Cows, sheep, goats, humans—all these creatures have one thing in common, they move in herds. No, you say, we humans are individuals we don’t move in packs. Ok, prove me wrong. Ever wonder why men need buddy experiences—don’t go to or watch a football game alone—need to have a friend over while they putter in the garage, or why women are uncomfortable going to a bar or restaurant alone and bring along 2 or more friends? So maybe, you say, there are perfectly obvious and normal reasons for this behavior. A woman alone in bar might experience an unwelcome overture. As for that group behavior—well women and men just tend to congregate as groups, don’t they?

Guys you just might need someone to hand you that open ended 3/8 socket wrench while you are buried under the hood—and where’s the fun in cheering for your favorite team or yelling at the Ref while drinking your beer and stuffing snacks in your face if you’re all alone?

We are social creatures and we tend to do things together, not alone. What ’s more, we learned this behavior—yes, you guessed it—in Junior High. Well these days it might be a bit earlier but somewhere around adolescence we begin to defocus from our families and focus instead on our friends, our gang, our group. We will hold those friends or pseudo friends closer than family for a brief period or longer, throughout our lives. And that is where we also learned the fine art of herding and herd behavior.

One extreme form of herd behavior is exhibited in teen movies like Mean Girls. You know, the kind where a back biting, ego slamming, sorority sister cabal decides who is in and who is not, reducing those excluded to lonely, perhaps even suicidal despair.

Guys, I am not going to let you off the hook. Have you ever been the one who didn’t get picked for the team—even if it was just a pickup game? Or were you the one who treated a classmate as a dork, a geek, a member of the dreaded AV squad? Maybe you were even the bully who physically abused a weaker kid—I hope not. If you were any of these things the herder, or the one left out—or if you just went along as a member of a group that did such things you know what herd behavior is about.

We often wonder these days why teens seem more likely to experience suicidal thoughts and why so many take their own lives. Being a teen—much less an adult, who has presumably moved past the hurt and rejection we experience so acutely in our youth, is tough. It hurts to be singled out in a negative way, at any age. It hurts to be excluded, ridiculed or looked down upon. Maybe it’s easier to understand the physical abuse but emotional abuse is every bit as painful.

Now add some secret sauce—hormones. Those are the things that women will tell you make them feel like crying or killing someone at certain times of the month and cause men and women alike to experience road rage when they get cut off by a driver with more testosterone than brains. Hormones—even among well-adjusted adults can cause all manner of heightened feelings—out of nowhere. How…..it’s chemistry. We are so fearfully made that our bodies react when these chemicals are released in our blood stream—we see red, burst into tears, are quite literally out of our minds. It takes a great deal of character and force of will to overcome these chemicals, but when you are a teen and all of a sudden massive amounts of these hormones are being released without warning, as a byproduct of our as yet unregulated physical growth—well Katie bar the door. Something is going to happen. It may just be a flood of teen emotions or maybe something much worse.

What does this have to do with relationships you say? Everything. Those behaviors we learned—the bully, the picked upon, the mean girl, the loner, are what we carry into our adult life, and they are the template for our adult behavior. See that guy screaming at the dad coaching his daughter’s princess league soccer team (I made that up). He is the bully. What about the mom who gossips about all her friends and decides who is invited to lunch with the girls and who isn’t --recognize her? And just who is the herd going along with this behavior—you and me. Perhaps we are unconscious of it—but that does not let us off the hook. A little hint, want to understand politics and the kinds of behaviors we see come out in debates between those at polar ends of the political spectrum? Recognize it? It is the same thing.

As it applies to love relationships, regardless of gender, the same behaviors apply. The picked upon become controllers—those who need to be in charge, not because they are arrogant, but because control is the only mechanism they know to keep chaos away. And the loner, he or she is unable to give or receive love for fear that they will be abused, misunderstood, hurt once again. I could go on—but you get the point I hope. We carry these behaviors with us until we are so weighed down by the sheer effort it takes to drag them along that we either collapse exhausted from the emotional effort, or sink into despair, certain our lives will never get any better.

Well, it would not be one of my blogs if I failed to mention God, so here it is. Thankfully, God did not go to Junior High. He never learned these lessons—he has always been what He is today; loving, forgiving, understanding, especially when we are undeserving. By his grace—something we cannot earn or ever deserve-- he cares for and about us—24/7. And he is ready anytime, day or night, to come to us when we need him. He is our closest friend and while we can love our human friends and significant other(s), He will always be with us throughout our lives and beyond. If we want to escape the herd, if we don’t want to be herded, there is one thing we can do, be an individual. Stand without fear in God’s light, knowing he loves us, forgives us and just wants everything good for us, and trust that it will be so. Do that, and you’ll never be a part of a herd again.