A long-standing friendship of mine sadly appears to be ending. I’ve been friends with this person for over 20 years; we met in High School, became good friends (she was like the sister I never had), and, despite our best efforts, eventually drifted apart after graduation separated us, as frequently happens.
Years later, thanks to the Net, we reconnected and caught up with Old Times. We stayed in touch via the Net.
Almost two years ago, work took my wife and myself to Fort Wayne, Indiana, where my friend now happened to be living with her husband and four children.
They were an enormous help to us as we settled in, helping us unload the truck and move our stuff into our new home, even bringing food along so we’d have something to eat. They carted me around an unfamiliar town in search of a job, something for which I am eternally grateful.
As time passed, she and I talked about various things, and, over a year and a half, retied the bonds of friendship. It was nice to have my old friend back in my life, despite changes in us both resulting from age and life in general.
Last November, they invited us over to their home for a surprise birthday dinner for my wife. As I had no way to get to the store without my wife knowing (I wasn’t yet driving again) I asked my friend to pick up a cake, and I would pay them for it. She said they would, and did. We had dinner and cake, and things went smoothly; as they say, a good time was had by all.
As we left, my wife asked for a piece of her cake, which she was given, and we left, leaving over half the cake for them eat.
My friend still expected to be paid for the cake. This, despite the fact that my wife and I had had exactly 3 pieces, and one of those, she’d had to ASK for to take home. The cake was not offered to us to take with us, and we, not really needing it, did not ask for it. We left it there, for them and the kids.
My wife and I agreed that I should not have to pay the fourteen dollars, since they ate nearly the whole thing. They more or less bought the cake, and let us eat some of it.
Not being especially good at confrontations, I avoided the subject whenever, in the months that followed, it was brought up by them.
We have since left Indiana and moved back home.
The other day, the matter was broached again, this time in an e-mail sent to me the by my old friend. Unable to avoid it completely, I decided to face the music and informed her that I was not going to pay the fourteen dollars, and calmly and carefully explained my reasons why.
Well, in a series of nasty e-mails I immediately began receiving in reply, I was called "irresponsible", "a thief", and it was insinuated in one from her husband that I was some sort of con artist who worked at getting "free stuff" by offering to pay but not coming across.
Yeah, I bilked them out of a whole fourteen bucks. Yay, me. Now I can retire.
These people are extremely devout Christians; fundamentalists. People whose faith actually borders on zealotry. This, while being one of their many good points, is strangely one of their problems, as well. The venom in those e-mails is not coming from Christian ideals, despite their offers to pray for me; that God will help me to see the errors of my thieving and irresponsible ways.
In the nearly twenty years since we all last saw one another, they both, my friend and her husband, found Jesus and got religion in a biiiiig way. No problem there.
Trouble is, rather than making them better people, it’s made them extremely self-righteous and judgmental of others. Their faith has cost them friendships, and has even somewhat strained their relationships with their families.
If you don’t get the same messages and ideas that they get out of the Bible, they seem to hold you in varying degrees of contempt. I’ve experienced this first hand, as has my wife, who thinks little of them because of it. They’re right and you’re wrong, and that’s all there is to it.
I informed my old friend, in answer to one of the nastier e-mails, that she had gotten good over the years at making condescending speeches and telling people how they should live, and that that wasn’t the friend I remembered so fondly. She didn’t like this at all, and informed me that yes, she had changed; she’d "grown up" and that I should try the same.
How sad.
All this bile over fourteen lousy dollars. I’m very depressed over it. It helps a little to type this out and share it; to get it out of my system.
I have more to write about my ‘friends’, perhaps questions that some of you, as disinterested parties, may be able to help me with. For now, I will let this stand as it is .