At church - all alone

My son started a new single's ward at the beginning of the fall semester. It was a new school, new apartment, new roommates and new ward. The first couple weeks he texted us and said it was hard; everyone else seemed to know each other.  I am not sure how many weeks into the year it was, maybe 3 or 4, but we were sitting in sacrament meeting and I get a text from my son. It was a video of him in Sunday School class sitting in the middle of a row. He pans from the left of him to the right of just empty seats. His comment was, when you get to class early and no one sits by you.

I didn't know what to say. My heart ached for him. Here he is a shy person, trying to do what is right and be at church, but feeling alone, empty and rejected.

Now, I am sure many are thinking, why didn't he go sit with someone. This was my reaction too. However, he had spent the first few weeks trying to reach out and do just that. Then this week he wanted to see if anyone would reach out to him.  He is like that. He will try to be outgoing and invite people do to stuff, but then he expects to receive the same back. So after a few tries, he will wait to see if anyone will reciprocate. Is this right? Is this the best way? Maybe or maybe not; I don't know. But I do understand where he is coming from and why he takes this approach. In my own life, I have seen this happen. How many times are we reaching out to help others or befriend others? Do we feel alone because nobody reaches out to us? Now I am really talking about no one, not one invitation, not one call.

We have one friend who commented how people change when they are put in some callings. He said he had one guy come up to him to talk. After though, he thought, why did that happen. That guy hasn't talked to me in the 10 years he has lived here and now he acts like we are friends. I get that in some callings you need to reach out and try to interact with others. But sometimes it just comes off phony.

As I stated before, I am happy to sit by myself. But I am trying to change. I try to make eye contact with people in the halls and say hi; try to talk during the breaks. It is interesting to see how many people actually try to avoid looking my way. Intentional or not, it is noticed.

I think we as members sometimes get stuck in our bubble. There are a lot of cliques and not a lot of real reaching out to befriend everyone. This might just be my view; I'm not sure.

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