harmony wrote:See, that's the thing. Mormons have so little time leftover for socializing, or at least, what the rest of the world regards as socializing. Between jobs, family responsibilities, callings, and meetings, there is precious little leftover.
We don't socialize with ward members. Not because we wouldn't, but very often because our interests take us down other paths. We spend our time with family, with co-workers, with people who volunteer doing the same things we do. Only rarely do we spend our free time with church members. We attend maybe two parties a year with the ward. Our social life doesn't revolve around the ward. This sets us apart from the majority of the ward. We simply don't connect outside of church (and to be truthful... we aren't welcomed to socialize much. We see ward members out having dinner together at the same restaurants we are, yet we are never invited. We aren't even invited to join them, when they do acknowledge our presence. We've invited others often, to our home, out to dinner or a show, only to be turned down. It only takes a few times of that for even such a tough ol' bird as me to figure out what's going on.) If I was waiting for the ward to fellowship me, I'd have walked away 35 years ago.
I don't think it is you so much as Mormonism that socially cripples its members. Whenever we met socially with other members, it was always a game of trying to figure out what you could talk about, outside of Church, that wouldn't offend them. And for many members, there is so little time outside of Church they do not have many other non-church activities other than the Church sanctioned ones (basketball, Boy Scouts, homemaking, etc).
