by Brigid 66 Replies latest jw friends
Dear Imustbreakaway,
Have you ever heard of the SCA or Society for Creative Anacronisms (sp)? I'm just judging your avatar. Depending on your hobbies and interests, you may find "your kind" among them (again, just judging from your avatar).
Everyone has a pod.
Blessings,
~Brigid
I was an elder and very popular, you know the " in group". Probably more people came to me than any of the others for advice or to rat someone out. It caused a big thing when I left. Not bragging but that is the way it was.
I was never in the "in" crowd. Neither was my family. My dad was inactive for years and it was just my step-mom taking us kids to the Hall. Because of that, she was looked at like most "single mothers" are looked at - with pity, but no compassion. Looking back, I guess I'm glad I wasn't in that crowd. It would only have made it harder to decide to leave.
I was very popular to hang out with...all the goodie two shoes could have some real fun for a change and then blame it all on me when the elders came down! Then I'd be hauled in for questioning and explain that truly, I didn't hold a gun to anyones head, they were actually having fun!
Then the losers would all apologize to me in private for turning me in, and ask what I was doing Friday night. Ahhh, I loved being the troublemaker!
So, were you a popular witness? Or like me, did you have the feeling that you were a stranger in a strange (very strange) land?
a stranger in a strange land, indeed.
i had a few close friends, but that was it. (still that way actually, just the way i am)...
i was fairly well known in my city, but not because i was popular or because people felt comfortable around me. always had the normies guessing, if you know what i mean. i heard through the grapevine that many found me intimidating.
a strange stranger in a banal and boring land.
nice thread B, :)
TS
By choice I didn't spend time w/the cliques. I was friendly to all, but had few good friends. Even those good friends as I found out later when I DA myself were only conditional relationships.
I have found true friendship among the heathen "worldly" people. No judging and backbiting and dragging ya down.
Juni
I was friend with two elder's sons, who were both popular. But I was fringe. I was one the grownups were never really sure about.
I commented a lot, and was pretty sharp. I was at most meetings, went out in Service, etc.
The ironic thing is this: I was in until I was 18. I had sex for the first time when I was 15. So I was in for three years after the fact, before I was caught. In those three years I was considered more active and was more popular than I ever had been before. My self-confidence had gotten a boost. I was on my way to being considered quite "good association", but I was dating "worldly" girls left and right.
I have at times been very popular and at other times been very definitely unpopular in the various congregations I have been in. It depends how you define "popular". JW's, like any large organization, are full of sub-groups. People of an alike nature tend to gravitate to each other.
When I was a child, my mother was a partier who got df'd for adultery. We had friends but we were not in the thick of the congregation. When my father re-married a pioneer, and became an elder, we were very popular as a family and invited to everything. I gave great talks, went out in service and was sometimes held up as an example to other youths. A few years later, I stopped going out in service, was a big flirt, and hated by most of the women in the congregation. Got df'd at 18. Big scandal. Lots of gossip. Jezebel type, like Brooke.
Three years later, reinstated, hung out with all the elder's and their wives, pioneered, very popular again. Flirted with one of the elder's, he flirted back, his wife got pissed off, gossiped and slandered me all over the hall. Bang, unpopular again. Had to move.
Then I had a baby, got busy trying to be the perfect JW family, husband made an MS. Now, we were popular, a good example to the hall. Ahhh! popular again! Then I got really bored, went to university, missed alot of meetings, got really sick, missed almost all the meetings and service too. What do you know? I am unpopular again(or more accurately, invisible).
So, I guess you could say "popularity" is very fluid and very dependent on who you are with and their perceptions of you. It has very little to do with reality and who you really are as a person. More to do with how you may be acting at the time and if the people you are in contact with are appreciative of that or judgemental.
Hope this helps with your armchair studies.
Cog
"popularity" is very fluid and very dependent on who you are with and their perceptions of you."
True. True. I was in many congregations throughout the south and southwestern US. I was never really popular. At one time my now New Age father was an elder. My crazy mother a FT pioneer. Perhaps we were popular though I was too young to remember. I pioneered a few times myself. But I was never popular. I still think that there are people who were never supposed to be witnesses. Having said that, I ask myself, are then people who are absolutely meant to be witnesses? I'd like to think most of humanity is evolved past the need for such a restrictive religio-corporation to run their life but perhaps not.
I really do not think I was ever going to fit in because I was never meant to be there other than to grow past it in my own personal evolution. But to the people there, they would never recognize me as their one of their kind because I was most certainly not. No judgement. I was as alien as a martian to them. And they to me.
~Brigid
Hmmm...good question. I guess at times I was but at other times I wasn't.
Growing up, I definitely wasn't. My parents were more strict than the average JW parents, so the 'normal' JW kids sort of didn't trust me...like I might be a narc or something. I learned to deal with my solitude as a teenager and got used to be alone and learned to entertain myself.
After moving out on my own, I made more friends and traveled some. I got to meet a bunch of other JWs my age and had a pretty good network of friends. But inside that network there was always some kind of drama going on. As time wore on, I started to miss the solitude that I had. So I partly pulled away from the higher maintenance bunch and eventually met Mrs. undercover and got married.
After marriage we had a few close couples that we hung out with. I guess we were liked by most in the congregation, though there were a few people who I clashed with. The longer we were married the more our friendships seemed to die off. Kids, responsibilities, KH drama all kept us from really getting any closer.
After fading and becoming inactive, I have still kept a few of my closer friends from my growing up years, but the majority of people at the hall that I see around ocassionally shun. Fine with me. Let's me know where I stand and who not to waste my time on.
