Curious about your beliefs

Shak · March 18, 2016, 6:23pm

Re: Curious about your beliefs

So how do you make friendships with likeminded Pakistani people? I know it’s VERY hard to find people who believe in same things but I still can’t find anyone in my several years here who I can at least open up about my beliefs and not get treated differently. The only Pakistani families we know here are either our relatives (all very religious) or the people from the mosque. My husband invites families from the mosque for dinners and stuff and he has made good friendships with the husbands, but I have not made a single friend here! They all have strong faith and I have to hold back because I know if I can’t open up about my beliefs, I will just have to pretend every time. When we have company over and it’s namaz time, they all pray in Jamaat. In that time, I either have to hide myself somewhere or ‘pretend’ to pray – which makes me really uncomfortable! I hate pretending to be something that I am not.
I really enjoy our Pakistani culture, food, language and really miss good Pakistani company sometimes – where I don’t have to pretend. It was so much simpler when I was a kid. All of us cousins would get together and play board games, discuss stupid things and just laugh at no reason. I miss that kind of care-free friendships. There should be a Masjid for non religious people as well.

Most good friends will like you regardless of your beliefs. And no, sadly you can’t say stuff like this loud in our society, our culture is simply not ready for this, which is very unfortunate.