In the Mormon church, everyone gets some assigned friends. We are assigned to fellowship the less active. Be their friend. Invite them to your barbecue.

We are also taught that we must love everyone. The biggest jerk in the ward may be called as the bishop and you have to answer to him about your personal relationships and whether or not you wear the right underwear.

In other words, we have been taught to tolerate and embrace people who would not be our friends in any other setting, just because we all bear the same title and belong to the same group.

I met a man at an ex-Mormon Meetup who said he had observed the same behavior in the ex-Mormon group. People will accept an excessive amount of contact with people who are not a good match as friends, just because they wear the label ex-Mormon and feel like they belong to the same group.

This has been a hard lesson for me to learn. You may be a bunker building, assault rifle carrying doomsday prophet. That is your right, but I'm not like you and we don't have to be friends. I don't have to listen to you for twenty minutes, I can politely excuse myself, go get a drink and sit by someone else. I hope you're not offended, but if you are, you are. Clearly I have made a judgment and given a description of someone I would not call a friend. I would not however, walk back over to his table and tell him I thought he was crazy, or stupid, or any number of other insulting things. That would be rude. In a civil society I don't believe that we should go out of our way to be rude to people we would not want to call friends. It isn't necessary for people who are not your friends to be your enemies. There can and should be neutral ground.

I have experienced a similar phenomena on this board. We don't actually know each other. We have only shared part of our stories. You don't know me and I don't know you. To judge each others motives, call each other names and just, in general, be crass and rude to one another isn't necessary. We don't have to be friends. But we also don't have to be enemies.

We have not been assigned. We can all go get a drink and choose a different thread.

We also don't have to all agree with one another. Sometimes when I want to get into a debate/argument with someone on the board, I try to remember that it's okay to have a difference of opinion.

I don't know, Summer. Might be some remnant Morg programming there. What am I talking about? Well, just go tell a TBM that, while you deeply disagree with LDS theology, you support them as a person and their (name a position where two reasonable people agree). Well, my experience is they get so busy attacking you and doing all their Mormon apologist stuff, that you have to stop them and say, "Dude, I said I was on your side." Doesn't matter how much you likewise agree with, or try to love, or respect a TBM as a human being, if you call Mormonism into question, you are the enemy. I see a lot of leftover Mormon habits on this board...the "disagree with me and you're my enemy" attitude is a prevalent one here. Just my theory.

Assigned Friends.

Isn't that the definition of Family? Lol

I'm an atheist, so I believe family is the luck of the draw. What we do with the hand we've been given is entirely up to us. Like a game of five card stud, we all have options. And then there is luck......

I have noticed this about the board too, and I think a lot of people who post here aren't able to be as open in real life, so this is a vent space. I think also people leaving the Church have a lot of anger, which needs venting. I do get tired of the sarcasm and personal attacks, as though the OP or commentor on any particular thread is stupid.

The support I get from this board is worth it, for me.

Mormons like to be assigned, it takes away free agency. They are assigned where to worship, assigned whom to be friends with, assigned what to wear for underwear, assigned what to teach, assigned for most things. Free agency is so fun when it is assigned.