Bias or blah

[Liberated Me]

I first want to say that I believe everyone has a lesson to teach me and that generally if one finds something to be boring it's usually their own fault. So this could be all on me but I usually can be fascinated by everyone I meet because in one way or another they have unique stories or perspectives on life.

I'm trying to figure out if all the new TBMs are really that boring to me ( particularly women around my same age) or if they just flip into "boring mode" as a self-defense mechanism when engaging with known apostates such as myself. I quite enjoy my relationships with most of the old members that I knew before I left. It's the new mormons I meet that I struggle to connect with. I'm wondering if any of you have experienced lulls and empty space when trying to engage with asking questions. I left church 4 years ago but my husband still goes and the kids choose to go about 1/2 the time with him. I'm sure new members of the ward get filled in on the church ward drama of my exit and then some relatives ( same last name) who went big in their exit last year and interviewed with John Dehlin. I walked over to the house of some long-time-friends, quite TBM yet still fun to be around. They had another TBM family over and I learned that they also lived within walking distance. I am quite friendly and confident in conversation and saw it as a chance to make friends because we have kids the same ages but they would never really engage in conversation even though they were polite. They just seemed so blah, it surprised me. But as I walked home I thought about all of my interactions of meeting the occasional neighborhood Mormon since my exit and I realized that those interactions all felt blah also.So is it me, them, or both? What have your experiences been?

[oliver_denom]

I did a lot of observing before making my exit. A few years back a friend of mine left and I got to hear all the conversations about him from ward members that all knew him. I asked one of them a question, "Does it really change your relationship with X just because he left the church?" His reply was, "I think it has to. He's gone off on another path and what are we supposed to do except bring him back?"

I had a similar conversation with a friend who's wife went inactive. He said that for the first year of her inactivity, all he did was try to argue and persuade her back into the church. The environment in the house got so contentious that they were barely speaking anymore. Both were watching their words carefully. She watched her words so as to not set off her husband. And he watched his words for the same reason. For awhile, he didn't feel like he could either listened to or entertain her thoughts on the church because they were unambiguously wrong. Eventually he figured out that his behavior was both obnoxious and driving her further and further away. It took a lot of work, but he was able to get their relationship back to normal.

Sorry for bringing up Fowler, but I've got him on my mind today. A big part of the Mormon worldview is being able to have the "correct" behaviors and "right" answers mirrored back to you. It's what gives someone purpose and envelopes them in the feeling that they belong to the group. When someone doesn't mirror the correct behaviors or mirror the right answers, then it disturbs the entire project. People in that situation can only see two possible choices. They can either convince you to return to the correct way of being and be accepted back in the group, or they can try and avoid any interaction that causes them angst. From what I've witnessed, most individuals will choose avoidance either through avoiding contact or avoiding certain subjects. Most groups, that's when they visit in pairs or make strategic decisions in correlation meetings, will choose ways to convince you to return to the group's norms. Choosing a third option is as strange and alien to them as asking a fish if he wants to breath air instead of sinking or swimming.

[achilles]

I wonder how much of this is due to the fully programmed Mormon life. Everything is structured and scripted. Friendships are usually shallow and only based on shared church responsibilities. There is something to do almost every day of the week at the ward house. As a high demand religion, Mormons know who to marry, what to wear, what to drink, who to spend time with, what to watch, what to listen to, etc, and are programmed with trite responses to life's challenges through endless boring meetings. Often people have nothing to talk about but Church. And they're just too busy/preoccupied with family and church that there isn't room left for anything else.

So if you have no intellectual curiosity, interests, or ambitions, you literally don't have to make any effort to fill your life up with Mormon stuff. I've met a lot of boring Mormons.

[achilles]

Oh, and maybe they're just too tired to be anything but blah...

[MerrieMiss]

I'm not sure this answers your question and I haven't left the church. But my husband made an observation a few years back about how I interact with Mormons. I am very, very boring when I interact with Mormons. He says I'm an entirely different person and difficult to communicate with. I have terrible social anxiety, but only around Mormons - any kind, TBM, exmo, inactive, jackmo, doesn't matter (it's odd that I even post here). Once I know someone is Mormon, I go into this robotic default mode and I become very boring and very bland. It is a protection thing, because I am scared of being judged for being the wrong kind of Mormon and I would rather be boring and not make a mistake. It's all about the script. I know my lines, I say and do the right things, but nothing more or less. The sad part is, this is a defense mechanism I learned when I was a kid. I never fit in with that crowd.

So I guess what I'm saying is maybe they're just following the script, and you don't have a part. (Oh, that sounds unkind and not what I meant at all. What I meant was that they don't know how to interact with you.)

[Linked]

Some people don't know how to meet new people in a non-structured setting.

I am pretending to be TBM with my ward still, and I still don't know how to act with people outside of work and church. We have a neighbor who doesn't show any signs of being mormon and has a kid the same age as our oldest. I have wanted to reach out and be friendly but I just don't know how. They got a new truck and motorcycle so I walked down the street to admire it with some other neighbors and I was so awkward! Over-smiling, unable to think of anything to say, laughing at the wrong things, until I finally gave up and went home. But I am really comfortable meeting new people at church or work.