Anybody ever met phony friends in churches? It seems like the majority of people needlessly contrive relationships into a fake friendship or even fake acquaintances
I mean, if you give your number to 100 people at your church and nobody ever calls or texts hi on Christmas or anything, are those people actually friends or just phonies?
Been thinking a lot about this.
Social relations is one of the hardest things to get good at in life. And we all are on a learning curve. Including the catholics in my church.
Friendships consist of good experiences together. And trusting that it will continue to be a good experience together.
Another psychologist said, that friendships grow out of interest fellowships. You begin by having a common interest, and with time the relation can develop into a generalized friendship, where it is no longer the mutual interest that holds the relation together.
Regarding the specific wish you bring to the table, it seems to me to be more a question about how well the specific church is functioning. Receiving a text on christmas would happen if someone had the empathy to reach out to some others. In a well functioning church, there would be a high level of empathy.
I think what you are referring to is sometimes called “love-bombing.” My Wife belonged to a Brethren Youth Group and they were known for this. Yes, they were trying to bring their peers to Christ and I do believe there were some genuine friendships there, but there was also the goal of bringing people to Jesus.
Your posts reminds me of a book I read in High School called, “The Catcher in the Rye” by J. D. Salinger. The main character feels the way that you do and is constantly questioning the authenticness of others. Holden Caulfield even uses the term “phonies” to describe them.
I actually had A.i. imagine if Holden had a conversion and I think you might enjoy reading it.
At some point, we need to move beyond judging how others live their lives and focus more on our own authenticness. If you texted me on Christmas, “Hi,” I might see you as disingenuous. I do have friends who wish me a “Happy”-whatever and I know that they are my friend, but these well-wishes feel forced (even though they mean well). It is for the same reason I turned off showing my Birthday on Facebook. I did not want all the “Happy Birthday” posts and then having to post the “Thank You for the Happy Birthday posts” post.
I’m glad you differentiated between friends and acquaintances. I have a hand full of individuals whom I would refer to as friends, but many acquaintances. Not because I don’t have a lot of people wanting to be my friend, but because there are very few that I would actually call my friend.
Have you ever met someone who refers to every acquaintance as a friend? My brother-in-law had a million “friends” (but really they are acquaintances).
On the flip-side, I think it would be hard to be friends with someone who is constantly questioning my authenticity. Let’s say that I thought of you as a friend, but you constantly are thinking I am “phony,” then what is the likelihood that we could be friends (I’m not asking you to be my friend ; )
My point is, maybe focus on being friendly rather than focusing on whether or not someone else is being authentic. What is, is out of our control.
I like what you have said here and I think it is true. I do have a close friend whom on paper, you would never think we would be compatible. She smokes, I do not. She works at a bar, I do not go to bars. She is quite progressive and I am quit conservative. I am a practicing Catholic and she is a non-practicing Baptist. I could go on and on about how different we are, but we met at local Video Rental Store. She worked there and I would frequent after work (I worked at a local Pizza place). We did not like the same types of movies, but she was good at recommending movies based on what movies I did like at the time. She would also recommend movies that she liked and I would rent those and we would talk about what I didn’t like about them : ) I would fix her computers when she had a problem. Then she got pregnant out of wedlock and I watched as her belly grew. Then when she had her baby, I got to know this little guy (who did not have a father in his life) grow. And so our commonality become more than just movies, but her baby. I never saw my friend as more than a friend, and I now consider her son as a good friend as well. I hope I was able to be a good influence on him as he grew to be a young man. He is a good kid.
Maybe that is why I could care less if my friends wished me a Merry Christmas or not. I am the last to text my true friends anything on certain Holydays. I am, by default, not an empathetic person. And I would disagree that a well-functioning church or not, has much to do with this. There are heart people and there are head people. I am a head person and not a heart person. It doesn’t mean I don’t have feelings or that I don’t care about others, it just means that I care in different ways. The way in which I like to help people is by Praying for them. This is something that others cannot see, for you cannot see Prayers (hints why we use candles and incense in public forms of Prayer). Others are doers. They help people in more visible ways. Sometimes this is good and in other ways this can create more problems or get in the way of what God is trying to do in a person’s life. Last Sunday, we heard the Gospel about “The Good Samaritan.” This parable has always challenged me at face value.
Another aspect of this is that people respond or act for different reasons. Some heart people are moved by emotions (empathy being one of these). Head people might be moved by truth (or a sense of what is right and just). I know people who have great empathy for animals and would do anything to rescue an animal, but very low empathy for human-beings or for children. I have a heart for both children and for individuals who battle addictions, because I was a child of an alcoholic. I also now feel for individuals who have lost a child, because my Wife and I lost our baby late in the pregnancy (which is actually more common than I ever knew prior to experiencing it ourselves).
This is why I think that God can use those who have gone through something to help others get through it or overcome something. Or at least be able to sympathize with someone who is going through it, so that they don’t feel so alone. God certainly puts individuals in our lives while we were going through it and we were greatly blessed by God and others.
To answer the original question, I would not give my phone number to a hundred people. And, no, I don’t think anybody at church has pretended to be my friend who wasn’t. I make friends by getting to know people and sharing experiences. If someone has my phone number but doesn’t know me and hasn’t shared experiences with me, I wouldn’t consider the person a friend even if I get holiday greetings from the person. Heck, I get holiday greetings from computers, and at one job I had, I got an automatically generated birthday wish with nobody’s name on it—not the president of the company or anybody at all. It almost seemed to come from the computer itself. Maybe computers are our friends or want us to think that they are. 
I don’t think he meant literally give your number to a hundred randos 
Let me rephrase the topic
Instead of fake or phony people
Let’s use the term Safe Relationships…
Now I think the reality is that most people today have no clue how to be safe with others. People will abuse others needlessly. They rough house. They gossip. They can be untrustworthy.
But then, Catholic churches are designed to inspire divine relationships. The interior and exterior of Catholic places of worship are designed with safety in mind. A safe place to worship. It creates a safe environment.
So when the two collide: one on hand we have inspiring churches are a safe space, and on the other hand a bunch of people who sorta lost touch with how to be safe with one another.
What I’m saying is the majority of people today (including Catholics) just don’t love eachother and they abuse relationships way too much. To the point that most people walking around today are just clueless about treating others nicely. All most people know is to be in a state of uneasiness and fear that their relationships aren’t truly safe ones. They know nothing better
Everyone seems to be on a mean streak…
There’s a reason I’m called Literalman.
“Everyone seems to be on a mean streak…”
At a supermarket I heard a song, something like “Everybody wants to be my enemy.”
And didn’t Jesus say that in the last days, the hearts of most will grow cold?
I get what you are saying here. I joked with my cousin (a progressive) about her “safe spaces,” but I messaged her privately and told her that I am not entirely against safe spaces. I believe in private property rights. What I disagree with is the idea of “safe spaces” on publicly funded college campuses or in public places in general. I explained to her that Churches are a safe space, so when activists interrupt a Sacred Mass, exposıng their body parts to a Priest or throwing condoms and birth control onto the alter in protest, this is disgraceful. And I’m getting that you also find the behavior of some Catholics also disgraceful.
The Bible talks a lot about how we ought to talk and act towards others. Gossiping and being untrustworthy are some of these things warned against. As Christians we should be doing a better job of watching how we treat others and how we speak.
My Grandma on my Dad’s side was a very blunt person. She would tell you what she thought and didn’t care how it might be perceived. She was authentic though. She was the opposite of phony. She was flawfully honest. I respect this more than someone who says what you want to hear and then behind your back says something else. There is a healthy balance between honoring truth and being charitable.
I also think that there need to be a balance between judging other individuals’ behavior while being unaware of our own behavior. The Bible talks about this as well: take the plank out of your own eye (Matthew 7:3-5; Luke 6:41-42) and you will be measured how you measure others (Matthew 7:2) come to mind.
I don’t want to you feel like a perpetual victim, while I also do not defend the way in which some Christians fail when it comes to these things (myself included at times). My brother fell into this trap of saying things like, “All Christians are a bunch of hypocrites.” Many Christians are hypocrites and you know who else is, at times, a hypocrite? My brother. But, he no longer believes in Christianity, and uses this as a reason to not believe nor go to Church. Jesus hated hypocrisy too. He was often pointing out the hypocrisy of the Jewish leaders who preached one thing, but lived another or who would preach one thing and use the rules (which are not bad) as a reason not to do the very thing they were called to do (which is bad if it is an excuse not to do what is good).
“Kindness and truth shall meet; justice and peace shall kiss” (Psalm 85). For a long time this sounded to me like a poetic mishmash of virtues. Then I realized that there often is a conflict between kindness and truth, between justice and peace. I expect that in heaven we will have all of them without limit, but in this world, often we need a balance, as Cade said.