What Was Your Social Life Like As A Witness? (page 3)

Seeker4

My JW social life was awesome for many years, but died off rapidly when I stepped down as an elder and began to express some dissenting views. It died completely, in JW world, shortly thereafter.

Getting better now.

S4

minimus

Seeker, you look like you're having fun.

Thinking of Leaving

social life? I had none, I wasn't rich, I wasn't married and had no family who were high ranking elders/ministerial servants. I pretty much kept to myself and can't remember the last time I was invited over. I'm out now though and trying to change this.

sweet pea

Growing up as a witness in a congregation with no peers the same age, most of my friends were dotted around the circuit and so social events tended to be all over the place. Once I could drive it was a lot easier to have a more active social life but the petrol!! I always used to think people were a bit sad having to travel anything up to 100 miles to go to a party, I could never be bothered to go that far. When I eventually got married our social life became that of a couple's and we tended to socialise with a few other couples and be invited to congregation events but sadly, we invited many from the hall for meals and association but it was rarely reciprocated, either they secretly didn't like us, felt we weren't "spiritual" enough or were intimidated by our house and cooking! Who knows?! Kids came along and that naturally changes things for a while but due to our recent decision to leave people are avoiding us altogether, so our social life as witnesses has dropped off the cliff. However, I always had a couple of good friends who weren't witnesses and this has made leaving a little easier. I am very sad to find out that these friendships have been conditional but know that most JW friends are under mind control so it's almost not their fault. Advice to lurkers? Make as many friends as you need NOW to help make the break easier when you do go. Friendships of 30 odd years can be replaced but it takes a serious amount of time and effort. It is so refreshing though to have friends that truly accept you for who you are and not for what you believe. I do feel though that even if JW friends don't cut us off it will be very hard to stay close due to the differences in beliefs, it's inevitable as they cannot be 100pc honest relationships and who wants to feel restricted in their speech with one's best mates?

ninja

Can I tell you about the first time I was invited out by the JW's?....a couple who shall remain nameless...aye that will be right ...they were called the Watsons...(Bill and May)....I was "fresh from the world" and looking forward to a nice theocratic night,maybe a wee glass of wine and talk about the bible and stuff...(how wrong I was)...it started when they put a piece of thick cardboard down on the floor and they got their 2 daughters to tap dance on this board for about 20 minutes.....THEN they got some shaving foam ...put it on my face and got their 2 daughters to shave me with a plastic cut throat razor....by this point I was thinking to myself..."this is a bit weird"!!!...after numerous cups of diluting juice...we then all joined hands in a circle and sung songs....it was worse than a day with the teletubbies!!...Bill Watson then told me all about how Johnny Mathis was the greatest singer in the world for the last hour and how he was the best fighter in his school....(he had muscles like a knot in a mosquitos penis tbh)....I came away thinking I was in the twilight zone...which was to be confirmed in the next few years.....true story.......crinja

jaguarbass

When I was a witnoid in my 20's I had more of a social life than I could afford on my witnoid pay. I played football and softball with the noids on the weekend and got drunk and played cards with them on the weekend. I thought I new everybody and they were all my friends. They probably are your friends if you tow the company line.

greendawn

It was no good, th eJWs were an impenetrable society that's one reason why I left it was next to impossible to have a social life with them so they didn't seem like a loving brotherhood. It was pointless being with them even if they had been otherwise a spiritual society which they were not.

restrangled

Social life? What social life?

The other elders kids were at least 4 to 5 years older than I was and anyone else was at least 4 years younger.

I was alone most of my preteen and teen years not allowed school friends and never included in the other elders kids parties. I spent years alone in my bedroom reading, spending weekends out in service or riding my bike up to the library to pick up books.

This subject hurts too much.....

r.

Numinous

In my experience, if you are not outgoing in this religion you will be relying on the content of the meetings for entertainment. Good luck with that right? There were some who said the meetings were their social life, or the service they considered their social life because all of the obligations of being a witness took up so much of their time. The elder/servant/married rank has a better social life, but their were so many in our congregation and others that were so strange that I couldn't imagine spending any of my free time with them, but those interesting characters were memorable and really lovable once I got to know them better.

brinjen

Was just sitting outside with a cigarette thinking about this one. I remember when I was about 10 years old I was at a dubs house 'playing' with their daughter and niece (both dubs too obviously). They didn't like me too much and were trying to offload me onto the parents all day. Finally the girls mother ordered them to allow me to play with them. We went out into the backyard where they had an old caravan as a 'cubby house' the girls told me they really needed to talk to each other quite badly about something important and instructed me to sit on one side of the van while they sat on the other with a thin curtain between us and told me to not listen to what they would say to each other as it was none of my business.

NEWS FLASH: Thin curtains are lousy sound barriers! They then sat down and started to talk about me! I mean really personal nit-picky stuff on how I wasn't very spiritual, they picked at my clothes (this was prior to my Madonna days my mother didn't have a lot of money and could not afford to buy me expensive clothes), I walked past the Circuit Overseer and just said 'hello' instead of stopping and grovelling at his feet like I should have, my family dosen't own a car so we are a burden on the congregation. They went on and on for quite a while like this. I remember just wanting to leave and walk home, that's when it first really hit me that I wasn't wanted there.

What Was Your Social Life Like As A Witness?

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