Church Weirdoes, Begone!

You know who they are. You’ve got stories, love letters, messages on your voicemail, emails and text messages to prove it: those weirdoes lurk in the shadows of our churches.
I say lurk, ‘cause most of the time you’ve never seen them before in your life… until they approach you after the service to say a quick “Hey” and hand you a little handwritten note. Or, you know them from Sunday school; you’ve exchanged a few jokes here and there, some basic chit-chat. Nothing more. And then they ask for your phone number. You don’t feel like it, but you don’t want to lie in the house of the Lord and give them a fake phone number either. So you give your phone number: you don’t see any harm in doing so. I mean, you have other church members’ phone numbers, right?

Right.

One day, you get a voicemail: it’s Brother So-and-So from Sunday school. Hmm. He left a basic message indicating to call him back when you’re available. Of course now that you have his phone number there’s no way you’re calling him back. Why? Because he sounded waaaay too confident in that message and the tone of his voice hinted at a false sense of familiarity with you… You WILL NOT go there.

Days go by and you’ve forgotten all about that message…until Brother So-and-So calls you on your cell phone. You failed to take note of his phone number after listening to his message, thus you don’t recognize that phone number. You fear that it might be him, but it might be an important phone call too, so… You pick up the phone. And he mentions that he left you a message a couple of days ago, and you say “Oh really?” And then blah, blah, blah, he’d like to speak to you more often, you say you’re in a hurry and you must go, he says to call him back whenever, you reply “Ok bye!”

Why he felt compelled to send you a text message two minutes after hanging up with you is beyond your comprehension: he couldn’t help it, he simply had to share the pleasure he had of hearing your voice. You’ve now officially added him to your file of people to avoid. You’ll have to keep on eye on him from now on.

Sure, there’s nothing harmful about a phone call. He didn’t say anything obscene, so in theory there’s no reason to call him a weirdo. Yet.

Months later he sends you a text message, expressing how lovely you looked that Sunday morning in church as you read that passage during the service. Hmm. A man – no, not just a man, a BROTHER from church who’s in his mid-30s (you presume) sent you a text message to tell you that he finds you beautiful. Can you hear that siren blaring in your head, my dear? There’s something off-putting about that and you can’t shake off that feeling.

That’s not all. A few nights ago, you were brutally awakened by a strange noise. Fine, it wasn’t a strange noise: it was the ringtone you set for multimedia messages; since you rarely receive multimedia text messages, you forgot what it sounded like. Nevertheless, your peaceful slumber was disrupted at 3 AM and you were pissed. You savagely grab you cell phone to look at the caller ID. It says “DO NOT ANSWER!”, the fitting nickname you gave to Brother So-and-So. What’s he doing sending you a text message at 3 AM?? What kind of sick audio did he add to that message?? You don’t even wanna know, you just go back to bed: you’ll deal with this in the morning.

The next morning, after a good prayer and an invigorating workout to shake off that feeling of being harassed, you decide to look at Brother Weirdo’s text message: 

“Every night , someone thinks about you before they go to sleep. You mean the world to someone, forget the rude remarks, everything happens for a reason, etc. If you are a loving person send this to everyone on your list, including the person who sent this to you, thank you for being my friend, I love you.”

I have received such message in the form of an email numerous times over the years from my GIRL FRIENDS, not acquaintances, but GIRL FRIENDS that I’ve known for at least 10 or 15 years. Every time I’ve received it in the past, I couldn’t help but utter a heartfelt “Awww!”. But this, THIS message coming from someone at church, a brother from church, at 3AM… this is creepy. Oh, and did I mention that Celine Dion’s “Power of Love” was playing in the text message?

He’s officially been added to my list of church weirdoes. Yes, there is a list of church weirdoes: just talk to any Christian woman in Montreal and they’ll give you a list of their church’s creepy brothers and a chronology of eerie events. 

I’ve had a previous experience with another church weirdo, a man I had never met before he handed me that written note, confessing his admiration for me. I was so insulted, mainly because of the grammatical errors in that note. The nerve of that guy. Of course, I had to make my mom read it so we could go over the many errors of syntax together. I really had no idea who he was until my mother told me he’s a middle-aged man who has a history of stalking younger women at my church. Fantastic. He’s been known to call and visit girls at home, he once offered to buy me a beef patty after a church service. I said no of course, and I’m sure the other church members who were waiting in line to get theirs thought the whole situation to be a little odd.

What’s with the prevalence of church weirdoes? Some say that a church is the perfect place to find a girlfriend or a wife, and for a man who is socially inept or mentally unstable, it seems to be the place to be to land on a docile, soft-spoken, and polite woman who will be whisked away by his “charm”. Hmm. The problem is that most victims of church weirdoes (that I know of) are anything BUT docile and soft-spoken. They are usually strong-minded women who don’t take crap from nobody. But this is such a delicate situation because it involves a church member. You’d like to “handle it” like you handle other difficult situations, but you kinda think twice before acting on it. If you do, and you’re part of a close-knit church community, the news will spread like wildfire and the story will get distorted in so many crazy ways…

I’ve been told that the “church weirdo” phenomenon has been going on for many years. What can we do about it? It feels awkward to put these people on blast in front of the whole church, even though you have the urge to call them up to tell them off and then call your pastor and tell him to take care of this matter OR ELSE you will… You feel tempted to ask any guy friend with a deep menacing voice to call Brother Weirdo up to tell him “Whatchu’ doing sending text messages to my girl at 3AM, man?”... But what can you do? Wait ‘til he finds a new victim? Wait ‘til somebody else “takes care” of him? Oh, what would Jesus do???