Desire to Belong to Peer Group
THE most important group in the life of the unattached adult is the peer group. Each single adult has certain social needs that demand satisfaction as imperatively as do the physical needs. Strongest among these social needs is the need to be like others and belong to a group.
As members in this group speak a similar language, understand and appreciate one another's achievements, and help secure one another's peer status, each member feels that he belongs. Peer members share disappointment, happiness, success and failure, giving one another a common bond; facing life they join together reinvigorated.
It may be asked, Why should young people form separate peer groups instead of being a part of the larger church social group? The Seventh-day Adventist denomination is a complex society because of its urban anonymity and casual "strangeness" among its workers in its vast institutions and large churches. This presents in many respects the cold impersonality so characteristic of life today, and such coldness intensifies the need for more emotionally warm personal relations. Friendships within the peer group meet this need.
A questionnaire to learn the personal feelings of Seventh-day Adventist single adults was compiled by me. This questionnaire was not designed to obtain statistical information but rather to obtain a random sampling of the opinions of single adults who live in various geographical locations in the United States and Canada. It was intended that the questionnaire reveal whether certain problems and needs were common to the unmarried in all areas of the country. Notice a few of the replies to the question, Do you feel satisfied with the social opportunities away from a Seventh-day Adventist college or university campus?
"No. The post-college . . . activities are practically non-existent."
"No. There are almost none at all."
"No. It is true that no better place exists than in the church, but how well do you get to know someone from a few words that may be spoken?"
"No. . . . To speak of my own area there is very little done for the young adult. We would be shocked if we knew the percentage of those in our age group who left the church in ________. Many of these would not have left had there been some thing to hold them."
"In a lot of places, there just isn't any opportunity. In a social vacuum like this, mixed marriage, even apostasy, is probable."
The needs of the peer group can be adequately met only by a satisfactory interpersonal relationship. One cannot satisfy them by living in isolation or by working, worshiping, or playing alone.
Loneliness
A predominant characteristic of today's single adult within the Seventh-day Adventist Church is loneliness, which can be described as a feeling of being unrelated to others, unwanted by others, stranded "on the outside," and isolated. Each year more and more Seventh-day Adventist single young people are finishing college, moving to big cities or denominationally owned institutions and are finding themselves miserably lonely.
What is it that makes unmarried persons lonely? Free as they are, independent and unattached, some feel that they should be able to manage for themselves without any unpleasant feeling, but no. I have often noted that they complain it is almost impossible to have more than one or two friends with whom they can freely associate and share their various interests. They also express it has become difficult to meet suitable members of the opposite sex.
Many occupations or responsibilities which Seventh-day Adventist young people engage in provide few opportunities to meet eligible men and women with whom they can associate and thereby alleviate the feeling of loneliness. For many, such frustrating circumstances result in a lonely existence. For a good number it is not uncommon for life to become an endless ride to work, a day at employment, and an evening at home watching television in a locked apartment. Thus, during the day or night, hundreds of Seventh-day Adventist unmarried persons well know the meaning of loneliness and can do little about it.
Friendless individuals, very often because of uncontrollable circumstances, dwell on the past or speculate about the future in a hopeless mood, and cannot do much more than sadly retreat into the dark coldness of their own loneliness. The social privations that they endure must convince them that they have missed one of the essentials of happiness—Christian association with their peer group.
By associating with peer members such a person experiences a sense of security and some comfort in the knowledge that he is not alone. He feels a protection with those who have the same perplexities and concerns as himself. Also there is the hope that he will be given some sense of direction by being within the group.
Because the single adult searches for his peer group, each year many Seventh-day Adventist young people move from their home areas to settle elsewhere; this migration includes untold hundreds. It appears as though there are three main congregating areas: California and the West Coast up to and including Washington State, Andrews University and near localities, and the Eastern area centering around Washington, B.C. Whether the single people of these and other areas are newcomers or longer-term residents, regardless of age, income, or vocation, they all, with few exceptions, wish a fulfillment of the same needs.
A "give up and stay" procedure is all right, of course, for the single people who want to remain at home with their parents the rest of their days. But these individuals are few, for this is not the desire of most single persons. Those who expect to enjoy parenthood or a satisfying interpersonal relationship with their peers will not "give up and stay." Rather, they will strive with their peers to develop a suitable social environment and avoid loneliness.
I am quick to admit that there are unattached Seventh-day Adventists with successful careers who may not necessarily require marriage as a means of happiness. But many of the needs that only close companionship can fulfill will have to be satisfied if loneliness is to be avoided.
(To be continued)
