I have few friends–in fact, very few by comparison. Some may view such a thing as sad or unfortunate. Some might even change perspectives and view such a statement as braggadocious, I suppose, as if it might be considered a strange sort of a badge of honor. From my perspective, though, it is neither. It simply is, what it is. It is at the point that it is at, at this stage of my life… and I am quite okay with it.🙂

In today’s world, it seems that the more ‘friends’ (or followers, even) someone has–especially on social media platforms, i.e., Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, Tumblr, Pinterest, Twitch, YouTube–the list goes on, the more ‘value’ it tends to give, anecdotally-speaking. Before Social Media, if one had little to no friends IRL (in real life), one had “little to no friends”… literally. It was usually because of physical appearance, lack of social skills, poor hygiene, a combination of the three, or some other challenging factors that contributed to a person being undesirable as a friend. I had one and a half of those three things.🤨

I’ll explain.

Due to: 1) my then-unknown residence on the Autism Spectrum; 2) Attention Deficit (without the ‘Hyper’) Disorder; 3) early-teen onset of substantial depression; 4) and resultant slow-childhood onset of low self-esteem, I acquired poor social skills (which counts as the “one” of the “one and a half” I mentioned, above).

I was completely oblivious, socially and often found myself the victim of bullying and non-inclusion in ‘playground’ activities in Grades 1 through 9, approximately. (Ironically, though, if I ever witnessed or found out through word of mouth, anyone bullying my younger brothers [I’m the eldest of 10 sons], I’d give no thought to jeopardizing my own scrawny body’s safety and opening a ‘can of whoop-rearend’ on the perpetrator(s) to the best of my abilities!😎)

Otherwise, although I certainly didn’t enjoy the bullying done to my own ‘person’, I usually took it in stride (KJV Matthew 5:39), never bothered to defend myself and moved on to my next interest or activity. (It wouldn’t be until I’d gotten enough ‘advice’ or peer-pressure especially in my teen-years from others to defend myself against the bullying, that I’d begin sub-consciously reprogramming myself to take offense at the smallest of seemingly ‘hostile’ words or actions towards me, subsequently take action and then, without making the ‘connection’, arrive at a place that didn’t bring me peace—in fact, it was really quite disruptive to my peace of mind!)

Now, the “half” part of the above-mentioned “one and a half” number was my physical appearance. I slouched in a major way with rounded shoulders (which incidentally, caused shirts and jackets to never fit me correctly and hang “like a tent,” on my torso, my father would tell me) and I always had a ‘vacant’ look on my face (which resulted from the autistic spectrum I resided upon and subsequently spending entirely too much time in my own headspace, in order to stay ‘safe’).

Having such an ‘appearance’ necessarily wasn’t my fault, especially since my self-awareness was minimal, but nevertheless, kids being typical kids and that coupled with my back-then-easy-going-take-it-in-stride nature, I was an obvious choice to be picked on, ironically, by kids with possibly more even pronounced difficulties than I faced😳.

Now, with all that having been said and now most likely, clear as mud, I’ll continue….😏

Back to talking about friends and having them or not having them….

Around my 9th Grade in school (my school district put Grade 9 in Junior High, as opposed to being put in with High School as is the practice in many other school districts) was the time my father decided, after reading a sort of family-biography about the formerly world-famous Osmond Brothers Family and being inspired and motivated by their success and our poverty, formally conscripted myself and four younger brothers in 1975 (he had already had four to six of us previously perform several times together, usually at family functions or church, since about 1972) into a Barbershop Harmony singing group, since we were too poor to afford instruments and the only acappella-style of singing he was familiar with was barbershop quartet singing.

(I’m aware I’m taking a roundabout way of getting to the point of this blog🙄, but please humor me.😜)

In the mid-70s, my life as a bullied child and teen began to improve, but in a sad sort of way (and I’ll hopefully explain why, here in a bit). As a result of my father booking us at various local public events, my brothers and I began to develop a sort of local following in the community and our schoolmates and their parents began to become aware of and even see us perform at various events and functions. I (and my brothers) began to be treated a little differently, as if someone had waved a magic wand,… almost.

The Knudsen family singing group of brothers who lived in the poor part of town in a two-bedroom house, began to be looked up to, instead of looked down upon by the kids who lived in the upper-class neighborhoods, especially in the hills where the expensive homes resided. ‘The Knudsen Bros’ barbershop quintet (#6 brother Curtis would re-enter a few years, later) was beginning to become well-known locally and in surrounding parts.

This seeming-magic was kinda cool! I hadn’t acquired any new social skills, was still just as socially-oblivious as ever, yet the ‘popular kids’ were no longer avoiding me and even now being drawn to my brothers and I, increasingly. (I would years later watch the movie Being There, starring Peter Sellers and Shirley MacClaine and immediately find myself relating to Chauncey Gardner [for those who will appreciate the humorous reference😉].) That, coupled with our National Television Debut on an Osmond Brothers Special of the ‘Donny & Marie’ show (not the 90s version) in May of 1978 seemingly increased our popularity with the ‘cool kids’.

Classmates that previously wanted nothing to do with me, now wanted to be my ‘friend’. Still being socially unsavvy, I was unable to discern the inauthenticity of such friendly advances and became a bit of a magnet. I even got bold enough to test my newfound self-esteem-booster in my Senior Year, by asking one of the most popular girls in high school to ‘Senior Ball’ with her response being “Yes!”🥴

I also was voted Station Manager for the high school’s 1,000 Watt FM Radio Station which was part of the school’s Radio Broadcast curriculum (I had wanted so badly to be a radio DJ since I was 12)!

Fake-friends had been obtained…. Just like that…. I didn’t know the difference.🤷‍♂️ (I wouldn’t know the difference for decades.)

Fast-forwarding just a bit, let’s just make it sufficient to say that the whole true-friends vs. fake-friends eventually worked itself out, but then came the mid-90s, when my brothers and I began to go full-time with our singing career and were increasingly on ‘the road’, more and more, thus being away from family and friends, more and more. (In the 90s, with mobile phones then having outrageous roaming charges, substantial long-distance landline phone charges, no text-messaging and email not yet being used much, because there were very few portable [laptop-type] computers, it was difficult to stay in touch.)

I began to grow accustomed to not associating with friends less and less. Coincidentally, my then-marriage with two (then three, then four) small children began to fall apart and my chronic depression grew more profound and debilitating. I began to retreat into myself and avoid people—even longtime friends more and more.

I truly began to see myself as a HUGE LOSER with very little hope and would often cry out to God for help with no perceived ‘answers’. I felt He had abandoned me, though I remained as ‘faithful’ as I could (wanting desperately to believe I was being purified by the refiner’s fire). I truly began to see myself as an unfit friend, so believing it to be for their good, I slowly withdrew further from my friendships and no longer initiated communication.

Attending and digesting countless motivational/self-help seminars, texts, audios, videos and other sources over the years since age 20, I had failed to come across anything helpful on that mind-numbing quest, as well. I had also sought the help of various mental health professionals to help me solve my dilemma, but to no avail.

MOST OF ALL, according to religious adherence, I had earnestly prayed to God, read the scriptures and faithfully attended church and obeyed all the ‘commandments’ to the best of my abilities, since I was old enough to remember.

Such a state of existence would more-or-less continue until 2016, when I had an existence-altering experience and mind-blowing paradigm shift—something I may share, in the future.🤪😉

Suffice it to say, others have experienced the same type of life-altering ‘shift’ and it is absolutely amazing! Although what I was left with, after the ‘blown’ mind, was the ability to see mortality with more clarity than I ever imagined. I was at peace with myself and with my existence within the eternities, but I was paradoxically even more disturbed by my surroundings and with the countless facades and ‘masks’ which people unknowingly present as their mortal selves obscured by a ‘veil’ of sorts.

I struggled with my new ‘perception’ and was ‘angry’ quite a bit, because I was now aware of and intimately acquainted with, another ‘reality’ beyond this one and was consumed by the constant longing to be there, away from my newly-perceived ‘ugliness’ of this reality.

I was angry, a lot, until… the ‘lockdown’ resulting from the COVID-19 Pandemic and then, the perceived ‘ugliness’ of Mortality began to fade—despite the increase in civil-unrest, violent protests and riots, and political hate-mongering, over these past several months.

I said all that, to say this:

I have just a few true and faithful friends, at this point in my life. I count among them, my brothers, but especially and more importantly, my life-companion, sweetheart, wife and best friend, Suzanne.

If, however, God saw fit to remove all my friends from me, I would still survive because of ONE even TRUER FRIENDSHIP. I know who I really am and what my relationship is with God and THAT IS THE TRUE FRIENDSHIP from which I draw all my strength.😁

Things appear to be pretty topsy-turvy, right now and it’s easy to get distracted by the ‘tempest’! Sometimes, our ‘best’ doesn’t look like much of anything to anyone but God, but let’s just keep doing even just the tiniest bit.

Hang on and PRAY!😬🙏🏻✌🏻