by badboy 22 Replies latest jw friends
IP_SEC
Perhaps, but not nearly as saturated with busybodies as the JW congregations most of us are familiar with. When you have a group with a primary function of keeping an eye out for "bad influences" or "wrongdoings" creeping into it, you will get a higher concentration of this sort of thing.
True dat, daystar, true dat. The org does encourage busibodydom in that way I suppose.
I got a good idea just how closely we are being watched in the congregation.
I was at a book study, and nobody was talking to this very elderly study afterwards. Everyone was just off yapping to eachother leaving her alone. So I sat down and spoke with her for awhile, since nobody ever came to relieve me.
Well my wife told me that some SisterSuperPioneer mentioned to her that she heard I spent alot of time to talking to this study. SSP isn't in our book study!!!
You believe that?! They noticed that a ubm was talking to a study, but they didn't notice or care that nobody was talking to this little old lady?!?!
Of course if she misses a meeting, the phone rings almost immediately afterwards. And if it is a book study, it still is from SSP who is not in our book study!? She got grilled yesterday for missing a book study.
"Did you go? No? Are you sick? No? Is everything ok with you guys? Everything is fine huh? Oh, so you just couldn't make it?"
It is beyond me how someone as strong minded as my wife would let another adult speak to her this way.
CYP
Yes! Used to live down the street from one. This "sister" just loved calling the elders on us. One time I remember we kids had decorated mini pumpkins with markers and wrote on the back that these were not Halloween pumpkins. The elders were out soon after. And we had to remove the pumpkins. WE knew who ratted us out. I'm amazed that my parents had anything to do with that sister.
Is a frogs ass watertight?
ummmmm........sorry, but.......here's your sign, badboy.
Frannie
There were so many...I mean wasn't everybody kind of watching and discussing everybody else pretty much all the time?
Some stand-out busybodies were usually pioneers...maybe they are trained that way??? Like they are supposed to "take the lead" and "teach by example" and "act as mature ones". I don't know, but I remember several who thought nothing of butting into other people's business, trying to foist their own conscience and thinking on to the lesser dubs.
There's one pioneer gal, of the hand-wringing, weepy-voiced variety, who has appointed herself everybody's minder. Missing meetings? Better watch out cuz Sister Buttinsky will make it a point to try to readjust your thinking the next time she sees you. Going back to school in order to get a better job? You can be sure she'll have several things to say about that, and maybe even a few photocopies of Watchtower articles for you to read (because, of course, you couldn't possibly have read them or you wouldn't be striving for "worldly" things).
The past few months, Sister B has telephoned me and stopped by my place a couple of times. I refused to see her both times and the last time I heard from her, about a month ago, I told her that she really shouldn't bother to call any more because I no longer believe it to be the "truth" in any way and do not consider myself one of Jehootie's Witnesses any more. She sputtered, sighed, and whined for a few minutes, but couldn't get me to cringe and bow to her superiority and that of her schizophrenic god, Jeboobie. It felt good.
Of course, she had to have the last word, so a few days later a letter came in the mail. I haven't responded to it. I get so mentally fatigued when I think about trying to reason with her, that I've let it go. She can go find somebody else's life to try to manage.
It's really still exceedingly annoying to me today. My mother, still a JW, does this on a day-to-day basis with everyday things. Of course, my sister and I have a rather acidic response to her inquiries, which in another setting might be entirely normal. However, we know that when the questions like that start, her judgemental mind is connected and she is looking for dirt.
Very sad that because of this she will never have a normal relationship with any of her children.
Busybodies? Isn't that the primary function of Jehovah's Witnesses? It's much more interesting than peddling cheapass magazines.
LOL, Finallyfree! I just KNEW it was the only acceptable form of recreation according to the JW's.....spying on and telling on your bros and sisses.......
Frannie
Uh-huh.....you tell one person something, they tell one person, and so on, and so on....we called it the JW grapevine....gossip and news travels faster than wildfire.......there was ALWAYS someone waiting in the shadows to rat on another person, for whatever reason they could come up with. They had FAR too much time on their hands, and not enough to do.
Delilah
Perhaps, but not nearly as saturated with busybodies as the JW congregations most of us are familiar with. When you have a group with a primary function of keeping an eye out for "bad influences" or "wrongdoings" creeping into it, you will get a higher concentration of this sort of thing.
JW-type groups for sure.
I read an ex-Mormon's testimony once and an "elder's" wife would always snoop through people's shopping carts at the grocery store to see if she could spot COFFEE of all things.
(FYI ... to mormon's - caffeine is evil)
Sounds awful dub-ish to me ...
-ithinkisee
