Pity Party

I want to preface this by saying, please don't feel pity or sad for me. I am the happiest I've ever been. Now on to the story.

So I live in an apartment with 3 other girls and we're not friends, we barely cross paths. I hang out with friends from law school, Michigan friends, or other people that I know one way or another. So today, I went to church by myself and sat by myself in all of the meetings.* We had a stake fireside tonight, and I again went by myself and sat by myself.

I walked past my home teacher (who was just assigned today) when I entered the building where the stake conference was and I sat a few rows behind him. (I probably would have sat by the people that I recognized, but there wasn't any space in their rows). I noticed that he kept looking back at me. Sure enough, just as the meeting began to start, when he was sure that I wasn't waiting for anyone, he comes and sits by me. I immediately said, "you don't have to sit by me, I'm fine." He said "no one should sit by themselves, and this is not a 'pity sit.' I'm you're home teacher and I want to start things off on the right foot." I said that I was fine and didn't need to sit by anyone and that I was embarrassed that he thought he had to come sit by me.

It is really interesting when you're the charity case that people think they have to befriend. Growing up in the church, you always read those stories in the Friend or New Era about the person that noticed someone always eating lunch alone so they went and sat with them and became their friend. Honestly, I'm a little offended that someone thinks they should be my friend because I'm alone, and not because they want to be my friend. That's probably very prideful of me, but it's honest. It was fine that my home teacher came and sat by me, but it really felt that he was doing it because I looked pathetic and he wanted to save me from that.

I'm going to chalk everything up to law school. I definitely don't have a ton of friends, and I'd definitely attribute that to attending law school and not having a ton of time to socialize. I do the best that I can with the time that I have, but I am not worried about my social life. I also think that I'm a pretty independent person naturally and portray that to others.

Anyway, the moral of this story is, the next time you see someone that is sitting alone, definitely go sit with them. It will probably make their day, but sit by them because you want to, and not because you're trying to put a sticker on your good deed of the day chart. And while you're at it, think about how they'll feel when they realize that they're a charity case or an obligation by way of calling and not someone you really want to get to know.

*On a side note, I don't attend meetings to socialize, I attend because I want to, and I know that the Church is true. This philosophy is not common enough among BYU YSA wards.