by Laika 40 Replies latest jw friends
Laika: I left because dishonesty drives me mad.
And it still will. Don't be guilty of it yourself.
I know it's hard to be lonely, but you can make new friends. And when you do, they will be people that are your friends because of WHO you are, not because of WHAT you pretend to believe.
I personally think it's better to have NO friends than a bunch of fake ones.
YMMV
You have to do what is best for you and exit or in, it all just comes down to being real in a short life
Laika, if you left because of dishonesty, why would you settle for conditional fakey friendships?
That's so high-school, like the 13 y.o. girl who likes you, but snubs you after all of her girlfriends in the drama club clique think you're not cool, and she hasn't learned to stand up to others to form her own opinions. OK, so she's got an excuse for being immature and suspectable to mob mentality, since she's not yet finished growing as a human: but why would you seek out many grown-up versions of the same emotionally-retarded personality type who caters to the will of the group?
Just don't expect it to be as simple as 'JWs have conditional friendships and Worldly people have unconditional friendships': that's a fallacy, a LIE, and it's setting expectations WAY too high, since it's not like you leave the JWs and the World is waiting to meet you with loving arms. They're not, since most people have spent their past years living THEIR lives and HAVE been creating friendships while JWs were wasting time knocking on their doors pestering them with a 'life-saving' message.
Many non-JWs have reasonable (or unreasonable) conditions on their friendships, too, but the odds are better that you'll find friendships with LESS conditions, and certainly NOT with the condition that you share in their delusional fantasy of eternal panda petting after 99.9999% of the World's population is destroyed or they'll drop you as a friend! That kind of collective group ideation is clinical, and constitutes a massive shared delusion of a group, and you are not willing to play pretend any longer.
But in the 'skills needed to build friendships' department, most ex-JWs are far behind the curve vs their contemporaries, since it's no news-flash that they're actively told BY THE BIBLE to AVOID friendship with the World, and the fact is it takes NO EFFORT to repel people and feel superior to them: just don't look at them or frown at them and it's guaranteed that you will NOT make a friend with the person. Pushing people away comes quite easily to most people, but attracting people is harder, and requires learning some people skills (and despite knocking on millions of door, most JWs are fishes out of water when the conversation goes 'off-script', since there's not much depth in their personal life, and they're actually quite boring people).
Just realize you have some catching up to do in learning such skills since JW "friends" are instant and automatic, and require little work: people only need to learn to offer a greeting or be friendly to you, and just as long as you are on the 'right side' of the congregational reproof line you have many instant faux friends. But if an elder says not to associate with you (even if it's someone who genuinely enjoys your company) they will have to drop you like a hot potato or risk THEIR status in the JWs.
Adam
Some great responses here guys.
Finkelstein, this one particularly hurt because it was from a JW who was probably my closest friend and had promised to stay in touch and had done so regularly, but last weekend some other JWs told him they were stumbled by our friendship and he said he had to take their feelings into account too. He told me to give it time but I doubt there'll ever be a time when they're not stumbled anymore. It caught me by surprise and I felt pretty low.
Laika: some other JWs told him they were stumbled by our friendship
Stumbled? Really!?! How is this possible?
There's only one way THAT could be true.
According to this verse, anyone "claiming" to be stumbled must not love Jehovah's law. As the above verse says, "Nothing can make them stumble."
The fact is, they are weak-minded, overly-sensitive busybodies manipulating your friend and meddling in affairs that are none of their business.
You should tell your friend that he shouldn't be hanging out with people that don't love Jehovah's law.
Hey Laika, I understand. Sometimes you gotta go back to a bad relationship to remind yourself why you left in the first place. One way progress is made is to take a few steps backwards every now and then - it works provided you are taking a few more forward steps at times.
Go back to the kingdom hall - it really and truly is your life and business to chose what to do. Just as people develop all sorts of strategies for coping in less than desirable situations, you may be able to do so as well. Best, steve.
Laika you've got a PM
I've not even left yet and I still feel the pull mentally. . .
It's horrible isn't it?
Although the comments about witness friendships being conditional are true, i feel that ALL friendships are conditional to a certain extent, if we were friends but i slagged off your other half or i was racist, i dont suppose we'd be friends for long!
Nontheless, ive been reminded recently that these life altering changes we're making take TIME. Let life take its course...
And likewise, if youre in the uk within spitting distance of yorkshire, youve got one extra friend here...
Of course it's your choice, and it does hurt to lose a friend. But if you do go back, all you will ever have is situational friendships, people who will dump you as soon as you leave the organization again. It takes time and effort, but if you make friends outside of the organization, they will not leave you because you are or are not a dub.
I think you will have a very hard time sitting through the weekly meetings knowing what you know.
I understand your situation Laika, I was going through something similar. It's been tough for me to find good friends outside of the ones I've invested in for over 20 years. I really did have solid friends who would be there for me so long as I remain a JW. I tried going back to a few meetings to keep them around, however I was immediately reminded of why I could never go back. Our converstations, our goals and our outlook in life are now radically different. They're looking forward to their new bibles, new headquarters, conventions and armageddon, while I'm looking forward to college, starting a family, and Christmas haha. It takes me back to the feeling I once had with "worldly" people when I was a believer, being, we had nothing in common and hanging out is not very fulfilling. My advice is to do whatever it is necessary to be happy, BUT realize that knowing TTATT and hanging out with old jw friends will be quite difficult.
