.  He mentioned Casey – his first girlfriend from preschool. 

“We’re not dating anymore.” That’s the word he used: dating.

“Well, it’s not easy to hold down a long distance relationship when your six.  You haven’t seen Casey in a year and a half,” I reminded him.

“Yeah.” He nodded his head sagely in the dark. 

“What about kindergarten? You mentioned several girls you liked.” 

“I thought about dating some of those girls but I changed my mind.” He’s so matter of fact.  Now he’s mentioned “dating” several times and I want to know exactly what that means in his world.

“Does dating mean you ate lunch with them?” I asked.

“No,” he said quickly.

“Does it mean you held hands at recess?” 

“NO!” he answered even quicker, slightly indignant.

“Does it mean you stole a kiss?”

I expected a rapid fire response in the negative. Instead, he answered calmly. “We weren’t allowed to kiss at St. Private School.” That’s probably best, I thought.  With the way people have gone off the deep end these days, my six year old was liable to end up in a sexual harassment suit.

I kept probing for an answer. “Well what did you do when you were dating?” 

“Nothing.” He giggled. 

“When you were dating Casey, how did other people know you were dating then?”

“I kept it a secret.” Ah, the water’s are becoming less murky.  “Nobody knew.”

“Did Casey know?” This seems like a significant piece to the puzzle, does it not? 

I never got an acceptable definition of “dating” or, even if in fact, Casey knew they were dating at all.  I don’t intend to let this subject matter die.  Something very interesting happened when I dropped Sassy and The Bandit off at camp this morning.  A little girl came careening out of the crowd of kids yelling, “Bandit! Bandit!”  Now my boy is a player – I think we’ve sort of deduced this already by the above conversation, so he met her greeting with cool aloofness. But here’s the deal. I was certain I knew that little girl and I confirmed it when I went back up to the attendance book at the office.  Casey is spending the last week of camp with my boy.  Very interesting.  I don’t know if she will be joining him in this new school but it seems completely reasonable to assume she might.

I can’t wait until bed time tonight.