Anybody Successfully Avoiding Your Old Crowd?

[Vomit Comet]

I've been ex-Christian since December of last year. So, not long at all.

 

So far, so good. It helps a lot that 100% of them are all back in the L.A. area, whereas I've been living in Las Vegas (Sin City) for the past three years.

 

So far it's been blissful. I still talk to my best friend, who's still a believer, but he fucks his girlfriend freely and is pretty apathetic, and also believes in evolution. I haven't broached the subject with him, though, and I have no idea if he suspects anything. I have two roommates; one's a typical Euro atheist and the other comes from old time backwoods Baptist Christianity in Appalachia, although she's about as tolerant as that breed can possibly come, and she only goes to church when she visits her family back home. She was dimly aware that I was a believer but the topic has not since come up, and she probably doesn't give it an ounce of thought.

 

I haven't heard one peep from anyone else back in Los Angeles. I'm really hoping that none of them take it upon themselves to call me just to see how ol' Vomit Comet is doing. Well, one girl did but in all the years I've known her she was always on the periphery and never fully a Believer as far as I knew, but I was alarmed when she called me because I thought the comfort barrier that is the 300 miles of desert was about to be breached.

 

In particular, I'm worried about my old youth pastor going in search of me (so far he's done this about once a year), because he will pry, pry, and pry. I still have love and admiration for the man, because he really went out of his way to help me when I was at the shittiest point in my entire life, and he did the same for dozens, if not hundreds of other doomed fuck-ups who were bound for prison or the cemetary or something else that wasn't so good. But unless he was able to be cool, and I doubt he would be, I'd rather have him at a safe distance.

 

Above all else, my brother. I've been avoiding him for a while now. I saw him once for about 20 minutes last Easter when I brought my girlfriend home to meet my family. I thought it was going to turn into a big nasty confrontation and me and her were both worried to death. But he was cool. She said she sensed that he just wanted me to be happy for once in my goddamn life, and was willing to give her (typical Euro atheist) a fair shake. I've never really had a girlfriend before. I had to leave the goddamn church to find love. Falling in love with her was one of the things that pushed me over the edge. I didn't want to subject her to the drama of agonized fence-setting falling-from-grace half-Christian, nor did I want to remotely involve her in the demonomania Pentecostal horror movie that had been my life for too many terrible years. "Shit or get off the pot." Well, if the pot was ex-Christianity, I let the turd drop.

 

My parents don't give a shit, fortunately. Hell, when I first got saved they gave me a lot of shit for it. They were scared that I had been sucked in by some crazy-ass cult. I converted my brother several years later, and they were also very leery about that. Still, it would be weird to tell them: they've known me to be such ever since the year 1994 when I was 15 years old. Furthermore, they credit it (or rather, the positive social aspect of church) with saving me from the worst kind of life. Maybe I will tell my dad this summer, though I won't use the word "agnostic" or anything because despite his avowed non-religiosity, and the aversion he continues to harbor towards fundies (especially the kookier strains such as Pentecostalism), he's still pretty right wing and he associates atheism with Bolshevism, anti-Americanism, and ivory tower elitism.

 

Anyways, I don't know what's going to happen. I don't even know if my brother is still deep into it or not. I've just been avoiding him like hell, and it pains me because I love my brother. I really don't know how to approach that one.

 

At any rate, thank god for all this desert between me and my old crowd! Although I'm going back to visit for a few weeks out of the month of June, and I'm worried how it'll go down. Shit... not a pleasant thought. Other than the people at my prior grad school, and the one best friend I mentioned, I don't think I'd be able to hang out with anybody at all. Sooner I get back outta there, the better. Which sucks, because I really love my hometown, the City of Angels. Sin City is a fucking brutal place to live and normally I'd relish the chance to decompress back in LaLa-Land for a few weeks. Now I'm dreading it.

[Mike D]

Wow another real live LA native besides myself....we are a rare breed. Although you don't live here anymore so I guess you don't count

 

Pretty much all of my family knows I am an atheist, and nobody really seems to have a problem with it. My dad still considers himself a "conservative Christian" and a Pentecostal (which is what I was brought up with), and I think he can even understand why I became an atheist because we've talked about it at length. I never really had many Christian friends (even when I was a Christian I thought most of them were idiots) so I don't really talk to any of them anymore.

 

It seems like eventually you are going to have to deal with telling your old crowd, correct? Isn't it better just to get it over with? Think of it as ripping a bandaid right off all at once rather than doing it slowly and dragging it out over a long period. It's a little more painful at first, but at least it's done.

[florduh]

I had to be honest and let the chips fall. If you don't "come out" your friends and family are loving/liking someone other than who you really are.

 

I didn't have to avoid the old Christian crowd, they avoided me. My dad was the only whacko Christian I had to worry about, and we just talked less after I became the enemy of his Christ. Oh well, no use having him love a son who no longer existed.

 

The people who love you unconditionally are the ones who count, so don't hesitate to weed out the others. I think its better in the long run (the rest of your life).

[R. S. Martin]

Basically I echo Chris. The Christians started avoiding me. That's when I knew I had actually crossed the line from heretical way-out christian to not-Christian. However, the way I was treated by the Christians I came out to early on told me not to come out to the people who really matter. Thus, I am an atheist-in-the-closet living in the home of a Christian who might (or might not) kick me out if she knew. I don't want to risk finding out.

 

Avoiding my "old crowd" is necessary for my own sanity and emotional well-being. However, I gave them opportunity to prove themselves. My siblings proved that their religion (read church) is more important than a relationship with me. Thus, they don't have a relationship with me.

 

You will have to decide how to handle things in your life. June is still a ways down the road. Things could still happen to clarify your feelings between now and then.

[ogilvy]

i still live in the town where my previous church is, and liable to run into the people at any time. they don't visit me though, because i put out the word that i dont like having visitors. thats a big relief and saves me a lot of angst. theres one lady i saw at the shopping centre a couple of times and went out of my way to avoid. but the last time i couldnt, and stopped to briefly chat. thankfully she didnt mention church, so that was quite ok. so far nobody's been able to give me an anwer to the question of 'why was it not cruel of God to create us in the first place, knowing that the majority of people would end up in hell?' as the 'free will' argument doesnt address that question, there's nothing anybody can say to refute my argument. if they could, maybe then i would consider going back to church, but thats not going to happen, because there is no satisfactory answer to it. thus, i'm not the bad guy for not going to church. even the pastor agreed that my questions were reasonable.

[hereticzero]

I've made 51 orbits around the sun. I don't avoid anyone. Some of my old friends don't have the time for me any more but most are cool about what I believe and we get along fine. I have a few sanctimonious extended family members I see only once a year who act like they flush god's toilet too.

[smellincoffee]

After I deconverted (January '06) I started going to a university out of town. Now the only people in the old crowd I see are my parents. I'm still friends with my old fundy friends on Myspace/Facebook, but they apparently don't look at my profiles.