Most of my friends and family were fine with it. My mom figured it was a phase, and told me she thought I was just experimenting because I was in university. That kinda pissed me off, because I was really serious about it, but even so, she and the rest of my family were very supportive of me as a Muslim. They would go out of their way to serve halal food for me at family gatherings, and my mom even sewed me a couple of hijabs. The rest of my immediate family were not very religious, so they didn't give a shit. My grandmother, however, is a very devout Mormon, and although she would try to be polite she sometimes just couldn't stop herself from telling me that I need to return to Jesus. Those conversations were usually short and civil, but still stressful because again, I was really serious about being a Muslim.
Of my friends, only one made any protest to my conversion. I converted before 9/11 though, so hardly anyone even knew what Islam was. The one friend who protested though, had a cousin, aunt and uncle who were Muslims (at least she said it was her cousin, but I'm not sure how far removed because they were the only ones in her entire family) so she was somewhat familiar with the misogynistic nature of Islam, and she warned me about it. I remember one conversation we had about salat, and how women were not allowed to pray on their periods. She of course thought it was discriminatory, but I told her the reasoning made sense, and that it was actually a freedom afforded to women. She told me she hoped I wouldn't have to deal with any worse kinds of "freedoms." When she said that, I knew she was under all the same "misconceptions that Westerners held about Islam," since of course I had already learned all about that. I was sad that she would refuse to understand, so I just ignored her. We stopped hanging out shortly after that. A couple of years later we happened to run into each other on the street. I had just parked my car and was getting out when she drove by and saw me, and stopped in the street to say hi. I was wearing the full hijab + abaya, and I sort of felt glad that she saw me like that because it proved that Islam hadn't been just a phase. We chatted for a minute or so when a car turned onto the street behind her, so she drove forward as though to let them pass, but then she just kept driving and never came back. That's the last I saw of her. I've thought about her a few times since I left Islam, but I don't know how to find her. I don't remember her last name, and I don't have any emails from her or any other sort of record of contact. I wish I could see her again, to see if we might be friends again.
Anyway, other than her, none of my other friends really cared, although honestly by the time I converted, I had stopped hanging out with my friends very much and was more interested in hanging out with my new Muslim friends. Once I started wearing hijab, I did have a few uncomfortable moments when people would tell me to go back to my country, but it wasn't like a mob coming after me, just one idiot. It happened once at the place where I worked, although the person didn't say it to my face. He commented on me to my coworkers, saying I should go back to my country and stop stealing our jobs here. My coworkers defended me and told him I'm an American and etc, and then told me about it later.
Oh, I should mention about my grandmother -- now that I'm not a Muslim anymore, instead of telling me to return to Jesus, now she just keeps trying to get me to go to church. Lol, gotta love her.
Topic: Western Reverts