I'm probably not 100% in harmony with this thread, because I personally don't believe you can have close friends in The Truth. Inner Cities have always been plagued by crime, and homocide. The saddest part about it is how it engulfs young people. As you reach your teen and young adult years, the people around you start falling off. Whether it be they're in and out of juvenile detention facilities, or getting permanent concussions from a bullet in the head. With others not going those avenues, you may get along with them but you tend to grow apart due to whatever goals you and they may have. In a sense its the same when it comes to growing up amongst JWs. My favorite emcee Nas had a verse that always stood out to me. I'll quote it here..........
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The congregation I grew up in, there were several young fellas I grew up with. The dudes that were older than us in the hall who were in their early twenties, none of them stuck with this religion. At the time I never knew why, and didn't think much of it. I just knew my folks spoke badly about them. When I hit high school, thats when it started. We all got baptized around the ages of 14-17. I held out the longest. When I got dunked, a young gal from another congregation told me at the assembly, "uncongratulations!" I might have given myself away sharing that little tid bit, but so what. By her comment towards me, it was obvious she wasn't planning on hanging around too long in this religion. Ya know what? Neither were 90% of the dudes I came up with. One got disfellowshipped, so I couldn't speak with him any more. Another one declined getting baptised as he knew he couldn't keep his penis under control. His folks moved, and the second he hit 18, he went bye-bye. Another declined getting baptized at all, and eventually just stopped coming. I see him occasionally and its all love. I don't even try to pressure encourage him to come to the meetings. The indoctrination is so deep, that the first thing he says to me after greeting and hugging one another is, "Man, I know I need to get back." Another cat I was close to, and I still have love for, he started fading away. He was close to becoming a Ministerial Servant, but he had serious issues and reservations about this organization because of how it influenced his upbringing. He recognized before I matured enough to see it, that this organization oversteps its boundaries in "suggesting" what direction young people should take with their lives. So he only shows up for the occasional Memorial. He's very intelligent, and athletically gifted. It hurt him to see those talents go to waste based off of the decrees given by several old white dudes, and one token black that both he and I have never met personally. There's situations that some of the others I came up with had too, but any of you familiar with the social fabric of this organization have already experienced these situations.
There was an incident that always stood out to me. There was an unbaptized sister in another congragation that hit it off with me. Some kind of incident happened at a Witness party gathering involving her and some other females. Typical catty behavior. My friends and I had left the party long before this incident happened. At any rate, rumors of what happened made their way to the Elder bodies of various congregations, including my own. Because of my link with this gal, my name came up somehow. My father let me have it on the ride home, despite the fact that I had nothing to do with whatever happened. I was gone, didn't even know what happened until he told me. It upset him because he took it as if I was running with the wrong people and I brought reproach upon his name. That day forward I decided its impossible to have friends in this organization because we're all too close for personal comfort. I can't speak on other faiths, but JWs have more problems than any other group of people on this mudball of a planet. There's probably more drama and petty crap amongst JWs than the broads on The View. I vowed after that ride home following that Sunday meeting, I will never get too close to another JW again. It just so happened that around that time all my comrades starting falling away from The Truth. What hurts me is the experiences that adults look back upon fondly during their teenage years, I missed out on a lot of those experiences. The ones I did experience I have to keep to myself, and far too often I was on my own or with worldly folks when I had those experiences.
I thought as I got older and was around more mature people in my age group, petty nonsense would cease. Boy was I wrong, JW adults may be worse than JW teenagers. Elders, their wives, Ministerial Servants and their wives, the handful of nutcases in the hall, the overly sensitive people, the CO and his wife, etc.. All of those I mentioned are capable of gossip, backstabbing, slander, petty rivalries, cliques, etc.. If its screwed up, you'll find it in the congregation. I'm thinking about going to another KH. I gave a talk at a suburban KH full of old white people. In my life I've never seen a building so devoid of emotion. But I betcha one thing, they don't have a bunch of petty nonsense going on. If they do, I'm sure it doesn't compare to other younger halls. These folks are just too old to cause any ruckus. Its about a 1/2 hour out of my way, but I'm seriously thinking about transferring there. If and when I make that move, believe me I won't overly miss anybody from where I'm at now. I don't dislike them, but the old saying carries weight that familiarity breeds comptempt.
Another thing to consider is something Terry mentioned on here. He said that its not true love in a congregation when the love is a directive or order from Bethel. Its so true. Me personally I don't think love in this organization is as prevelant as the WT and JWs would like to believe. Not to say congregations are on the verge of turning into South Central Los Angeles, but its not exactly Care Bears either in the average hall.