College football player eats lunch with autistic boy.

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http://www.people.com/article/college-f ... 6th-grader

What do you guys think? I don't like the way it was reported. It was a nice thing to do, but the football player is not a "hero." Is it really that awful to sit with a kid at lunch? It's not like he overcame some great challenge. And I wish they would have gotten the kid's side of the story. If, as the article says, he's usually pleasant and social, maybe he sometimes just likes to be alone. I don't want to assume things, but I know that is true in some cases. Does his mother know why he sits alone? Is he being bullied? The story left a bad taste in my mouth.

It's a nice story and all, but to go as far as to regard him as a "hero" - even if it was in the eyes of the kid's mother - is a slight exaggeration. We're just as human as everyone else. It shouldn't take any more effort to talk to us than it'd take to talk to anyone else.

Mixed opinions.

On one hand, this was the mother's personal opinion (though it's not helpful to have the act publicised as 'heroic' in the media). I don't believe it should be heroic to sit with an autistic person. I also agree that the boy might simply have wanted to be left alone - the only time he gets to his own thoughts all day!

That said, I distinctly remember the three people that took time to speak to me in my final year of school. The conversations were quick, but they were heroes to me because they took time to talk to me in a positive way when I was so used to being bullied/ignored/talked ABOUT. And these were people that had friends and were popular, so speaking to me could have taken some effort to go against what their friends were saying about me. The conversations were online ones, so admittedly they didn't publicly make an effort to speak with me, but I believe that those three short conversations when I was 17/18 completely changed my life. So, I understand the perspective of it being a 'heroic' act. Without them talking to me, I probably would not have seen a potential positive side to human interaction and would probably not have tried to be social through university. That still didn't go well in general, but I met my husband at university and possibly would never have done that without those three kids at school.

I blame the media, not the individuals involved. Very likely, it was the news report's editor who "spiced" the report or the reporter did it after years of learning how to please the editor. "After all," they might have thought, "all media hyperventilates over human-interest stories, what's one more?!?"

But, for the kid, his mother and the athlete, they did what they wanted to do. Good for them.

Nice story. Great to see honest people doing this.
BUT like everyone else has said, what is the young man's side? If he's getting bullied or picked on, I can understand. And unfortunately even at this age, kids can be mean, cruel things, spreading rumors, gossip and picking on students who don't deserve it.
However, when I was 11, most of my socializing at school was with other adults (teachers/bus drivers/aides). Not usually with peers of my own age, because they wouldn't understand what I liked to do (interests). As I've gotten older, socializing with others my own age has become less of a problem.