Blondie, same here.
In my case, my father was not a jw....the kiss of death for a jw social life
As a JW youth, were you rejected by your peers and left out of social activities?
by truthseeker 21 Replies latest jw friends
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dinah
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noni1974
I wanted to add I was never personally invited to any parties or gatherings. My family was but even wedding invitations came in my parents name when I was still living at home and I was the "and family" part. Congregation picnics were a normal thing around here and everyone was invited. I went to those. Sleep overs and youth parties I wasn't invited to. I can remember one that I went to that my best friend had. Other than that I never went to parties unless my family had them or a relative had them. I did hang out with a group of people who went to a bar and sang karaoke on Friday nights but that was because my friend always asked me. Not because anyone really wanted me. Every summer my family aunts and uncles and cousins went to Cedar Point. It became a congregation thing and everyone went but if it wasn't for my family arranging it every year I would not have been invited. I remember many many times I heard of parties and things that people did where I and my family weren't invited.
I also remember one time my mom cornered a couple of girls my age and asked them why they didn't want to hang out with me. God the was embarrassing. I wished the floor would open up and swallow me. I could never look thse girls in the face again.
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shamus100
I was not really a part of congregational activities, but to be truthful, they just weren't my cup of tea. My friends were from other congregations; I think you would call me one of those 'stuck-up' kind of guys ?? I enjoyed seeing a few people out there, but frankly, I didn't try to make friends too hard because people were pretty bloody weird.
It was more customary to have friends in outisde congregations. At the end, I used to go to clubs anyways. Pretty heavy demonism, eh?
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truthseeker
WingCommander,
I'm sorry you had to experience what I did - it seems many here have been neglected. My family weren't invited to much either, because they weren't in the clique of pioneers or elders.
I remember once when the congregation youths organised bowling for a Friday evening. I knew nothing about it until the next day in field service, I'm working with an older brother who asks, "so, Truthseeker, did you go bowling yesterday?"
I was absolutely livid - I was the only JW youth who was not invited. It was one of the very, very few events when the whole JW youth of the congregation actually did something together, because usually it was just cliques doing their own thing.
Years later, I was working with an elder in the ministry whose daughter has now left the org, and he asked me, "Truthseeker, why do you think the young ones have such a hard time in the congregation?"
I told him that they didn't like each other, that they all did their own thing, and perhaps more importantly, they have no shared history with each other, so on the rare occasions when they do hang out they have nothing to talk about.
"I was a complete loner at the Kingdom Hall. None of the others my age would talk to me. I was not nerdy looking, I was actually handsome if I say so myself! At school, often times they were WORSE then the so-called "worldly" kids, and it absolutely disgusted me. Combine that with seeing them at the Kingdom Hall acting all pious and righteous and I could just about hurl. I pretty much up and faded when I got a life and career at age 17-18. No one from the KH cared. No one missed me. In the past 10 years my entire JW family has died, and they didn't so much as send a card to me, no one!
This was my experience too, I was a loner but not by choice. There were rumors going round about my mental health and no one wanted to have anything to do with me. I was regular in service, but a low hour publisher, I commented at meetings, I did the microphone duty, I took the meeting tapes to the elderly and infirm who couldn't be present, yet I wasn't good enough for my peers and had no connection with them.
There were two brothers in my old hall who were regular pioneers - ironically, one of them was bullied at school for being a JW and was ignored by his peers in the congregation. We never got on particularly well, we went to different schools - I sometimes think if we had gone to the same school, we could have been good friends and could have both dealt with the bullying easier.
After he got accepted to Pioneer School, he started making friends, they used to visit our hall and since then he became a different person. He matured but never gave one iota to the position I was in. He made friends with a brother who came into the truth and the pair of them organized every social activity for the youth in the hall. I was always excluded. Heck, they even invited my younger brother to go out with them while ignoring me.
A couple of years before I left that congregation, an elder who knew our hall was having problems with its youth gave a local needs talk. After the meeting, this brother who had gone on to Pioneer school invited me to a video evening, as they were called then. I had been to a few of these but they all ended up being the same - we would watch the movie and afterwards people would talk amongst themselves, but because none of these people liked me or associated with me there would be moments of awkwardness on my part where I wish my ride home could have come sooner.
Unless you have real, shared history, it will never ever work out, no matter how hard you try.
What pissed me off is that a brother who grew up in the truth and left the organization for several years, later came back and was welcomed with open arms and was accepted and invited out by the JW youth, while I, who was struggling to make meetings was ignored.
Apparently I heard through the grapevine that I was "reaping what I sowed" and I thought, for goodness sake, I always treat people the same, I'm always willing to help out, I used to give an elderly couple a ride to the Kingdom Hall yet my reputation was trashed.
So what exactly am I to look back on and miss? "Brotherly Christian Love?" Non-existant to me and my family. I wish I could say I had been more socially active with this bunch of self-righteous hypocrites, because then maybe I'd miss something about them. But the truth is I don't, at least not anyone my own age. There were some older ones that were nice, but again it was conditional upon you filling a seat at the meeting. None of them have inquired about me or visited my house either. I've even been to the Kingdom Hall 2-3 times a year, and still no one seems to give a damn. It's like I am invisable. It really makes me wonder, "What is wrong with these people?" No wonder I never could muster up the motivation to get baptized. For what? To be officially ignored?
Yes, like you I look back and wonder what I missed out on. Never celebrating a birthday or having Christmas there was nothing to make up for it. the congregation I was in did nothing for its youth and subsequently lost a whole generation of them.
When the 1999 video came out, "Young People Ask: How Can I Make Real Friends", our congregation elders rented a village hall, set up tables of food, invited the congregation to watch this video in the hopes that the JW youth would watch and learn and make friends with each other."
The "gathering" went well, but the trouble is nothing good came from it. It's like learning how to cook watching the Food Channel but never actually touching the ingredients.
To tell the truth, it was only a few JW youth in our hall who had associations with the world - the real problem was they didn't like each other and weren't willing to reach out
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Lady Lee
I never fit in. I was an unknown. When I was 16 I left foster care and went back to live with my mother. She had been in the cong for a few years so people knew her but few knew she had a 16 yr old daughter. I was painfully shy and had a hard time looking at people (long-tern effect of all the abuse in my childhood). Making friends was really hard. The only friend I made was with one girl who nobody else made friends with - her father was not a JW.
There were a lot of kids our age. - a real quick count gives me 9 12 14 15 16 19 21 22 26 - all between the ages of 18-23 yrs old (I keep changing this number as I remember more ) but I know I am missing some. I heard about parties always after the fact. I was invited to one party in 2 years. There must have been a lot of them because people were hooking up and getting married.
It's really weird how my mother would tell me about all these parties she would arrange and have in her home and how much fun they were. Really odd that they stopped when I showed up.
She did plan two roller-skating parties where she "arranged" for me to "help" one new guy in the cong. This is the one she arranged for me to marry.
Since so many had gotten married I sort of thought maybe I would be more accepted if I was married too. Naaaa didn't work that way either.
wow 26 people my age and only 1 would be my friend - and believe me I was a pretty girl - I was just shy and social inept
I did get one marriage proposal (not of my mother's doing) He had lived with my grandmother and 3 uncles (my age or slightly older) and he was an oddball. I just could not see myself married to him. I told him he felt too much like family for me to consider it.
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truthseeker
Undercover,
Thank you for posting your experience.
I've been on both sides of the fence on this one.
When I was pre-teen up to 19 or so, I felt like an outsider...at school and at the hall. I couldn't make friends at school, "worldly" and all that. The cliques of JWs in the area didn't include me. Even my "best" friend was purposely leaving me out of invites to parties and such.
I can relate to this. I was counselled on not associating with the world but had no friends in the truth - truly between a rock and a hard place. When I was in college I used to visit the town and wander about during my lunch hour. After a year, the guys in my class would play soccer at lunch and I decided to join in and loved it. It was one of the few things I was good at and I was glad of the company.
I wasn't bad association, in fact I was considered the opposite. I wasn't included because they thought I was too straight. It was like I was a narc or something. So if the young people were looking to get together and it wasn't going to be a review of the Watchtower lesson, I didn't know about it until after the fact. It wasn't that I was that square (I wasn't - I was just better at hiding my tracks than they were), but because I was the quiet one, they weren't sure about me so instead of taking a chance, they avoided me.
I was considered bad association because my family were never accepted by the congregation and people were spreading rumors about me. Thus, ever new person that moved to our hall would inevitable shun me or have as little to do with me as possible.
There were very few occasions when I was invited out and it was more the fact that the congregation received counsel to widen out - but the damage was done - it was just another meeting to me without the suits. I didn't feel part of their group and they didn't reach out to me - it was their forced gesture of widening out in all but name.
Truthseeker
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truthseeker
LadyLee,
Reading your experience was painful, I am sorry this happened to you. Those words, "never fit in, "unknown" - yes, that was how I felt.
26 JW youths in your cong, yet no one wanted to reach out - shameful.
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Nowman
My parents were so strict that I could not go to alot of functions (unless there was someone there my paretns trusted) even though I was invited. This went on until I left the house at 18.
I hated growing up a JW, I was so embarrased of my parents so much growing up.
It was embarrasing knowing that kids did not want to hang out with me because my parents were so strict, and my dad was known in the circuit for being "cold".
Nikki
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Lady Lee
When my kids were young there were a lot of kids their age. I made sure NO ONE got left out. In the summer I would arrange a couple of big outings for the kids. We took them to a fire station, a church gasp (where they got to see John the Baptist carrying a cross!?!) which provided us with much info to use against the church teachings, a small zoo, some museums. Every kid was invited whether a parent could make it or not.
My girls also had sleep-overs with the girls their ages - and all the girls their age got invited.
I think my experience pushed me to make sure no child got ignored like I did - that was a good thing.
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Ilovebirthdays
I was always in with everyone in the hall around my age. However, I'm every bit sure that it had something to do with my family holding many of the Elder and MS positions within the hall, and basically being the what I called "reigning dynasty" of the congregation. There never was that much going on, everyone had pretty strict parents, and there really weren't parties, and what few get-togethers there were were for everyone in the hall, pretty much summer congregation picnics. Once there was an elder who took all of us teens to a laser light show. My parents went, and I'm sure that was the reason he never organized an outing just for teens again.
BUT, when it came time to go to Circuit and District assemblies, it was very clear that our hall were the obvious pariahs of the assemblies. I do believe that all the other halls looked at us as the dorks and nerds and we never did much with other halls at all. Even if we would have been invited, I doubt very much we would have been allowed to go.