Porn Stars vs. Devout Christians

I have a very eclectic group of friends.  In this weird, modern day world, I consider friends not only people I know face to face, but also people who I regularly hear from and/or who comment on social media.  Not everyone who I know on social media is a friend, but I would consider a third of the people I know on my social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, Google and a few others) friends.

I've learned to have a diverse group of friends.  I'll never forget my high school 20th anniversary and seeing the same exact five friends hanging out, letting everyone know their table was a private party, even though they were at a reunion.  I thought it was one of the saddest things I've ever seen.  I don't discriminate.  When someone wants to be a friend or I find someone I want to be friends with, the more different the better.  My feeling is the person who considers the Nobel Laureate, the well known celebrity and the individual who rarely visits the outside world friends has new conversations and life experiences every day.

For some reason, I have two groups of friends truly opposite of each other.  The first are Adult Entertainment industry professionals, or in more common terms, porn stars.  I remember the first one of my friends who became a stripper.  She started stripping to work her way through college but she was making high five figures.  When her boss got her a spot on a touring show which pocketed her over $200K a year, school wasn't the option anymore.  I've had four friends, all women, who've performed sex on film.  One is dead.  The friend I mentioned above moved to Miami to be part of the fledgling online version of the industry.  She got addicted to drugs and died of an overdose in 2004.

On the opposite side are the group of friends I have, seven in total, who are very Christian.  They are the ones who post scripture verses everyday and will always use one of the following words, in various forms, in all of their posts: God, Jesus, pray, bless, miracle, inspiration, heaven, scripture, Bible.  I don't mind when they do, as none of them are ever trying to put a hard sell on me.  I'm Catholic.  There are times I enjoy their posts, and their heart seems like it's in the right place.

Here is an observation about the two groups which I have recently realized.  Porn stars are very hard to become friends with, but it's easy to imagine why.  My friends are inundated with the most vile, disturbing e-mails and texts on their personas accounts.  They live in fear of one of their nut job fans finding out where they live and attacking them.  It takes a lot of time and patience to eventually work through the 'checkpoints' and become a trusted friend, but when you do, they will share everything with you.  No, we do not talk about sex in any form, but they have no problem telling you their life story, their personal struggles and even their health problems.  They so want normal friends who don't see them as adult film industry stars.

My very religious friends are pretty much the complete opposite.  They are welcoming and open from the beginning, friendly, quick to say hello and encourage their friends to friend you too.  But here is the observation I made yesterday; they get to a certain point and they never share anything else.  I don't know much about their back story, their family life, their personal struggles.  It's as if they don't ever want anyone to ever see them deeper than the religion the tout so freely.

Let me put it another way.  If my porn star friends and my Christian friends were two separate planets, the porn star planet would be covered with a 100 foot thick shell of hardened steel, almost impervious to anything.  Once you get through the shell, it's jello the rest of the way, easy to get through and enjoyable.  The Christian planet would be 100 feet of jello on the outside but then a solid  steel core the rest of the way.

One of my Christian friends informed me her cancer was back, something I didn't know was there and left already.  I asked why she would keep it so quiet when she had such a strong circle of friends to support her, and she said she didn't want to burden anyone with her problems.

Don't waste friends.  If someone is willing to come into your life and be part of it, there is a reason.  We all have the ability to pick and choose who we have in our life.  Realize that goes for the people who choose to be in your life as well.