Church No-No

There is a time and a place for everything. Church is usually not the time or the place for most things.

While in Texas visiting family, we visited their church. We were guests attempting to reflect positively on our regularly attending family. We failed.

Like all churches do, we stood to greet those around us.

Can I just say that I really hate those greeting times, and, to be honest, that is one of the main reasons I hate visiting new churches. I feel as if I am expected to excitedly greet someone who I know will never remember me and who wouldn't actually be talking to me at all if not directed to do so. We both feel the pressure to be chipper and clever in thirty seconds or less. It is like a giant social experiment that I didn't mean to sign up for.

Which is probably why things went so badly.

Reflect, if you will, upon the times in your life when you have had conversations with married couples. I'm sure it is not uncommon for the couple to stand near each other. Especially if they are from someplace else and don't know anybody. One of them, say the husband, might even place his hand on his wife's back for encouragement. He may even give her a small back massage while enduring the social awkwardness of carrying on a conversation with a person he doesn't know and will never see again.

Which is what Mike did that Sunday.

What he didn't know, though, was that while he was greeting those in front of us, I had turned around to greet those behind us.

My husband groped me during church. While greeting strangers.

We didn't make many friends.