WYSIWYG Communities

I grew up in a WYSIWYG (What-You-See-Is-What-you-Get) community.

I'll try my best to explain what I mean by WYSIWYG community, but it will be difficult. If you didn't grow up in one you may just not get it. I've tried to explain it to people before, but without much success.

Growing up in a WYSIWYG community meant, often, the ugly side of the community was exposed. From the trailer park to the Main Street millionaires, people pretty much knew what went on where. Many cringe at the thought of being in a community where everyone knows everything about everyone else, and I admit, it's not without it's problems. It mean that the family up the road with problems on the outside had problems on the inside as well, just as exposed. It mean that arguments were sometimes well known and talked about. It meant that the family who went through a divorce didn't just divorce and leave the subdivision quietly. It mean that my teachers knew about my family life.

These things seem bad, don't they?

But they aren't bad, because regardless of whether family life is exposed through community or hidden behind a beautified suburban exterior, the baggage of family life is no less present. I say, without question, there is something about such a community that is great (and that I miss).

Here's what it also meant:

It mean that the family up the road with problems weren't just stupid rednecks, rather, they were real people with real lives and real friendship and real emotions. It mean that arguments were sometimes well known and talked about, and our friends, hearing of our problems, came to help. It meant that the family who went through a divorce didn't just divorce and leave the subdivision... Friends heard about the divorce, and offered to watch the kids and help out in any way possible, including financially. It mean that teachers knew about the family lives of their students, and, as such, offered empathy and compassion.

These things don't seem so bad now, do they?

I'm not going to say that this is a God issue and try to make a Biblical defense of it (although I do happen to think God desires this kind of community for our lives). All I can say is that I loved it and I miss it.

Sometimes people don't believe me when I tell them, but when I was a kid people would just come over to visit. There was no phone call, no week's worth of planning, no email and no invitation: People just came. Nearly all visits happened 'spur of the moment.'

And I'm not talking only about my young friends, I'm talking also about the adults. In fact, where I grew up, if someone were to call a week in advance to make plans for a dinner visit, it may have been considered strange. Such plans simply weren't made, and visits just happened... Often. Very often. No, not very often: Usually.

Allow me to clarify: I'm not saying plans are bad. Plans are good, especially when you have a busy life and kids. I think it's the business of life that is bad. The need to plan is simply a side-effect of a lifestyle that has become too busy.

Nowadays when our doorbell rings I look at my wife, perplexed, and say, "Who the heck do you suppose that is? Were we expecting someone?"

Usually it's someone trying to sell me something that I'm not at all interested in purchasing.

In a WYSIWYG community, your best friends very often don't even knock or ring the doorbell: They just come on in! And they can do that, because in WYSIWYG communities, if your door is locked during the day and you're home, it means you're a weirdo, so the door stays unlocked. And your visiting friends don't have to ask if they can have a drink: They just help themselves!

Part of the problem where I live now is that we feel the need to entertain people when they visit. We must have everything planned out. First we eat dinner, then we have coffee, then we play cards... We do this not so much for our guests, but so as to feel like good hosts. And I want to be a good host, but I'd love it, just love it, if a friend could come over and visit and I didn't feel any obligation to entertain him.

In a WYSIWYG community, you don't have to entertain your visitors. They just come as they are and as you are (and as your house is: messy). If you're tired and relaxing on the couch, you don't get up... You just say, "Hey Bill, how's it going?"

Maybe you and Bill don't even have anything profound to talk about! Bill just sits down and joins you, watching Nick at Night or a rerun of Golden Girls. There's no obligation and no expectations... Just friendship, plain and simple.

In a WYSIWYG community, Bill can come over and watch TV with me for hours, being bored right alongside. I don't have to make him dinner! I don't have to offer him a drink! Oh, I can, but he'll probably say something like, "I'll get my own..." (Actually, the 'Bill' I am using in my example would probably call me a 'yuppie' or some such term if I were to offer him a drink.)

Some people are thinking, "How is this good? I don't want people walking into my house helping themselves!"

Other people are thinking, "There are places where this isn't the case?"

How can you tell if you live in a WYSIWYG community?

Here's a test:

Have you ever been sitting, watching TV and had a friend walk into your house unannounced, greet you with the words, "Hey dickhead," go straight to the freezer, serve himself up a bowl of ice cream, sit on your couch, belch, fart and then tell you to change the channel? No? I feel sorry for you! Heck, I feel sorry for me, as this hasn't happened in a long, long time.

I think part of the reason is because I no longer live in a WYSIWYG community, and WYSIWYG communities make WYSIWYG people.

The best definition of a WYSIWYG community I can offer is this: People in WYSIWYG communities only go to Home Depot to get something that cannot be purchased at the local hardware store. Also, people only go to the hardware store when the toilet is broken. Home improvement and career aspirations, while nice, tend to get in the way of 'hanging out' time. Oh, it's not that people in these communities don't have goals and dreams, it's just that they keep such things in a healthy perspective, and hanging out is a (big time) priority.

I know, it's not a very formal definitition. Of course, the only formaility of a WYSIWIG community is a blatant like thereof.

[FTM: WYSIWYG People]