Monday, January 5, 2015

Transitional friendships: A life reality that stings

     For years in my Interpersonal Communication class, I have taught students about transitional friendships. These are friends that come into our life, the friendship flourishes, but because of a change of circumstance, the friendship wanes.
     I have my students share examples from their own experience. Some say they lost a friend because of moving apart. Others say they lost a friend because their lives were headed in different directions. Some has said they lost friends when they got married. The list goes on and on.
     The saddest part of the reality of transitional friendships is rather than both parties working to make transitions as realities shift, one or both decide it just isn't worth it.
     During my time at John Brown University, I invested my time, energy and a significant part of my life into developing and mentoring students who became my friends.
     One I sat with for countless hours at odd times as he bounced his thoughts and ideas about everyday life off of me and I him.
     One I spent hours directing and training to help her become the actress she was destined to be.
     One I coached rigorously, turning her from a timid spokesperson to a formidable debater.
     One I worked side-by-side, the two of us accomplishing together more than we could separately.
     One I encouraged to be the opinionated, strong woman she was becoming even though it was not encouraged in the school culture.
     One I always defended, even though her many "sins" would make her a pariah if people had known her truth.
     While in relationship with each of these men and women, as we developed deeper friendships, I would have never imagined each would become a transitory friendship.
     What changed? I admitted I had been living a lie as a closeted gay man, divorced and decided to live a different truth.
     As a result, the first barred me from attending his wedding, and cut off ties with me because I divorced my wife.
     As a result, the second cut off communication, even as she now has openly gay friends.
     As a result, the third refused to even hear my side of the story and ended our friendship.
     As a result, the fourth severed ties because I was a much "different" person.
     As a result, the fifth opted to not be assertive and simply "unfriended" me on Facebook.
     As a result, the sixth, after moving to the same city as I in California and I asking her to get dinner      responded, "We were friends then, but this is now. Let's just leave it at that."
     These were all loving, intelligent, caring people who were my friends.
     These were all loving, intelligent, caring people I still want to be friends.
     These are all loving, intelligent, caring people who have used their faith to justify marginalizing me, our friendships and rationalize their own bigotry.
     This will ultimately be where evangelicalism in America will have a "black eye" in history. Each of these former friends have used Christianity to defend ending a friendship simply because they disagree with my choices. 
     The irony is that I loved the first in spite of his nagging porn problem.
     The irony is that I loved the second in spite of her not quite being the virginal epitome of womanhood to which she showed her public.
     The irony is that I loved the third in spite of her being a flat out bitch to her peers.
     The irony is that I loved the fourth in spite of his less than conventional sexual tastes.
     The irony is that I loved the fifth in spite of her abusive past.
     The irony is that I loved the sixth to the point of shielding her from repercussions she probably well deserved.
     I have not been a perfect friend, but those in this post have motivated me to be more loving, flexible, understanding and willing to adapt to changes in friends' lives when they happen.
     I miss these friends...I still love these friends...and if they ever seek me out, I will start our friendship anew.
     Until then, it stings. Something will happen to remind me of the relationships I had and my heart aches.
     I tell my students the reality of transitional friendships makes it difficult to form new friendships the older one gets. To be honest, those mentioned in this post have made me cautious about investing in new friendships.
     However, I still make an effort, for I know not when a new friend will become a lifelong pal, or will be important for a time then vanish. 
     For my lifelong pals out there: thank you for making life's transitions with me. It helps take the sting away from those that cast me aside.
     To my readers: your friendship is important to your friends. Love them, grow with them, and adapt with them...even when you disagree.


2 comments:

  1. Hi Jason, I recently stumbled across your blog and wanted to comment on this post. I see that you don't actively update it, so I don't know if you'll actually see this comment, but I figure it doesn't hurt to try.

    I want to start off by acknowledging and affirming the pain you have felt as a result of people cutting off contact with you. Rejection is never something anyone wants to experience, but it can cause long-lasting scars and hurt, as you have very clearly expressed. I wish we didn't have to experience such things, but unfortunately it is one of the symptoms of living in a fallen, sinful world.

    Rejection hurts. Absolutely. You have felt it, I have felt it, and I would venture to say that the majority of people in the world have felt it at some point in their lives. However, we do have a choice in how we respond to it. We can allow the hurt to linger, to jade our perspective of others based on past experiences. Or we can choose to forgive, use it as an opportunity to learn more about ourselves and make changes in our own lives to ensure that we don't do the same to others. That's not to say that memories and pain will never appear again, but we don't allow them to have power over us. We can also seek to understand more about the person who rejected us, because people rarely set out just to spitefully hurt others.

    The reason I say this is as much for my own sake as for yours. Please allow me to explain why I found this particular post of yours relevant to me. I was one of your students at JBU, though not one of those listed here in your post. We never developed a close friendship like you described with some, but I respected you, and greatly appreciated the passion you had for your work.

    But more importantly, you had proven that you were someone who could be trusted. I remember you sharing your testimony at a men's ministry meeting. And my memory is a bit fuzzy now, but I believe you even shared in a chapel service one day (though I may be confusing it with someone else). You were literally the very first person I had ever heard talk of struggling with homosexuality in my Christian sphere, aside from sermons condemning "those gays". I had been living in fear and denial of my own similar story, and suddenly here was a respected professor of mine saying that I wasn't the only one out there. I was so relieved!

    (As an aside note, I am confused as I read through your blog posts, about how you say you had been "in the closet" your entire life until you came out post-JBU. I vividly remember you telling how you had dived into a deep and destructive lifestyle, but God got a hold of you, transformed your heart and life, and you reached a place of desiring to pursue your wife and then started a family. What I read on here and what I heard you say years ago seem to be in direct contradiction...could you clarify this for me?)

    I eventually worked up the nerve to go talk to you. We only had a couple of conversations about it, but you were the first person I had ever shared these thoughts and feelings with. I walked away from those conversations with a new understanding of things. You told me that my thoughts and feelings and temptations did not make me a freak. You told me that God had greater plans for me than just struggling with sexual identity, and that I was not the sum of my attractions. You told me that what Satan had meant for destruction in my life, God could transform and use as a witness for God’s transforming power in people’s lives. You didn’t promise I could just “pray the gay away,” but you did plant a seed of hope that God was working in my life.

    (continued…)

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  2. (…continuation)

    Fast forward to a couple years later. I finally came to a point of realizing I had just been going through religious motions, hoping to “balance out the scales” with God. I realized that Christianity was about letting Christ have control of my life, to be faithful to him, but because of his grace and mercy I didn’t have to be perfect. I opened up to others in my life about the things I was wrestling with. Fear no longer had power over me, and God has transformed my mind and my heart and I no longer desire to pursue the lusts of the flesh like I once did. As I have been striving to be obedient to his Word, I have seen a marked change in my desires, and it is absolutely not of my own doing. Do I still wrestle with doubts and temptations? Absolutely. Paul describes me perfectly in Romans 7, in that there is still the sin that dwells within me, but I am being changed day by day.

    A few years ago now, I somehow heard or read about your departure from JBU and the surrounding events. I was shocked. I was hurt. I felt betrayed. You were the very first person I had ever bared my soul to, and you turned your back on everything you had told me nearly some 10 years ago now. If it were not for God having done a huge work in my life in the years leading up to then, I would very likely have been shaken to the core, and questioned everything I had believed. But instead, I grieved for you. I grieved for your family. And I forgave you for the betrayal, however indirect it may have been.

    Please hear me say that this is not meant as an attack on you. I say this to illustrate that we can’t just look at one side of the situation. Those former friends who rejected you more than likely did not randomly decide one day to ditch you and spite you. They had reasons for choosing to cut off contact. Sure, they may have their own sins that point to hypocrisy in their own hearts, and that is certainly something they will have to answer for someday. But they clearly felt some kind of betrayal, some kind of rejection, and didn’t casually “cast you aside.” Like myself, they probably thought they knew you, thought they could trust you, and then suddenly found that was no longer true. You talked about how they had confided in you, sharing some very deep, dark personal secrets. It’s not a matter of them merely not agreeing or “adapt[ing] to changes in friends’ lives.” It’s more likely a matter of them having placed their trust in you only to see you turn your back on who you had said you were, consequently feeling like the friendship had been based on a lie. (It probably doesn’t help for you to publicly put them on blast and expose their secrets here on your blog either.)

    Our choices have the potential to profoundly affect those around us, as you certainly know. But it’s unreasonable to expect others to take everything in stride without considering how those choices might have affected them. I want to reiterate that the hurt you have felt is very real, but at the same time I want to exhort you to look beyond yourself and remember that we are all human. We all experience pain at times. We all have the capability to lift others up as well as to tear others down. We can’t control others, but we can choose how we will respond to the actions of others.

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