Preparing for confrontation with JWs

garybuss

Please help with this. I have been watching myself. What I sometimes see is someone going where I don't really want to go. If I knew ahead of time I was going to be present with a JW, I would prepare for a confrontation, and I would get a confrontation. Now, I prepare for a non-confrontation. It is work and it takes some planning. I have some rules I follow.

1. Plan to be especially non-confrontational. Think about it.
2. Never bring up a trigger topic. Keep it friendly and light.
3. If the Witness brings up a trigger topic, never go into it. Stay off any subject that might being up emotions on either side.
4. Threat the Witness much like you would treat a mentally ill, or retarded person.
5. Never meet a JW alone. Always have someone friendly to you and loyal to you along. Talk to them as a way to control the conversation. Coach them first.
6. Be in charge of the transportation. Drive yourself so you can leave any time you want to.
7. Treat the Witness like a salesman treats a hostile customer. Always bring a gift and give the gift to the JW right at the start of the meeting. It sets up reciprocity and makes it hard for the Witness to be unfriendly. I use an apple pie.
8. Plan for a short meeting and keep it short.
9. The purpose of the meeting is to make and keep rapport.
10. Thank the Witness and ask if you can meet with them again. Then leave.

I hope other posters share the things that work for them in greeting, and getting and keeping rapport with Witness friends and relatives. Thanks everybody and happy weekend. GaryB

jgnat

Thanks GaryB, you give me food for thought. I am planning for my first visit with a JW (other than my honey). When it happens, it will likely be a woman. I am mulling over how to best approach someone who has already dubbed me worldly. She will likely have some well-rehearsed questions to ask me, to determine my spiritual state, and whether I am potential meat for the Lord's table.

I think I am fairly good at deflecting personal questions (exactly when did such a person become so intimate as to ask such things), and at asking unsettling questions of my own. I think a good goal would be for me to appear as too much work to bother evangelizing, but harmless enough to be unthreatening to their own spirituality.

By the way, if I ask her to pray with my honey in the room, will she have to cover her head?

garybuss

For a time I liked to play with them with my new knowledge. I'd play with them like a cat plays with a mouse. In the end I came to believe it's all personal. I confronted my parents with the information they required me to accept as a child in order to stay in the family home and they refused to discuss that information with me. There was a therapeutic element to that confrontation. I did get a closure. I wonder if there was another way to get that closure. Guess I'll never know.

I don't look for ways to be in association with group members. I avoid it. But time and circumstance bring me in contact with some members. There was a time when I wanted to help them see the error of their ways but that time is past and my feelings for them has changed to mostly indifference. I have other interests and new friends.

When I do have contact with one of them, I see no point in being rude. My goal with any contact with anyone is to leave every meeting on a friendly note. I stay in charge and that is done with competency and education and practice and willingness. I am interested in hearing experiences from others successful in getting and keeping rapport with them. GaryB

run dont walk

very good topic and comments, like your approach.

smurfette

Thank you Gary. I especially liked #4. I can't think of anything to add. Great advice!

-Margy

garybuss

Just as a sidebar, One thing I can think of as a working general rule is this:

I try to never put the people I am with in a position to defend anything. As soon as I do I force them to take the defense, i.e. be defensive, I have changed the meeting from friendly to adversarial. So it was no wonder so many of my connections ended on an adversarial note.

I'm not saying confrontation is always improper. There is a time and a place for that, but with the proper support and for a reasonable cause. How many angels can dance on the head of a pin is not a reasonable cause in my opinion.

If rapport is the desired outcome, then the recipe for rapport must be followed. If I want to bake an apple pie, I can't expect to start out with lemons and get an apple pie, but that was what I was doing.

If I come into a meeting with an adversarial attitude and an argumentative style, I will not achieve or keep rapport and rapport is essential to a friendly relationship and for an opportunity for a next meeting. As Witnesses we were taught to use a confrontational approach in conversation and inside the group we seemingly could do things and say things that simply do not work in a healthy, free context.

At the door, we were taught to disregard sincere objections and plow on. In personal relationships we were taught to apply pressure to people to get them to comply and submit. In conversation we were taught to use flips and stoppers and personal questions and implications. Outside of the group, those tactics are not welcome nor tolerated and they are rapport breakers.

To get and keep rapport, we need to know that the spins and flips taught to us and modeled for us do not work and we need to be aware of ourselves and when we use them and how not to use them. GaryB

UpAndAtom

The best thing I've ever done to a JW is to walk up to a recovering patient (who had narrowly avoided death because of the blood issue), stand next to her, put my arm around her and give her heart-felt one-arm hug, and tell her, "I'm glad you're all right."

Unbeknowst to me at the time, this simple action was something that the majority of her congregation had difficulty in doing... even to the extent that one of them cried, "Don't hug me! Don't hug me! I'm not good with people!" (or words to that effect). Now, every time I am around this lady (her hubby and entourage) I feel that I have a "get out of goal free card", and I can avoid argumentative conversations. I like to think my actions speak volumes more than the volumes they do have!

I think playing mind games, using tricks-of-the-trade and preparing for a visit is pretty much a JW mindset. I say go with the flow - avoid any intelligent converstaion whatsoever, and whatever they say pretty much ignore and realize, that despite what you think - they are happy. Just smile.

garybuss

UpAndAtom, You wrote:

I think playing mind games, using tricks-of-the-trade and preparing for a visit is pretty much a JW mindset. I say go with the flow - avoid any intelligent converstaion whatsoever, and whatever they say pretty much ignore and realize, that despite what you think - they are happy. Just smile.

You summed up my thoughts very well. I saw my mother rehearse confrontational dialogue over and over. She knew what she would say way in advance and her personal relationships are almost non-existent today. She was a good model of what I do not want to be.

Confrontation, manipulation and hidden agenda is the Witness way. Guess I don't want it to be my way. Great post. Thanks GaryB

Preparing for confrontation with JWs

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