A friend of mine recently experienced a loss. For the past three years or so, he has been involved in a commercial venture that meant something to him but that he realized was doomed to failure in 2014 with leadership as presently constituted. Careful not to project onto my recent disappointments, he sent a caveat with the link to Cee Lo Green's "Forget You" and applied it to only himself. However, in the week since then, I have thought about the topic of this song and what it means.
I already wrote about this from one aspect, about how in the parlance of Facebook, to unfriend someone means that we choose to make them nonexistent entities in our lives. Over the last few months, all but one person I know well since moving to Vegas has cut me off completely (and many others, but I digress). Some of them deleted Facebook profiles or changed their telephone numbers. Most of them unfriended me by ignoring me. I write them, and they say nothing in return, which is ironically enough what happens when women I want to get to know decide they don't want to get to know me any better. I am not alone in the feeling that, even though it's uncomfortable, it's preferable to just be straight up and tell me. Yes it hurts, and yes it's confrontational, but at least then I get closure now rather than waiting for months and deciding to give up realizing that they probably won't ever call or write you back.
Many people have a misbegotten notion about how to get back at people in this life. They think about doing things that lead "to the death" rather than "to the pain". The consequence of death is fleeting and finite; the consequence of pain can endure. Rather than end their life, you can make them suffer for days, weeks, months, or even years by causing them pain. Contrary to popular belief, the worst you can do is not to harm someone or get even with them or destroy their lives. You see, in order to hate someone or feel vengeance, you have to care about them. It takes a great deal of effort to hate someone, and when people don't matter to you, you don't spend the effort. The absolute worst you can do to someone is to forget them. It goes beyond the Gotye song, "Somebody That I Used to Know". They're not someone you used to know; you treat them as someone you NEVER knew. That is what to the pain means, it means that they leave you alone, wallowing in rejection forever.
One of the things I hate most about Vegas is how the people here treat each other. The first week of August, I encountered a woman with whom I had been on several dates and who had betimes confessed to me that she desired to be with me. When this woman walked by me, she regarded me as if I were not someone she recognized and had never meant anything to her. There are scores of people who do not answer when I message them. I leave voicemails, emails, texts, and sometimes even write letters, and there is no answer. There isn't even an illogical or useless reason in most cases. The woman from the optometrist, from the tutoring center, from the movie theater, from Panera bread, from hiking, from Louisiana, from tennis, and many others, all simply act as if I never asked them out in the first place. My ex wife didn't even hate me; she didn't give a flying pinwheel about me. After she got her money, I never heard another peep, and for that I thank my Father God.
I am different. After a period of ten months during which a woman for whom I once had strong feelings left me in silence, when she called I answered and talked with her. My response surprised both her and myself, but to this day we still speak. They say that love is when you give someone the power to hurt you and trust them not to use it. The woman I mentioned told me last weekend that she remained my friend because I respected her. When she gave me the power to hurt her by using information she gave me in confidence for my own personal gain, I have never made it public or even shared it with other people. I kept her trust, and so I kept her as a friend. When we open up to other people and share things with them that maybe very few people know about us, we give them the power to destroy us, to reject us for who we really are, to treat us as if we are unimportant and unworthy of attention and affection. We give them knowledge about us, and then we empower them not to forget it but to forget us.
The first woman I attempted to date seriously in Vegas did that to me. Her reason for rejecting me was that I wasn't thin enough for her. You see, she had seen a vision of herself pregnant standing next to her husband, and I wasn't skinny enough to be that man, so she frankly denied me. I was never going to be good enough. She found some skinnier guy, and the only time I ever heard from her since then is when she called me to ask me to pay for her college and then later to loan her sister money. When I refused to do what banks would not, she decided to never speak to me again, and it has been four years next month since I heard anything from her whatsoever. What greater hurt can you do to someone that to reject them, to forget them, to treat them, not as someone that you used to know, but as someone that you never knew, as someone that you do not care to confess that you knew? It is bad enough to reject someone for a date or to reject someone as a mate. It is worse to reject someone as someone you do not wish to acknowledge that you know. This is what Peter did to Christ. He emphatically declared that "I never knew the man". This was his sin, and all too often, it is also ours.
When we deny others, we in essence deny the Christ. Every time we act as if we never knew the man, we act as if we never knew the Son of Man. Jesus taught that "even as ye have done unto one of the least of these my brethren ye have done it unto me." Wow. When we declare that we never knew a person, in essence it could be projected that we deny that we know Christ, that we love Christ, that we desire Christ to be part of our lives. We might as well say, "Forget you". As extensions of the family of our Father God, we find ourselves responsible to love our neighbors as ourselves and because we love Christ. When we do not love our neighbors, even if they do not "deserve" it, we show that we do not love ourselves or our Maker. I try to be very careful with the notion of what people deserve, because I know that I do not know all the facts. Prophets have long taught that reaching out to others is to be done because they are humans like we are, and part of our family, even if we think they will waste it. That part is not ours to control. Our part is to treat them like they mean something to us.
I remember everyone who was meaningful in my life. It has been a small comfort for me to realize that I meant what I said and felt. I hope that every single one of them is well, including my ex-wife. I hope they find peace and happiness and success. I hope that their jobs, their families, and their lives fill them with the satisfaction they once led me to believe they would bring to my life. It is not about what they deserve. It always was about who they were. They always are important to God. For my part, they were also important to me.
Earlier this month in general conference, I was reminded that there is a difference between weaknesses and rebellions. Men make mistakes; Christ's atonement means that our mistakes don't need to make us. God allows us to have weaknesses so that we will recognize our need for a Savior and turn to Him. When we are weak, weakness is always attended with mercy. He teaches us to welcome back the prodigals, to slay the fattened calf and celebrate their return because there is more joy in heaven over one soul who repents than over 99 just persons who need no repentance (if there even are that many). At the time of Christ's birth, he was denied a place in any of the homes or inns. Nobody wanted him. Everyone denied him. Now that we know Him, let us embrace our neighbors and mean what we say when we tell people that we love them. When they are weak, let us show mercy. When they are lost, let us shine forth our lights. What matters most in this life is the other people we meet, for many have entertained angels unaware.
I leave you with this story. The story is told of a Russian shoemaker who dreamt one evening that the Savior would visit him the next day. He cleaned the shop and set to work and kept an eye out for the Savior. He saw a hungry and shivering man and beckoned him in to eat a bite and warm himself by the fire. Later, there was a woman and child who had no shoes whom we invited in and shod for free. Finally, there was an old woman who fell in the snow. He went out and helped her up, gathered her belongings and took her home. The day dimmed, and he knelt in prayer and asked why the visit had not occurred. "My son," Christ spoke, "I came to visit you three times, and each time you welcomed me as I hoped you would." The examples of this shoemaker and of the Disciple Peter call us to consider if we will deny the Christ or open our doors and hearts to Him. People are what matter most. At least for now I have my students.
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