Catholic definition of friendship?

[Gordon_Sims]

A few months ago I struck up something of a friendship with the husband of one of my wife’s friends. They enjoy doing stuff together occasionally so they encouraged the two of us to hang out while they were doing their thing. Everything seemed fairly normal and I felt like we were getting to be fairly good friends until the topic of religion came up one night. When he found out I wasn’t just Catholic but a practicing, devout Catholic, everything changed. He told me that he’s also very devout and he was relieved to finally have another Catholic friend. I was on the same page for a while but I quickly realized that he blocked me off from every aspect of his life other than religion. We can’t talk about work, family or much of anything else other than religion. He has no problem talking about last week’s homily, this week’s Gospel, whether to say the Fatima prayer while praying the Rosary, etc., but as soon as I bring up any of the stuff we used to talk about he shuts me down. It’s also impossible to talk to him about any problems anymore since all he’s able to do is get a sour look on his face and lecture me on forgiveness. I finally asked him about the change and he said that, since we’re Catholics, we need to have a Catholic friendship. All that other stuff–joking around, playing pool, talking about work, etc.–is for secular friends, not Catholic ones. I initially thought this was a way of him trying to brush me off, but he wants to hang out more than ever. Seeing him now feels more like a lecture series than a friendship, though. Has anyone else heard of this sort of approach to “friendship”?

 

[Lookingforjoy]

That seems odd…I don’t usually differentiate between “Catholic friends” and “secular friends.” Perhaps he doesn’t have anyone else to talk about these topics with and feels a bit lonely in this aspect of his life.

 

[DarkLight]

All good things are of God. That means there is plenty of room to enjoy secular goods in a Catholic relationship.

 

[LongingSoul]

It doesn’t sound like you’re enjoying the friendship much anymore. His behaviour seems quite cultish so be wary that he doesn’t try to get you to drop other relationships you have that aren’t with part of his crowd (if he has a crowd). Or at least don’t let him monopolise all your social time. Maybe make a few excuses not to meetup everytime he invites you if you are feeling like you have an obligation. Strange stuff.

 

[Horton]

I pretty much only have Catholic friends. I can’t imagine only talking religion with them. They do however get my attempts at humor regarding purgatory & confession With one friend it’s more or less the test if we should or shouldn’t do something. Will we have to go to confession over it.

 

[Anglewannabe]

This guy sounds like a hypocrite. He is totally OK playing pool with non-Catholic people even he is Catholic and expects that since you are Catholic you can not join in?

No I have never encountered this before and I think it is time to break away

 

[Gordon_Sims]

It doesn’t sound like you’re enjoying the friendship much anymore. His behaviour seems quite cultish so be wary that he doesn’t try to get you to drop other relationships you have that aren’t with part of his crowd (if he has a crowd). Or at least don’t let him monopolise all your social time. Maybe make a few excuses not to meetup everytime he invites you if you are feeling like you have an obligation. Strange stuff.

I’m really not, although I’m trying to stick with it a while a longer for my wife’s sake. If it was still like it was when it started but with the religious talk added in, that would be fine. I also wouldn’t mind if he specifically invited me over to talk religion and nothing else, as opposed to him calling and saying he wanted to “hang out.” Nothing he’s done seems cultish (although some of his beliefs skew slightly from official Church teachings), but he does act as though he wants to segregate our friendship from his other friendships, not for the sake of keeping me separate but because of this notion he has of Catholic vs. secular friendships.

 

[Gordon_Sims]

This guy sounds like a hypocrite. He is totally OK playing pool with non-Catholic people even he is Catholic and expects that since you are Catholic you can not join in?

No I have never encountered this before and I think it is time to break away

He’s fine with me going out and playing pool, drinking, carousing, etc. as long as it’s with my non-Catholic friends. I really don’t get where he’s coming from, especially since before we clicked pretty well and I felt almost as comfortable with him as with some of my friends I’ve had for decades. He still seems normal around his other friends but he tries to not let me see that side of himself and sometimes even acts ashamed if I catch him acting normal and joking around with them. I’d have no issues with him at all if he wanted to pull back to more like how things were, but at this point it’s a struggle to be around him at times.

 

[pianistclare]

LOL

So the shoe is on the other foot now?
That’s funny. Be glad you have a good Catholic friend. All your other friends that you have posted about in the past you believe to be crazy or misguided. What are you complaining about? this guy sounds right up your alley!

He obviously has no one to talk to freely about his faith.
Can’t you relate to that on any level?

 

[Faxero]

LOL

So the shoe is on the other foot now?
That’s funny. Be glad you have a good Catholic friend. All your other friends that you have posted about in the past you believe to be crazy or misguided. What are you complaining about? this guy sounds right up your alley!

He obviously has no one to talk to freely about his faith.
Can’t you relate to that on any level?

Agreed. There are plenty of other Catholics like myself who would be glad to acquire devout Catholic friends. I’m surprised that GordenSims is turned off by a fellow Catholic’s zealous attitude.

 

[DarkLight]

Agreed. There are plenty of other Catholics like myself who would be glad to acquire devout Catholic friends. I’m surprised that GordenSims is turned off by a fellow Catholic’s zealous attitude.

I’m not reading this attitude as “zealous.” I’ve met people like what Gordon Sims describes and they’re often just annoying. It’s the real life equivalent of the guy who has to post about Jesus on every facebook status - it comes across as trying too hard to be spiritual and making everyone else feel guilty for enjoying perfectly healthy pleasures.

 

[pianistclare]

I’m not reading this attitude as “zealous.” I’ve met people like what Gordon Sims describes and they’re often just annoying. It’s the real life equivalent of the guy who has to post about Jesus on every facebook status - it comes across as trying too hard to be spiritual and making everyone else feel guilty for enjoying perfectly healthy pleasures.

Nope. I seriously doubt it.
The OP is generally really dismayed by his “friends” lax attitudes about faith.

 

[Gordon_Sims]

He obviously has no one to talk to freely about his faith.
Can’t you relate to that on any level?

I can relate to that quite a bit. I just wish he had something to talk about other than his faith. Like I said, things were normal early on. Now, if we’re not discussing Jesus or the Church, he doesn’t want to hear it. If I ask him advice on something, the answer invariably is that I need to open myself to God’s mercy and be forgiving (thanks, but that doesn’t tell me what color blinds you think would match up with the new comforter my wife bought). If I offer him advice other than that he should open himself to God’s mercy and be more forgiving, he gets annoyed. It’s like going to a friend’s house knowing they have an awesome record collection, but after your first couple times over there, they refuse to play anything other than that Debby Boone album with a scratch in it that keeps skipping and repeating the chorus of one song over and over and over and over and over. If you were alive in the late 70s, just meditate on that a while and you’ll get where I’m coming from.

 

[pianistclare]

I can relate to that quite a bit. I just wish he had something to talk about other than his faith. Like I said, things were normal early on. Now, if we’re not discussing Jesus or the Church, he doesn’t want to hear it. If I ask him advice on something, the answer invariably is that I need to open myself to God’s mercy and be forgiving (thanks, but that doesn’t tell me what color blinds you think would match up with the new comforter my wife bought). If I offer him advice other than that he should open himself to God’s mercy and be more forgiving, he gets annoyed. It’s like going to a friend’s house knowing they have an awesome record collection, but after your first couple times over there, they refuse to play anything other than that Debby Boone album with a scratch in it that keeps skipping and repeating the chorus of one song over and over and over and over and over. If you were alive in the late 70s, just meditate on that a while and you’ll get where I’m coming from.

Well, considering how much you have complained about every other one of your friends…I would think you’d be happy with this guy.
But, of course, not.

 

[Gordon_Sims]

I’m not reading this attitude as “zealous.” I’ve met people like what Gordon Sims describes and they’re often just annoying. It’s the real life equivalent of the guy who has to post about Jesus on every facebook status - it comes across as trying too hard to be spiritual and making everyone else feel guilty for enjoying perfectly healthy pleasures.

I honestly don’t see him as zealous. Devout and enthusiastic, but not zealous. At least not when it comes to everyone else. My impression is that I’m the only one he relates to faith-wise and he’s completely latched onto that aspect of our friendship in deference to everything else. His other friends, his family and even his wife aren’t where he is spiritually. I sometimes feel like he’s afraid that if he lets me talk about anything else or get tainted by any of these secular friends or pursuits, I won’t be able to talk to him about religion anymore. In the meantime, if I’m in the mood to watch a movie or get pizza, I’m out of luck because that’s not an aspect of his definition of a Catholic friendship.

 

[Gordon_Sims]

Well, considering how much you have complained about every other one of your friends…I would think you’d be happy with this guy.
But, of course, not.

Like I said, I was thrilled at first. Then again, I liked You Light Up My Life the first time I heard it. Stick that on your mp3 player and listen to it on constant repeat for a week then tell me whether the shine wears off. You’ll likely be desperate to hear anything else.

 

[EasterJoy]

I can relate to that quite a bit. I just wish he had something to talk about other than his faith. Like I said, things were normal early on. Now, if we’re not discussing Jesus or the Church, he doesn’t want to hear it. If I ask him advice on something, the answer invariably is that I need to open myself to God’s mercy and be forgiving (thanks, but that doesn’t tell me what color blinds you think would match up with the new comforter my wife bought). If I offer him advice other than that he should open himself to God’s mercy and be more forgiving, he gets annoyed. It’s like going to a friend’s house knowing they have an awesome record collection, but after your first couple times over there, they refuse to play anything other than that Debby Boone album with a scratch in it that keeps skipping and repeating the chorus of one song over and over and over and over and over. If you were alive in the late 70s, just meditate on that a while and you’ll get where I’m coming from.

I think he’s using you. He wants a friendship that is all about what he wants, believing he has the right to unilaterally define the friendship and to cut off anything from you that isn’t what he wants, if he sees fit. He gives himself permission to do this because what he wants is religious in nature. That he is using you to self-indulge his understandable hunger for a religious outlet does not change how inappropriate this is. He is being self-centered, and he needs to cut it out.

 

[recentrevert]

Just keep on with the friendship and offer your suffering up to God. As Catholics we should be willing to give without receiving and that means you should be his friend even though you yourself get no satisfaction from the friendship. Could it be that he does non-Catholic things with non-Catholics because he can’t do anything else as they just wouldn’t understand, whereas with you he thinks he needn’t? I would go out for a pizza with non-Catholics who were not an occasion of sin if I couldn’t avoid it without giving offence or if I thought I might convert someone but with Catholics I might suggest that we use our time and money in a better way.

 

[Horton]

Have you tried talking to him about how you feel?

 

[pianistclare]

Like I said, I was thrilled at first. Then again, I liked You Light Up My Life the first time I heard it. Stick that on your mp3 player and listen to it on constant repeat for a week then tell me whether the shine wears off. You’ll likely be desperate to hear anything else.

Honestly Gordon. Some people have real problems. This ain’t one of them.