Friendship for People Who Don't Like People

I have often thought that I don’t like people much, in general. I don’t seem to “get” most people. I’m not on the same wavelength with mainstream average Americans. Why do I bring this up today? Why do I mention it at all? I’ve been thinking a lot about it the last couple of weeks, ever since I had a conversation with a lovely woman at church a couple of Sundays ago.

I was on duty as greeter that day, at the Northeast entrance of the church. I was there at the appointed time, about 45 minutes prior to services starting. To tell you the truth at our little church not many people arrive until about 5 minutes or less prior to services starting so I wasn’t terribly busy at my post. As a matter of fact I sat down on the bench just inside the door and was lost in thought over various and sundry things when “Pat” (not her real name) wandered out to where I was from somewhere within the church. She had come for the adult Sunday school class only to find it not in session that week. She sat on the bench opposite the one on which I sat, and we chatted.

Pat and I were not well acquainted but did know one another in passing. We have been in the same Sunday school class together a few times, and we’ve chatted briefly. I knew that she is retired and has mostly raised her grandson, and she knew that I am mom to N. We started our conversation talking about our boys and childrearing and how to handle certain behavior. You know, typical “mom talk.” We progressed to talking about our histories and our marriages and our divorces and our careers. We got to know one another quite well in our half hour or so of conversation.

During the conversation Pat shared that although she had gone into psychology as a profession it probably wasn’t a great choice for her because she doesn’t really like people. I found that to be a fascinating statement. Here she was saying the same thing I’ve felt for years. I don’t really like people. As she went on to talk about her career and how she mostly had administrative and managerial positions so she didn’t have to deal with actual clients much, I was thinking how similar that sounds to how I would feel about it. In college, I toyed with the idea of becoming a psychology major. However, the thought of actually having to listen to people drone on about how awful their situation is while being unwilling to work to change themselves to better their situation made me decide that being an accountant, playing with the numbers, sitting at a desk and not having to interact a great deal with actual people, was probably a better career choice for me.

As more and more people arrived for church I had to take my greeter duties more seriously, and we wrapped up our chat. Pat said to me that although she doesn’t like people she had really enjoyed our conversation. I told her I felt the same way. She went on into the sanctuary as I turned to greet the late arrivals.

I think Pat and I just may have a new friendship in the making here. . . in spite of the fact that neither of us likes people.