What IS goin on?

What are people thinking? Good Lord. Most of the time, you want to believe good things about people. But I dunno.  A couple of weeks ago, I had lunch with a former business associate and she began telling me about how she had learned astral projection and channeling of spirits. I’m sitting there thinking, “Umm, NO. I want zero part of this.” At the very least, surely you would say to yourself, “I have watched The Exorcist and I do not want to befriend a buddy on the Ouija board.” Temptations wouldn’t be tempting if they were horrible at first sight. If someone said to you, “I would like to steal all of your money and beat you to a pulp,” it would be easy to say, “No, I’m not interested in that.” It’s when the temptation is seductive that you feel a true fight coming on. More money, more power, a heart’s desire, a person. Those things become difficult to turn down even if your spirit is telling you, “Woah. Use caution here.” This person has been through several difficult life events recently. I was hoping we could be a comfort to each other since I too have been through the ringer over the past couple of months. Then she starts telling me about some entity she has contacted on the other side and how she is able to have out of body experiences and I’m thinking, “Check, please!” Another friend of mine volunteers at an animal rescue and he has been accosted by a group of people who claim to have psychic connections with the animals and to have “conversed with them at length and heard their responses to questions.” (Umm, what?) There’s another person in my life who I think more and more I need to distance myself from. I feel bad about it but I know it’s the right thing for both of us. He’s involved in some . . . shall we say . . . odd affiliations and I don’t want to be part of them. I know that’s incredibly non-specific, LOL. He goes to this weird church that seems to make up rules as they go along. Now I once knew a lady who went to one of those snake-handler churches where people held serpents and drank poison. This is not like that. It’s more like “if we don’t want to acknowledge something from the Bible, we’ll say it’s metaphoric or no longer relevant to present times.” He’s supposedly writing a book on theology yet when I asked him to tell me what the book will be about and what he believes, he became nervous and fidgety. I could tell he wanted to avoid the question and, after giving a weird, vague answer to me, he immediately changed the subject. Like it wasn’t even subtle or smooth, it was an immediate “I’m shutting this down” change in subject. I thought, “Why would you advertise to people that you are writing a book on theology and then be so uncomfortable when they ask, ‘So what’s it about?’” Just sayin’. But he spends a lot of time with people who use and sell drugs, prostitutes, and general gadabouts. He often wants to regale me with these stories and I just don’t want to hear it. I can’t tell if he’s relaying the stories in an attempt to create shock value like, “I’m a nerdy guy writing a theology book. But guess what I saw on Saturday night!” Here’s reality: people who are a bad influence will rub off much easier than those who are trying to be a good influence. So many people try to fool themselves into thinking: I can help this person and it will be different for me! Trust me—I have been that naïve person and no, it does not work. Instead of them being magically inspired by you and raising the bar, they drag you down and you wake up one day going, “Well hell. What happened to me?”  (From Proverbs 22: Don’t be friends with people who become angry easily. Don’t stay around quick-tempered people. If you do, you may learn to be like them. Then you will have the same problems they do.) In my last romantic relationship, I found myself trying to change and jump through hoops so that my BF would find me agreeable. I was essentially trying not to rock the boat and to fabricate commonalities. He enjoyed discussing politics and considered himself a socialist. I’m a social libertarian and fiscal moderate who hates long, protracted political debates. But I would talk politics with him and listen to boring shows on NPR to please him. *Sara rolls her eyes at herself* Unfortunately, he affected more changes and bad behavior in me than I affected anything at all in him. So I worry about my friend getting sucked into a bad lifestyle with a group of dangerous people. He could be in the wrong place at the wrong time and get hurt or blamed for something criminal. He’s invited me to go along with him and these people but I am not going to. It’s not worth it to me. For the time being I think interjecting a healthy dose of distance is the best plan.

This is really part of the bigger picture homework for me. How do the people in my life treat me? How do I treat them? Are we compatible? Do we make each other happy? Do we bring each other down or do we make each other feel better? My friend, Jon, was talking about big picture ideas in relationships. Does one person want kids and the other doesn’t? Does one person want to live all over the world while the other wants to be anchored to one city? Does one person believe strongly in marriage while the other person does not? In friendships, it’s important not to overlook the big picture ideas that apply to platonic bonds. I have been entirely too open-minded and open-hearted in the past. That’s not to say I think people need to be cold and cruel. (I don’t know if there is any worse feeling on earth than realizing you love someone who doesn’t love you back and never will.) For me it’s more about exercising judiciousness and caution. Don’t rush into anything, be it platonic or romantic. Don’t form a bond with someone until enough time has gone by to determine if that person is someone you want to have a bond with.