OK, let me tell you a little story from my middle school days. The year was 2006, I was 12 and in health class. We were learning about this stupid "Power Problem Solving" thing. It was this 20 step way of solving one's first world problems. Problems like "you're on the basket ball team and your teem mates won't pass you the ball" and "your best friend won't let you borrow their shirt that you really like" and other stupid things that a 12 year old geek doesn't care about. My best friend at the time was also in that class, so naturally we did group assignments together. Being 12 year old geeky boys, we thought that the unit was stupid. Outside of class we were like "this is the worst way to solve 'problems.' Really like those are problems. I don't care about that. And if I seriously had a problem, I wouldn't solve it like that. The only thing that would actually be a problem is if you were to steal something of mine, and if you did I'd beat you up until you gave it back."

OK, so one day we had that "your friend won't let you borrow their shirt" scenario. We had to present the problem and power problem solve our way to a solution. This was our script.

Me: "you don't want to loan me your shirt. That's fine by me. It's your shirt, I have no right to it. You don't like loaning things out. I'm the same way with my pencils."

Friend: "No really, I thought it over. I was being stupid. It's just a shirt, I don't care."

We didn't do very well. But then in front of the class we said "but this isn't a real problem. We don't understand how it could be considered a problem."

Now in retrospect, I can see how this would be useful for the drama driven teen girl where everything is the end of the world, but it really is useless for geeky boys that really don't care about drama. We even thought of a thing for that basket ball scenario.

Me: "Thank-you, I now have a reason to quit the team. You're saying I'm not good, and it would be bad for me to hold you back. My mom made me sign up and I've been hating it every day. Now I can quit and go have fun playing videogames."

Friend: "You know what, I'm not having much fun here either. I think I'll quit to."

I give you credit for trying to find situations that apply to adolescent boys, but we really just didn't care. Also, if a "problem" really was a problem, boys would get angry, have a small fight, winner decides who was in the right, and that would be it. Little sore the next day, but we would just go on with our lives. None of that "explain how you feel about the situation, talk out various different ways to solve the problem and chose a way that best suits each party, and whatever else." You want your teem mates to pass you the ball, punch them in the arm and say "hey next time throw me the ball." Lend the shirt, well that's not even an issue. We don't care. I think there was also a problem with "wearing the same thing as someone else." We just looked at each other and said "we do that all the time, boy scout shirt and jeans. We even joke about it and have a good time with it." Power Problem Solving, it was stupid. Well I hope you enjoyed this tale from the past. This has been Pokematic, signing off.