Via (myspace originally) Facebook, I keep finding about friend after friend having left the church, not being active anymore, or at least being less TBM than before. Some are really shocking. I remember a friend once figured out through my myspace posts that I was no longer Mormon and he called me to come out of the "guess what I'm no longer Mormon and I'm gay closet." I just saw another friends' post all about her favorite types of coffee, so I went and sneaked around on her page a bit, and I see no signs of the former TBM. Another, who when I used to hang out with her, all she could talk about was turning 21 and going on a mission, now she is about as un-mormon as they come. The biggest surprise was my friends Mom. She was the picture-perfect TBM. 5 kids, always at every activity, always testifying on Fast/Testimony Sunday. When we became FB friends, I saw that she was posting a lot to evangelical sites (really, not much better than being Mormon imho), but still. These are people who I thought would NEVER leave!!! I wonder how many exmormons owe it to the internet, especially websites like this one.

No real point here, but this makes me happy!

The ones who have stayed, have been pretty hardcore, and my friends and I have been "unfriended" by many of them because we were very very vocal against the homophobic remarks.

Sadly, thanks to Facebook, I keep getting reminded that not one of my friends is an exmo in the slightest. But I did once find a couple friends of a friend that were exmos through a discussion on our mutual friend's topic. That was pretty cool.

I envy you. Only on this forum do I get the impression that exmoism has any real following.

Interesting idea: By what means might one trace out exmos on Facebook, coming into contact with them more "personally" and "directly" than here on RFM, for example?

And, there could be more than you realize. I am very neutral on FB, so I doubt any of my TBM FB friends would be able to tell that I'm an exmo in my heart.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/13/2011 07:33PM by Queen of Denial.

Yes - I'm like Queen. There is no mention of my religious preference or anything church-related on my FB page. The only mention is BYU grad. I don't accept any churcy "invites" either like Fan of Thomas S. Monson. So you wouldn't know.

On the other hand, I do try to determine if certain friends are still active. Are they wearing tank tops? Is that a beer in their hand? Do I seen church art in the back of their pictures? I usually assume they are still active but then they will make some comment and I'll wonder.

I wish I knew just one!

FB is my number one way of finding out which friends have left. I try to leave clues too -- I don't identify as LDS and make snarky comments. One of these days I'm going to "like" beer and coffee and the BOM Musical and see what happens.

One of my friends is the opposite now. She is an exmo turned momo. I know some people go back to church and need religion in their life, but she is over the top. However, I do have several exmo friends on there too so that makes up for it. ;)

Unfortunately my experience has been that most of my old friends are active.

They admire Thomas Monson, Uchtdorf,Bednar, Hinckley, mormon missionaries, etc. Their favorite books always include the BoM. They post stupid, mindless GA quotes for their status, etc.

It makes me so sad.

I was able to go through a "hall of the prophets" where paintings of the First Presidency and the 12 apostles were displayed. The members touring with us were gushing in adoration of them. I was creeped out by it all. Continuing on, there were lots more paintings of past prophets/leaders.

None of those dudes had much relevance to humanity, but they managed to work their way up to be adored through corporate mormonism.... at least adored by those 1 in 1000 people on the earth who happen to be an active mormon.

...is the way shame makes members live secret lives where they assume they are the only ones who doubt or disbelieve. And so we're surprised when we learn other Mormons are like us.

Besides providing easy access to information about the church's origins and helpful commentary, the net also helps us discover what other Mormons actually believe —— and it's not the canned monthly testimony.

Not to mention the fact that people are afraid that if they express doubt, they might cause someone ELSE to doubt and be responsible for destroying someone else's faith.

anecdotal but when I first started posting on RfM way back in the beginning there was like 10 or 12 regular posters. Now look at it. And new faces/monikers showing up all the time. It's got to mean something

I'm definately not new around here, I'm just not on here as often as I used to be. I practically lived here from 04-06, then I started to move on. I don't define myself as exmormon anymore. I'm just me. As for the snooping around on friends pages to see if they're exmo, if they're ready/trying to come "out of the closet" then it's easy to figure it out. I always respect my friends privacy and I haven't brought it up to anyone except three people, all of which were very out of the exmo closet. I don't try to hide the fact that I'm exmo, but I don't flaunt it either. If I like something, I hit the like button. I still don't like alcohol or coffee, but I LOVE tea!

I feel bad for a lot of you, it sounds like you either don't or wouldn't have a good support system if you decided to become open about how you really feel, who you really are. I was lucky in that I wasn't too deep into it when I left. Despite the fact that my parents are nevermo's, it was still hard to break it to them. They always see Mormon's as the ideal, and my Dad had been looking forward to me popping out tons of babies so he could have tons of grandkids. My Dad was really upset when I told him. As for my friends, I didn't tell anyone for a quite awhile. Then I just posted a myspace blog which basically said that I've decided to leave the church. That I had already decided it wasn't for me, and now I was formally requesting to have my membership removed. I said I wasn't going to go into my reasons, but if anyone was truly curiuos or had questions, I'd answer them wholeheartdly. Then I challenged them basically saying that I'd find out who my true friends were when I see in the next couple of days if I had lost any friends on Myspace. You gotta know that most of my friend were Mormon, so I stood a big chance of being ostracized by the very people who had been such a part of my formulative years of life.

You know what happened. Nobody cared. I only got one "negative" response from a friend, saying that she was sad that I was leaving the church, and it made her cry, but she was glad I was honest with her. Another friend, my best friend for 15 years now, was actually hurt that I had even thought that she wouldn't be friends with me after that. I had other friends not on myspace/facebook, and I eventually told them in person, or over the phone. Not one single person has stopped talking to me because of my change in beliefs, I express who I am on facebook, and they express who they are, and we find a way to respect each other.

I really hope that someday you all are able to experience something like that, to find out that your friends are true friends, no matter what you believe, that they still have your back. And while they still talk Mormon talk to me, they've never tried overtly to bring me "back to the fold." If they're praying for me, thats their business, but I'd be glad to know I was worth the thought!

I saw a discussion the other day on Facebook. One of my old friends from church was posting something vague about not knowing what to do with their life. One reply was "CTR" and she replied that she "CTL, chose to leave." Made me smile.