Unfiltered Story #314717

I’m an ‘honorary’ Uncle to my friend’s two children. My friend is very open and honest with the children and has given me explicit permission to discuss anything I feel is relevant with them. We both are also big on encouraging the children to be open minded and treat everyone with respect no matter their differences.

At this time my friend is upstairs with her baby son breastfeeding him and trying to get him to sleep for his nap. I’m with my ‘niece’ who had just finished her lunch, and as part of her lunch routine was allowed to finish watching the show she had started before I arrived. I don’t recall what the show was now, but the episode was trying to get across the message that you should be friends with people even if they are different, so I was discussed the lesson with her while we played afterwards.

Me: “Just because he was different didn’t mean they couldn’t be friends right?”
Niece: “yeah.”
Me: “what about you, do you know anyone who some people might think is kind of different but you’re friends with anyways?”
Niece: “I don’t think so.”

I considered bringing up friends of hers that someone might consider different, like the friend who had two moms or the friend who’s dad gave birth to him, but I didn’t want to say anything that might give her reason to start thinking they were strange or treating them differently if she didn’t have any problem with them now. So I decided to go a different route.

Me: “what about me? I know people who think I’m strange”
Niece: “no you’re not?”
Me: “Well I’m aromantic, that means I don’t want to date anyone and never will. Only one person out of every hundred people is like that so it’s pretty rare, and I’ve talked to people who couldn’t understand why I was aromantic.

My niece didn’t say anything here, but I could tell from the look on her face she didn’t really get why this was strange; which I suppose makes sense since at that age she, and all her friends, were effectively aromantic as well. So I tried switching tracks a little bit.

Me: “And what about my coming to play with you? Did you know some people think only girls should be allowed to play with, or take care of, kids and they don’t trust boys like me who like to help with kids? Some would say I shouldn’t ever visit you like this, would you like that?”
Niece: “no! I like you. You should come visit more!”
Me: “aww, thank you, I love visiting you to. And I agree with you, just because girls usually like taking care of kids more then boys do doesn’t mean a boy shouldn’t be allowed to do it if he enjoys it, just like a girl like you should be allowed to do whatever you like doing, even if it’s something boys usually like more..”

It was about here we got interrupted when the ball we had been tossing back and fourth as we talked went wild and ended up falling behind the couch. by the time we fished it out and went back to tossing the ball I figured I’d made my point well enough and was going to let the topic alone, when she brought it up.

Niece: “do you have strange friends?”
Me: “Oh that’s a good question! I have lots of friends that I know other’s may think are a bit strange, but i have so many like them that they all just seem normal to me. hmmm. I guess the friend that would have seemed strangest to me was an old roommate of mine. He was a furry, don’t suppose you know what that is?”
Niece: “no”
Me: “that means he use to like to dress up kind of like he was an animal an go to places to meet other’s that dressed up the same way.
Niece: “like Halloween?”
Me: “kind of yea. Only the suits the furries wear are bigger and more complicated and allot more expensive then the stuff you wear for Halloween. And being a furry was really important to him, he’d save up money to pay for stuff for his costume and to go places to meet other furry and he use to say he only learned who he was and what kind of people he loved* by became a furry.”

* to be exact he said he didn’t realize he was gay until he was an adult and had become a furry

Niece: “did you dress up with him?”
Me: “Oh no, those suits were too expensive and hot and uncomfortable for me. And I feel like I’d get bored going to meet other furries like he did. That’s kind of my point though. I have no interest in being a furry, it doesn’t seem at all fun to me and I didn’t really understand why he bothered. but it didn’t matter because it made him happy. We could still be friends even if I didn’t understand why he liked being a furry and he didn’t understand why I liked spending my weekends visiting kids like you.
Niece: “what animal costumes did he have?”
Me: “He was a rat. Which I always found a bit odd. If I was going to be an animal I’d want to be something big and strong, or maybe cute and fluffy, but who wants to be a rat?

I intended to go on about how it was okay for him to be a rat even if I didn’t understand why here, but I was cut off first.

Niece: “I’d be a unicorn, but one that flies”

My niece really liked My Little Pony at this time, with fluttershy , a flying ‘unicorn’ – at least in my nieces vocabulary – being her favorite

Me: “of course you’d be fluttershy huh? I guess if I had to pick something I’d be a cat, just because I really like cats.”
Niece: “Mommy would be a dragon, because she likes reading books with them”
Me: “But it’s okay if someone is a unicorn or a cat or a rat right, we can still be friends whatever animal right?

The conversation sort of petered out and got of topic around here. but later that evening once my friend had come down after putting her son in the crib my niece was talking to her mom.

Niece: ” I’m a unicorn and you’re a dragon. And [my name] is a umm…I forgot”
Me: “I think I was a cat.”
Mom: “What are you being a unicorn for?”
Me: “oh we ended up picking out our fursonas while you were upstairs.”
Mom: “okay…and how did that come up?”
Niece: “because [my name] is weird for liking to visit me and his friend is weird for being a mouse but we can still be friends”
Mom: “Oh my love [my name] is weird for allot more reasons then enjoying visiting a wonderful girl like you.”
Me: “that’s very true, but i embrace my weirdness! and you’re right [niece] we can be friends even with super weird people like me.”