Back in the days when I was younger, I used to spend a lot more time with people who knew me for a very long time. Although it allowed me to establish relationships and set down some roots, it also prevented me from really growing and developing as an individual, which is why I have since abandoned my hometown. If I changed in any way that was visible to others, people would respond with surprise, skepticism, disbelief, or hostility.
I did not know much about sports as a small child but that changed in my adolescent years. If I started talking about it and asking all kinds of questions about it around some relatives who hadn't seen me very frequently but knew me from the beginning, they would start lecturing at me like it's out of character for me. So rather than encouraging this growth in the right direction they would instead try to bring me back down to where I was before.
During my elementary school years I did not talk much about girls in school while I was at home but that began to change as I made my way into middle school. The surprised reaction to this change in me, a change which should have been predictable given my age, made me uncomfortable and self conscious. So I stopped talking about it at home and instead had to learn certain social things by overhearing other people talk while in school. Talking over these things at home would have been a much faster, more effective, and less stressful way to learn and cope with the changes in my life.
I did not have much exposure to contemporary music as a small child aside from what my babysitters happened to play in the background when they were overseeing me during school day afternoons. Even then, I did not get to know any of their music all that intimately until after the fact, which meant that their music was effectively before my time. So I was a bit of a late bloomer in that regard. If I showed any interest in contemporary music in conversations as I got older, the reaction from my peers was often that of surprise or disbelief. I saw it as sarcastic and patronizing. Nevertheless I was getting to know the scene better and better. As I progressed even further into high school, I not only knew contemporary music pretty well at that point, but I also started to get into local bands. If I started talking about an upcoming local gig with a particular group of friends who happened to be into the local band scene but did not know about that gig, they would act all impressed but to me their reaction seemed condescending. They knew me as a friend but not as a fellow concertgoer. I hardly ever got invited to come along and join them to see a gig. Even to this day I still generally go to concerts by myself.
If I changed the way I wore my hair as a schoolkid, a reaction from my peers would be inevitable. They were used to seeing a plain-looking goody-two-shoes ensemble instead of something a little more attractive. If I'm around other adults and they finally see me in my casual clothing instead of the professional or church clothes I'm usually forced to wear, they treat this "change" like it's some sort of "transformation," in a rather patronizing tone, of course.
It does seem rather ironic that the people who have "known" me for a long time really don't know me. Then there are the people who get into my business about my age, relationship status, dating life, professional life, and vocation discernment who know this rather personal information about me but only because they created a situation in which it would have been rude for me to refuse to answer such invasive personal questions. Yet these people really don't know me either because they never bothered getting to know anything else about me. They certainly had the opportunity, as did the people who've known me for a long time. However, they've all allowed the length of time that they've known me or their knowledge of certain personal information to blind them to all evidence that contradicts their own preconceived stereotypes of what they think I should be like.
In John's Gospel, people similarly spoke badly of Jesus. He had a very humble beginning and a very humble upbringing and that's how a lot of people knew Him. In spite of the staggering evidence that He was the Christ, they kept coming up with reasons not to believe. Perhaps they thought it was "out of character" for Him. He had no trouble adjusting to the way His own life had changed. Nevertheless, the people who "knew" Him all along just couldn't seem to do the even simpler task of just accepting Him for who He was at that time rather than judging Him for who He was beforehand. Yet, the people who did not know Jesus until the time of His ministry actually got to know Him in all the right ways. Just like Jesus, they did not dwell excessively on His past, choosing instead to accept Him for who He was right then. We really ought to be more like the followers of Jesus and less like the townies He grew up with.
John 7: 1-2, 10, 25-30
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