Being Accepted: Finding a Peer Group

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This will be a different journal entry than usual, I hope to be a bid more profound in my musings.  I also hope that more readers of this will be personally affected by what I have to say.  Typically I am talking about the inner recesses of my personal desires/issues and experiences, and doing this boldly--I may add--since before a few years ago, this would only be in a my private journals, not out there on the world wide web.  But I do, I hope have some level of anonymity in this blog for the expressed purpose of allowing me to be 100% real and transparent in what I am thinking and feeling as a human being.

Now, onto my desired subject for today's post.  I woke up today listening to NPR, the last 15 minutes of This American Life, a radio show.  Today's show was about how hard it was for a middle school aged boy to move into a new town because he had no friends.  He said, quite ably and articulately, that it was not as easy as in elementary school to make new friends, you cannot walk up to a person and say, "hi, do you want to be my friend?"  And have it be that.  No, in middle school there are peer groups, people who judge you, your background, your values, your skills and interests  and they size you up and determine off of some narrow criteria, if you belong with them or if you do not.  If you don't, you are not part of the mainstream group, but would have to find friends with those who are in a variety of sub-groups, or sub-cultures.  But even these groups can be exclusive and hard to break into, you have to bring something of value to them for them to be able to accept you.

I got to thinking about this and had the epiphany that this concept is the riddle of life and the key to why I am so depressed all the time these days.  Society is made up of these peer groups, it does not stop in middle school.  Yes, in middle school there is more drama over friends, as the kids are not able to process their emotions as effectively as when they become adults, but the basic societal framework is set up starting at around 6th grade.  You either learn how to play the society game or you do not learn.  I did not learn.  I know that now, I like to think and make believe that I am accepted, that I belong somewhere, but I have over the years, enclosed myself into this isolative cocoon in a small town and I have, systematically (without realizing it) decimated my peer groups.

Let me explain more.  I am calling a peer group a group of people who have similar values, desires, and goals, which attract and conditionally accept others as long as they conform to the group's basic goals and values. This is the framework of society that is setup in youth, ages 11-15, the tween and early teen time before you are an older teenagers but after you are a mere child.  There are hundreds of peer groups, they form cultures, there is the mainstream culture and then within mainstream culture there are sub-cultures, each group with unique social mores, values, goals, and skill sets. Just like the groups in middle school that either accept you or reject you basic strictly on your ability to conform to the group's collective values and expectations.  For example, you are not going to be friends with the football players unless you can understand and are relative decent (based on the average skill ability) at playing football.  If you can't play football, you are not accepted into that group, it's as plain and as simple as that.  They may not tell you this straight to your face (at least not when you are an adult) but it remains true nonetheless.  Society does not accept diversity.  Rather it becomes stratified, like groups attract. If you are different, you just need to find the group that is like you that you conform with and find your community there.

My issue is I have very few groups that I can attach myself to.  I attend a church, I am in a weekly small group, a group of individuals at the church, who have committed time and energy towards learning something new.  But, I have not been able to connect with these people at a deeper more personal level, they are not my age, or my peers, in that we do not share some fundamental characteristics to ensure I am within their personal social networks.  The primary rule of these groups, in mainstream society, is that you need to be married and you need to have kids.  If you are not married and have no children, you do not fit into the predominate patterns of these social groups. So getting back to my small group and my church, I am members of it, I participate and socialize with the members, but it remains a superficial connection because I lack the criteria to be truly accepted:  I am single and gay.  Deep down they all know it, or suspect it, but social mores says they cannot address it directly, no one is going to call me gay, that won't happen.  But what will happen is I will be overlooked for party invitations, gatherings, etc. and in turn I will feel awkward about just calling up one of these people out of the blue to hang out/ or rather to be familiar with them on a deeper level, they are not my kith and kin.  I have not been invited to the theater  even though I have expressed interest.  In fact I had to attend a show on my own last weekend since I had no one to go with, this is my new reality.  Why?  I am not married, and I am not within the same age group, so I have less life experience to offer.

What about those my own age, you ask?  Well you see they are all married and I am further worried that I am not accept beyond simply my martial status, but also due to my own behavior.  I can come across as an strange nerdy person, my own personal habits, behaviors, presentation, my slender size and lack of strength, etc. may be lacking when measured up to others.  This, to me, is the most frustrating part.  Some people just don't like me.  I don't know why, exactly, but I know I rub some people the wrong way, I am not like them, I get that.  I know that this is not true with everyone, I will not process my emotional upheavals by making broad statements, "oh everyone hates me".  For one, I know that will do me no good to repair wounded or impaired friendships, and secondly it simply is not true.  But when dealing with the heart, it's hard to be logical.  It's not that I don't have any friends. I have friends, but they are few, and I try to not call them every time I am lonely, I don't want to be a burden on them because I can't get my act together and find a spouse.

I also mentioned, earlier, that I am less happy now more because I have systematically decimated my peer groups.  You see, I was part of a singles group that was part of another church, but over the past year I have pulled out of it because I no longer fit into the conservative values and their general evangelicalism.  So I stopped participating in their events and so I lost that connection, I am realizing that I am now really paying the price for that decision because I can no longer connect with people who are like myself, my single peer group, my sub-culture that fits who I am as an individual.  I also left my former church, for another smaller church, for the same theological reasons I stated above, namely that I am more liberal now and do not fit into the social conservative peer groups.  And while you would think that would be a zero sum gain.  Switching one church for another, what's the big deal, but the issue is I still have lost old connections that I had for over 5 years.  I have been dropped, forgotten because I rejected the fundamental building block for that collection of people, the church.  You cannot be friends with people in this town if you do not attend their church, it just doesn't work, there is no common ground.  (not to reveal who I am in real life, but I live in a small conservative southern town in a very red "republican" state)

I have learned that humans have evolved this way over millions of years so that we could survive, we formed hunting bands and clans to divide labor and relate to one another and to perform the most basic function of a human, to make more humans, the marry and to have children.  That is a very, very powerful force in our society and so there should be no doubt as to why I feel like I am not accepted here, I and bucking this force that is coming from all quarters, that tells me that something is wrong with me if I am not married with children.  I am not contributing or conforming to the primary social objective, which is the need to make more people.  I get it now.

I know it is more complicated than that, part of this has to do with my lack of sociability   The fact I don't schmooze with others, go to open events, socialize within my town, but it will be hard to break in if I don't fit in and conform with the others.  So where does this lead me now that I have this figured out?  I know I have never been popular in school, and even now I see that my lack of popularity has effected me in my career  my ability to advance, and in my general well being.  I may be a loner with only a handful of what I consider real friends, but I still long for community and intimacy with others.  At my personal cross roads is my need to decide what I am going to do with my life.  Do I come out as gay?  If so, when and how?  My brother is gay and it's already creating drama in my family, can I possibly add to that?  Or do I take the route of responsibility, and seriously go after a wife?  Go back onto eHarmony and do my best again to try to find someone I am marginally attracted to and I hope she would find me the same.  Look past my sexual peculiarities and just find the companion I desperately need.  And when I know she is emotionally attached to me, I ease her in, bit by bit, into what I am sexually attracted to and hope and pray to find some common ground with her.  At least then I would be accepted into all these groups?  But something tells me that option will crash and burn, I can't get married just to please others, even if I want what they can offer to me-- community.  The third, and most radical option, is to just quit my job and move away, to a place that is more liberal and would hold the values that I personally agree with, a bigger city with a accepting gay community. Start over brand new, with new people, and do my best to try to fit in.  This option is the most risky, as it means I have to basically start over again. But is that just running away from my problems to rewind my life to 10 years ago so I can do it all over again in a new place?

So this is where I am now.  I am alone, lonely, with very few friends who really understands me and who I am.  I have turned to on line fetish groups to fill in this gap, but have had limited success with that approach.  I guess I'll carry on as I always had until some force out there pushes me to do something about this issue.  Either I will be fired or my pay will be cut (Option 3), I will feel I need to just get married, (Option 2).  Or I will say, the hell with this town and my family, and come out and be gay and openly seek a same sex partner (Option 1), but in the process forego any hope of acceptance into my peer groups. Option 4 is to do nothing, but that can only last so long before I really do get depressed and will need to seek professional help...  I pray that God can help me pick which option is best for me.