Text Message I Just Received From An Old Witness Friend

by str8?so is spaghetti..until you heat it up 39 Replies latest jw experiences

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  Bring_the_Light

  I'm dead serious, I think we should organize a "preaching" effort to contact every JW on earth 1 time, to give them information and ask them to come out into the world. If they refuse, we disfellowship them from our cult. No more association with any worldly people, JW walking out in public gets eyes turned and people avoiding contact like they are the plague.

  If we can find a way to get the home addresses of all JW's, I'll print up some literature and arrange the car groups. We need a few volunteers to serve on the Judicial Committee.
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  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  Hey, Heat it up, it's sad the way 'friends' can hurt us. And so puzzling, too.

  I'm struggling without you.

  That struck me as odd. He's got 'da troof' and the love of a girlfriend that he's gonna marry in 18 months. What's his "struggling without you" issues. Maybe I just don't understand the context, but does he need money, or a kidney? Does he not love da troof so much when you're not around? Shouldn't it be "Br. Heat It Up" struggling without "da troof"?

  And then there's the...

  and I will be your friend again...
  your friend, Dave

  So, is he or isn't he your friend now?

  Heat it up, it sounds like he really misses you and wants things back to the way they used to be. It doesn't work that way, and he knows that. With text messaging and email, it's difficult to unravel the emotions behind words... or the lack of emotion. You've got plenty of suggestions already, I have no idea what to add further...

  B the X
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  Hortensia

  choices, choices, choices. You chose to be honest with yourself and live your life honestly. He chose not to be your friend because of that. That's the way it goes. It's painful to lose old friends, but even good choices have sad consequences sometimes. You still made the right decision.
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  B_Deserter

  Here's how I would reply:
  
  

  Thanks for the message! I'm sorry but I just cannot believe what the Watchtower Society teaches about me is correct. I have struggled with this for a long time, and this is far from being my choice. Pretending to be straight was as hard as it would be for you to pretend to be gay. I would still be honored to be your best man, although I know you don't want that because it would cause too much of a commotion in the congregation. Even so, it's completely up to you. I never stopped being your friend. Call me anytime.

  This way, you will disarm the mechanism that witnesses used against disfellowshipped loved ones: the belief that the disfellowshipped person is the one shunning them. This will remind him that HE is shunning YOU, and that YOU are not the bad guy in this situation.
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  DanTheMan

  I'm not sure that I would characterize as a "conditional friend" a cult member who begged me to come back to his oblivion-utopia (term borrowed from seven006, I'd like to see it in wider use lol) so that we could resume the friendship that we once had. The reason why is because within the all-ecompassing oblivion-utopia logic that they use to interpret the world that we live in and experience, they simply can't have a normal friendship with a lapsed member without experiencing guilt, shame, and fear, and they would experience these emotions as signals that they were genuinely doing something that was morally wrong. I think that deriding such persons as "conditional friends" is blaming the victim, at least to a degree.
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  Bring_the_Light

  I was just thinking, why don't you just invite him out, keep in touch, and just straight-up IGNORE the fact that you "AREN"T SUPPOSED TO" be friends?

  Let the Shunner do the shunning. You don't need to make it your issue.
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  littlerockguy

  Hi Str8:

  I didn't post on your other thread but I can imagine what you are going through. I basically did a clean break from the organization about 10 years ago and did my fade basically by moving away to avoid the initial emotional ties I may have had with some. When I left I didn't care whether or not "Jehovah" forgave my sexual orientation; it was killing me trying to be someone I wasn't and I was basically for the most part a walkaway believer at the time. It got to where I didn't care if the big A came the next day and I was destroyed by the hands of Jehovah himself I was not going to live the rest of my life in that organization and be gay.

  LRG
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  White Dove

  Know what I'd do? Continue the friendship as if there had been no shunning at all and see what happens. Say that you'd be happy to be his best man. But don't change a thing about you to fit his agenda. Just take him as he is and see where it goes. He sounds like he needs a friend that is as wonderful as you were to him. If he wants to be friends, fine, but he will have to accept all of you and not try to change you.
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  Layla33

  Change your number.

  Their war with psychological tactics are well known. Run, don't walk to the nearest exit.
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  iceguy

  Hmmmmmm...he's had a girlfriend for 6 months and is getting married in 18 months...is'nt that kind of a long engagement as a jw ? Who know's they might fornicate and get df'd and then he'll want your unconditional friendship.