Yikes. I registered on this site just to reply to this because it sounds like I typed it. So I'll give my take - and you can chalk it up however you want, but you asked. You've got a pretty strong oxy-moron latent in your post, namely this: you "went for [yourself]" but you're struggling to remain active because of how you experience the people. For me, I eventually recognized that the people around me aren't the reason I go to church. Sounds basic enough, but in practice that desire for my perceived "acceptance" really was just a way for me to define a bunch of ways in which I wasn't accepted. Yep, I'm saying it was a way for me to judge all of the folks that I labeled "clique" - with all of their cruise ship getaways and social parties. Not very productive, especially considering that I really didn't want to be on a ship with these people for the sake of being included. I went to church because the alternative was extreme; a net of one of two things: 1) believe it but don't practice it, or 2) don't believe it and question everything. That's a pretty sharp trade off for my experience with people. So ultimately I just stopped caring about how I was perceived or how I perceived people, set my judgements down for a while, and actually listened at church. I really can't deny the result. It's not all the time, but more often than I expected I hear something that really impacts my perspective, and that's a great thing.
