True Friendship Only Found In the Organization?

by What Now? 48 Replies latest jw experiences

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  rocketman

  Interesting thread...

  Let's face it: when it comes to maintaining friendships, many humans, both jws and non-jws, are of the out-of-sight, out-of-mind variety. If someone is not brought in front of us on a regular basis whether via the meetings, work, or whatever, we often tend to lose touch. It's the nature of human friendships, because effort is required to maintain the friendship when those people/that person is no longer right in front of us.

  The OP worked hard to cultivate friendships. But it seems as though you made all the effort. It was easy for others to be your friends - just come over as invited, eat your food, hang at your house. Easy. Once you moved from the congregation, it was no longer easy for them. They certainly are not inclined to make the effort to contact you. It looks like you put forth most of the effort to begin with; it's not surprising that now they seemingly have no memory (at least in their actions) of all the things you did for them.
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  caliber

  Sorry, I made it up (or someone else may have used it before, dunno) --- Real World.

  t

  Talesin has it in a nutshell RW

  A true friends like the natural flow of who we fall in love with must come natural.

  If you trust the system of the WT "clone " friends... dress the same, talk the same, thinkly exactly the same... you have stepped into an artificial world not the real world where our feelings and interests differ.

  In the RW ..

  A person who helps out when we are in trouble is a true friend—unlike others who disappear when trouble arises

  For better or worse, a true friend is there. A true friend is there backing you up on all sorts of struggles and adversaries, no matter how though the situation may seem. A true friend knows exactly when your having a bad day just by the way you say "hey" and that true friend knows how to make you instantly feel better

  When we allow the WT to re-define from the get go even , what a true friend is... how can you know what a true friend really is in the RW ?

  The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own. "~ Benjamin Disraeli

  Happiness then comes when they allow you to share the authentic you
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  caliber

  "I am "means to let your true inner feelings be heard and and being validated as such !

  There is a loneliness that only an authentic true friend can fill in their understanding

  Either fame or fortune is guarantee of this need being automatically filled ...the yearning.. for common touch ..for common understanding

  confront all you're emotions.... fulfill your basic human needs
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  NewChapter

  I don't know if I was in the "in crowd" but I never wanted for friends. I had several extremely close friends that meant very much to me. I was invited to social functions and had a lot of fun. Those friends helped me through so much and I helped them. It's all dust now. All that work, all that commitment, like it never happened. I'm not DF'd but have been inactive for some years. It's like I never existed.

  One thing that used to piss me off is when a friend would get married they would drop me. It was unavoidable. The extra pressures put on newly married witnesses made it so hard to maintain friendships with single friends. Also, the more "responsiblity" a person took on the less freindship they had room for. In the end it seemed the stronger a witness became at the KH, the less accesible they were to friends. And we were just suppose to smile and support it!

  Since leaving I have reconnected with some of my pre-jw friends. These were people that I really cared about but drew away from for 20 years because of my religion. They have been amazing. Totally forgiving and welcoming. With my closest pre-jw friend it's as if no time has passed. I also reconnected with another friend who had become "apostate" and I had shunned. (yes, I did that). We knew each other for 12 years before becoming JW, and when she left I dropped her. We talk every day now.

  I'm so sorry I wasted so much time, emotion and energy on 20 years of conditional friendship. It's an empty thing. But it gets better every day now.

  NC
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  luna2

  When I was a JW, I thought I had friends. They weren't. How can you have true friends when you know that if that person doesn't do exactly as the organization dictates, you will have to dump them? Everyone is expendable to Jehovah's Witnesses. People that I had known for 15 years seemed to easily cut me out of their lives when I stopped going to the KH.

  The only friend I had as a dub who remains a friend to this day, is someone I met when we were both studying. We worked at the same place and started talking more to each other when we found out that we were both considering becoming JWs. We've stayed friends all throughout our JW years and beyond. We both began to find the JW life intolerable at about the same time, though we didn't discuss that with each other as we began our individual retreat from the borganization. We only tentatively began really talking about our disappointment with the WTS and Jehovah's Witnesses about ten years ago. I think we would have been friends no matter what religion we were...and that's a gift.

  You don't have real friends in the organization. Not really. Everything is contingent on your standing within the congregation. How many talks are there that discuss being careful of your association...to the point of not associating with those considered weak. How does that encourage friendship? How is that "loving"?

  Jehovah's Witnesses stiffle true friendship and encourage isolation and dishonesty. People are afraid to say what they really think and feel for fear of being shunned or turned in to the elders. Its very hard to cultivate true friendship under those conditions.
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  What Now?

  Wow, thanks everyone! There were some amazing responses here, I wish I could reply to every single one. It's so nice to know that it's not just me.
• 

  redsoxfan1393

  I don't have one friend in that group. Which is the reason I can't wait to get out. I have tons of friends from school and so far this summer I have done stuff with them everyday! My parents are starting to get suspicous I think.
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  Judicial Committee

  When you grow up in it, you think you have true - authentic - sincere friends. But it is conditional – dependent – stipulatory – relative – friendship - subject; meaning: (One who is under the rule of another or others, especially one who owes allegiance to a government or ruler) apparently you have to remain active in the in the religion.

  They're not really friends, they are acquaintances or persons whom you know casually or as you might say without preparation or forethought. (I like this point that you typed:) “We were all marketing reps for the WT publishing company.” (True.) (Like I told my dad one time while I was setting on the commode after he handed me a Watchtower magazine to read while I was setting there, I said ah dad, can’t you hand me the funnies or something that is less stressful, he became incensed at me and said "Son!, the GB has their finger on the pulse of the world"; I said oh please dad, they are nothing more than a magazine printing company much like Readers Digest he became irate but he tossed me the Readers Digest anyway.)

  “HEAR, O ISRAEL: THE LORD OUR GOD

  IS ONE LORD.” Deuteronomy 6:4
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  jgnat

  How close can a Witness afford to get with his brother, if some failing may suddenly terminate their friendship? Can he openly discuss his secular hobbies and interests, ambitions and dreams without risking the label of "worldly"?

  When hubby switched halls (we are on the border of two halls and we wore out our welcome at the first), nobody at the new hall would give him a ride any more. He was "out of territory".

  Quite an example for an interested observer like me.