The Art of Being Vague...or being Condemned.

I read an interesting article tonight and I feel it is most fitting in my life right now. The URL is http://msn.match.com/msn/article.aspx?articleid=9351&TrackingID=516311&BannerID=544657&menuid=7>1=26000 and it's called "Dating and the Nosy Neighbors". I empathized a lot with the information in it. It talks about the busybodies, meddlers, and nosy people (such as the Bunco girls that gather together) that seem to find more fascination in someone's life than a soap opera. See, I know what people have said about me. You think your comments don't make it back, but they do. And deep down I think people want their comments to come back so that I will respond, explain, or tell them something. I honestly don't understand the fascination with my life. But I know how to react. Before, I would share and explain, hoping to help someone understand what was going on in my life so that they could understand. But now I realize that's exactly what they want. And I have learned, if you don't give them an explanation, they will create one on their own. These people don't care if their version is true or not. In fact, the more scandalous, the better.
But why do people do this? As the article says, they want to live vicariously through you. They are also the people that know what's best for everyone around them (yet ignore their own homes). They are also bored--drama keeps them going and if their life doesn't have it, surely someone else's does. I was pleased to see that my way of dealing with them is better than my old ways. The article suggests creating some distance--which I have done and am more happy than ever. And it's funny, for some reason the people I thought were close friends never bothered to check on me after that. Funny how when the pipeline of info stops, so does the friendship. Also, it talks about dodging them--it talks about how I don't owe them anything. That was my biggest mistake-I felt like I owed them an explanation. I wanted them to understand me. Now, I realize it wasn't me they were concerned about.
I went to church this morning for the first time in over a year. I even went to my old church, but only because it was held at the Arena--neutral ground. I found such irony in the message and the group of people sitting there. The message was on condemnation. It was ironic how he preached about how God takes away the condemnation with his son's death. But, that room full of people has the most condemning ones in the whole town. The irony comes from how as a church, this group of people should be the first ones to NOT judge, to be a friend, to reach out, to not make assumptions. Yet this very group has condemned me, judged me. And for things I have not done. At the end of the message, our Pastor prayed about how he was happy about, among other things, how the woman who only wants someone to love her unconditionally came today. That woman he prayed about was me.
You may not understand me, I refuse to help you do so at this point. But that doesn't mean I don't deserve to be loved. Unconditionally.