G'day Everyone.
It was bound to happen in life. Sooner or later. It would make the news. And it did.
Today's link: http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/personal/07/31/lw.social.poaching/index.html?iref=mpstoryview
It was an article to "Social Poaching". Read it.
I'd like to draw from my own deaf experience which has a similar way of "social poaching". Deaf people do a lot of social poaching. It kind of natural in a deaf community. But, it's not fun. In many ways, it gets worse and leads to a bad experience and hurt feelings. It changes the social dynamics of the deaf community.
I've seen various ways of "social poaching". Here's a few examples:
Relationship Social poaching. Gay or straight, this happens often to almost everyone. When you are in a relationship with someone and you meet a new friend, you naturally introduce him to your boyfriend or Girlfriend as a friend. Right? What happens next? Your boyfriend / girlfriend has been socially nabbed by your "new" friend. (happened to me 4 times in life). Don't ask me how your relationship with your boyfriend / girlfriends stands after that.
Church ministry social poaching. I've seen and experienced this happen in my life. Pastors do a lot of work to keep the ministry together. But when one such person leaves the church and joins a new ministry, that person is going to miss the old ministry. This person will come back at special events and "poach" certain people to come and join his new ministry he's in. I know a church ministry lost an entire congregation by one person, who poached, to another church. It happens on a daily basis.
Roommate Social Poaching. How does this work? Simple. When I used to be involved in a church ministry, I used to be kind to my pastor that he could have any visitor to stay in my home with my roommates. Often, we set a time he could stay and when he must leave my home. That was ok. But at one time, my roommates and I had a person stay in our home. He took over our house. He poached my roommates to become "his roommates". He trashed my home. By that time, my roommates and I had to break up in order to protect our lives. He took one of my roommates for his "own" and eventually fled the state when his "roommate" finally turned on him. It became the last time our pastor would be able to place visitors in the home of his congregation and eventually start to put them in cheap flea bag motels.
Roommate social poaching happens among students in college too!
Social poaching is not new. It has been going on since humanity began in life. It doesn't happen overnight. It happens daily. Social Poachers are not out to hurt people. Not on an intentional basis. But when they do it, they need a gentle non-threatening reminder that they stole a friend from someone and should apologize for it. They ought to make things clear that they didn't want to break up the original friendship. But should offer to back off for a while and let things settle down between original friends. We all find ourselves in making a new circle of friends after a serious social poaching happens..
But in the cases of Church and Relationship social poaching? Dump the poacher and your friend. They were never your friend in the first place to start with. Life goes on and moves on.
Semper Fi.
1 comment:
It's quite common, deaf people with a regular circle of friends, may seek out others, or others seek them out, it happens in hearing areas as well. It's usual social practices in reality, and not 'poaching'. It can go full circle as well, with years apart from old friends, and then you start them up again.. Deaf have few friends like themselves so tend to not be able to cope with some moving off to different areas, it makes them lonely.
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