Mike Influence? Why is it that the people who influence us most influence us
in ways that are not easily quantified? Through her work with abused children,
my mother has shown me the heroism of selfless dedication to a worthy cause. By
being an upstanding individual, my playwriting teacher in middle school acted as
an inspiring male role model at a time when I needed one most. By being
approachable and interesting, my World History teacher in my freshman year of
high school opened my eyes to the connections between a society's culture and
its history and broadened my view of cultures and the world. While these
influences mean much to me and have contributed greatly to my development, they
came too easily to mind. The fact that I could sit down and write a list of how
these people influenced me suggests that the influence did not alter me in any
profound way. These people are all my elders, and perhaps I feel distanced from
them. The person whose influence shook me to the deepest level is a person whose
influence is nearly impossible to describe. Mike, the best friend I've ever had,
changed me, and I changed him at one of the most crucial times in our lives: the
seventh grade. We developed our personalities, our senses of humor, and our love
for girls at the same time and in the same manner. It would cheapen his
influence to quantify it; I am what I am because of him; I cannot say that about
anybody else.
Mike came to my school in the seventh grade, and we immediately
clicked. Before he came, I didn't feel like an outcast by any means, as I had my
friends that I had known since first grade. However, until Mike, I never had
anyone my age to identify with completely. Mike made me feel confident in who I
was; he reaffirmed my drives and my thoughts and my inspirations. At this
awkward stage in our lives, we found uncritical appreciation in each other. We
both were obsessed by movies and had a similar sense of humor. We had the same
problems and the same thoughts. That was all it took. Halfway through that same
year, Mike and I became inseparable. In fact, our yearbook had a section that
lists the names of students and what they were never seen without. Under Mike,
it read: Ted, and under Ted: Mike. I became a staple at his house and he at
mine. We no longer had to ask our parents if it was ok to have a sleepover on
weekends, they assumed we would. On weekdays, we usually walked over to his
house, which was near school, and hung out there till I had to go home. Our
favorite past time on those long afternoons after school was to walk to the
nearby food mart and get a bag of chips and two 24 oz. Coca-Colas. Watching a
movie, we would sit on his couch with our chips and Coke and talk about our
dreams of working together in the movies. Mike wanted to be a director and
actor, and I wanted to be an actor and a playwright/screenwriter. It was the
perfect combination. We even tried writing a few scripts together. Of course, as
two seventh grade boys, it wasn't all skips through the park either. We were
extremely competitive and would get into brutal fights for seemingly no reason
at all. One time, I pulled out a chunk of his hair, but I don't remember what
started the fight. I think that our connection was so intense that we could not
have normal emotions toward each other. As friends, we were best friends, but in
an argument, we wanted to fight each other to the death. Still, the Wrestlemania
days were rare; ordinarily, the intensity of that connection was a good thing.
