I may have a friend

Defianttruth

Okay, I am almost forty and outside of my wife I haven't had a friend in decades. Sure I have tons of people with whom I am friendly towards, but they all share something to do with work or business.

I remember thinking last year I had no one who called just to talk. I have people call me constantly talking about work related things, but no one ever called me just to say hello.

I live a pretty simple life. I am either at work or with my family. This limited my ability to meet people. My life schedule combined with my natural introverted personality made meeting new people difficult. I decided to change this so I needed a venue other than work to meet people.

I looked around and found a volunteer conservation group I could get behind and joined. I met another guy who was a tinkerer (a tinkerer is an individual who likes to build and work on random things). He works out of his shop at nights and one the weekends. I have a shop I work in doing all kinds of stuff and we soon joined each other on various personal "fun" projects.

A few days ago he called and we didn't talk about our conservation club or our projects we just talked. When I hung up the phone it felt weird. I then realized he called just to talk. Besides my wife it has been decades sense some one has called just to talk.

It was a nice feeling. Wish me luck on my new "bromance".

Londo111

Congrats!

Oubliette

Everyone should have friends. I like to keep my circle small.

It's nice to have people who like you for WHO you are and not WHAT you (pretend to) believe.

confuzzlediam

This is awesome!! Everyone needs someone whom they can share things in common with. SO glad you found someone who shares a common interest with and can talk to!!

dubstepped

Good for you! I could have written something similar. No friends here either. Lots of people to chat with at work, lots of people know who I am, people have come to me for help, but nobody calls me unless they want something. Especially in the org. Nobody there ever cared at all. I've always had evil worldly people invite me to things and always turned them down. Missed a lot of chances to connect with other human beings that way. Now it is my turn to invite evil worldly people to do something because they might say yes. And by the way, if it is love by which you can identify the true religion, those evil worldy people beat the pants off the JWs in showing it. The ONLY people to have reached out to me are not JWs and never have been. It's a shame that I always rejected their care because of what I was taught. Maybe someday I can make a similar post. Best wishes on the bromance! Hopefully it can be a LTR (long term relationship) that gives to you instead of just taking.

DesirousOfChange

Making new friends is difficult, for several reasons IMO.

1) It was "easy" to make all those "automatic" (conditional) friends in JWdom. Thus you come to think it is really easy to make real friends, which is not true. Thus the former JW is stunted emotionally in the area of social networking.

2) We've spent our life avoiding "worldly" friends, thus many of us are decades late in building friendships and most "worldly" people of our age and experience already have "lifelong friends" and are not as desperate in their desire to develop new friends to the same level that the former JW is.

Doc

stuckinarut2

Great thread!

I understand completely!

I have only made real friends in the last year, and a small group at that.

Dont get me wrong, I am a friendly person with a huge circle of ones I chat easily with through work and the local community. But I mean to say I have made a few genuine friends since learning that my witness associates were never Real friends.

i wrote about the fake friendship realisation that hits once we learn TTATT back in a thread many months back:

http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/281071/have-no-real-friends

LexIsFree

This was a great post. I was just having this conversation with my boss who is very aware of my JW upbringing and awakening. I was telling him how I don't have any friends outside of work and school. Reading your story has given me some hope that one day I'll have a friend. A true friend.

FayeDunaway

DT I am really happy for you! You mentioned an important key to making new friends...joining a club for a cause you care about.

I joined a church and a bunch of other stuff. The church people are like family to me now. Actually it's unbelievable how many people I know now, through all walks of life. But still, my best friends are the women who knew me long ago, who left the religion way before I did and who I found again after I myself left. But when you are a witness you are constantly putting a wall between yourself and everyone not a witness. Breaking that wall down, you talk to people differently than you used to! There's no more reserve. More eye contact. More questions. More interest.

steve2

Great news! True friends have much in common and appreciate and accept any differences - unlike in the organization where friendships are more about impression management than being interpersonally genuine.

True friends reach out across geopolitical, cultural and religious divides and they do not expect you to be their clone.

My mother - herself a devoted JW - was known to say that a true friend is someone who knows all about you, but loves you just the same. How ironic she served an organization where that level of friendship shrivelled under constant "brotherly" and "sisterly" badgering.

I may have a friend

Share this