Did it seem strange to you, almost surreal?
It's happened to me several times.
About 2 years after I was DF'd, HL and I were newly weds heading for a weekend in London. We found ourselves near Twickenham where an assembly was in full swing, and decided to take a peek so that she could have some sort of idea what dubbism was all about.
Wow.
First we had to pay to park! Pay? Never had that before. Then, we wandered around and the crowds melted away from us like we had leprosy or something. Maybe it was my shoulder length hair or HL's mini-skirt or the packs of ciggys that we both carried. Whatever it was I felt like a turd in a swimming pool.
But the people! Fixed grins, chattering inanely, the men all with brief cases and macintoshes, tape recorders fastened to the PA system with safety pins. Notebooks, pockets with rows of multi-coloured pens, sisters in Peter Pan collars gushing about isn't jehovah wonderful, youths striding manfully with their shirt-sleeves rolled up daringly while pushing trolleys loaded with empty cardboard boxes, teenage girls, the good ones dressed like something off the set of "Little house on the Prairie", the bad one's in pancake make up and white lipstick. Here and there the elite of the WTBTS in their light grey suits and semi-rimless spectacles with gold bits, Brother Currey who hated everyone, once again in charge of the male lavatories, an occupation that he volunteered for every year in the vain belief that he was making some sort of point to the upper echelons of the congregation whom he regarded as managers.
We stayed about half an hour. I was stunned. From the outside, looking in, it seemed like some sort of zoo for people with an hyperactive disorder.
It was the first time I'd realised what a weird bunch of people I'd spent most of my life associating with. It re-affirmed my conviction that I'd done the right thing.
Since that day I found myself the unwilling attendee at 2 more meetings of JW's. One was when my Father died, except that he wasn't actually at his own funeral, it was a body-less affair. The other time was around 15 years ago, my visiting JW Mum talked me into taking her to the Memorial.
After that, as the attendent made sure that no emblems were even handed to me, I vowed never to visit a JW meeting ever again regardless of how much my curiosity might be piqued.
From the outside looking in, it seems to me to be laughable that I once took all this so seriously.
Englishman.