The Finale!

Part 3: The solution

Sorry this took so long. I went to Utah for the weekend and left my laptop in Michigan. And to be honest, this was the part I wasn’t looking forward to writing, because I wasn’t sure where I wanted to go with it. But I’ll give it a shot!

I think there are a few possible solutions to this dating problem. When I first started this blog I had all sorts of drastic solutions thought out. Thoughts of Elder Oaks “Dating vs. Hanging Out” talk kept running through my head. No more home cooked meals for you! No more hanging out at the movies where we plan everything to do ranging from what time to meet, what movie to see, and where to go after. But that all seems a bit drastic. So, here are some more reasonable (possibly) solutions that I have come up with.

1. Date non-LDS guys, or guys who aren’t active in the church. Like I said before, non-LDS guys have a different reaction to me. I think they are more likely to ask a girl out, and more likely to keep dating her even if he’s not in love with her within the first five minutes. I’ve had more luck dating guys who aren’t active for the same reasons. The problem with this “solution” is that while it’s easier to get a relationship off the ground, it’s harder to keep it going for obvious reasons, especially if you’re really active in the church. Ours is a lifestyle church, and even if you’re completely fine dating someone who believes differently, it may be hard for him to accept how big a part it plays in your life. I have seen people make this work quite well though.

2. Find (or maybe start) a colony of divorced men. Maybe you have a problem dating someone who is divorced, but think of it this way: at least we know that at one point he stepped up to the plate and made a commitment, and also that someone was willing to marry him! This is my personal favorite of the solutions, but it’s not too realistic.

3. And now for the most practical solution (prepare for a bit of a let down). Realize that you are not the problem. The fact that you (I) don’t date much has nothing to do with your perceived flaws. Focus on other aspects of your life and don’t worry about it. This one is pretty hard to do, I admit. Most of us want to have families, and it’s hard to picture that ever happening when you’re not dating much. But rest assured it will happen. Just keep putting yourself out there, but don’t worry too much about it.

I once read an article that said that every single woman should have a gay male friend who made her feel great about herself. You know, a guy who would say, “Honey, if I was straight I’d snatch you up in a heartbeat!” I’d like to modify that advice to say that every single Mormon girl should find herself a good non-LDS guy friend. Someone to keep your head straight amongst all this dating madness can do wonders for your self esteem. It has actually really helped mine.

If anyone else has another idea, please leave a comment. We can all use all of the help we can get!

Mormonism and Dating (continued)

Part two: Why is this happening?
I’ve thought a lot about why this dating problem exists, and I have to admit I haven’t come to a solid conclusion. I’m basing all of my speculation on the fact that since these guys are going to a student ward, they are actually interested in dating. This may or may not be true. These guys could just see the student ward as the lesser of two evils. But since I know these guys I’m hypothesizing about, I’m fairly confident in saying that most, if not all, of them do want to date/get married in the near future, so I’m just going to go with that assumption.

So, the reasons I have come up with, in no particular order:

The guys are intimidated by such attractive, successful women: I guess this could be true. I generally don’t find many girls at church intimidating myself, but then again, I’m not considering putting myself out there and asking them on dates, so maybe…

There is a fear that the girls at church have too high of standards for who they want to date, and the guys feel they don’t match up: I don’t know. I don’t see this being a huge issue. I see girls talk and try to flirt with these guys all the time, with no results. And I’ve seen (more than once) a guy make it blatantly obvious that he wasn’t interested in a girl (who was in no way beneath him) whom he had just met. I'm pretty sure that in this circumstance the guy hadn't had a chance to scope out the girl and her "too high standards" yet. Which leads me to…

The guys feel they can do better: Better than what? Maybe they are looking for trophy wives? That doesn’t really seem to be consistent with whole Gospel plan, if you know what I mean.

Mormon guys are more picky than the non-Mormon guys because they are looking for a wife, not just a hook-up: (For the record, I'm not saying that all non-Mormon guys are looking for just a hook-up. I'm only repeated an excuse I've actually heard) I've actually heard someone give me this excuse. Ok, well, if that was the case you should be less shallow than those guys (who I know would like to date many of the girls at church) and give all of these great girls a chance strictly based on personality. Next!

I’m not really in the mood to date just to date: Well what are you in the mood for? To go on a first date with someone you’re already in love with? That kind of defeats the purpose of dating. And it's a little weird.

Guys at church are afraid that if they ask a girl out more than once she will think he wants to be in a serious relationship with her: I must admit there might be a grain of truth to this one. Lets face it, when you haven’t been asked on a second date in five years (that’s an exaggeration, for those of you curious about my personal life) you might begin to think that a second date means more than that a guy wants to spend a few hours with you to get to know you better. But guys, don’t worry about this one. I’ve spoken to a lot of friends, and we all agree: Second date proposals kind of freak us out.

These guys have issues: I feel like it’s okay for me to come out and say this because I’ll admit it, I have issues too. We all do. So if a guy told me he didn’t date because he had a low self-esteem, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, or because he was depressed, I would get it. I don’t feel like I know the guys well enough to come to this conclusion, but it may very be an issue. P.S. I’m totally not saying that I have any of those above issues myself. Especially Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Not that it’s wrong if you do have it.

Do you have any possibilities to add? Maybe the reason doesn’t matter. Maybe all that matters is the solution.

To be continued…

Mormonism and Dating: Is it really that difficult?

Part One – The Problem

Once you get to be a certain age, there isn’t a lot of dating going on amongst the single Mormon people. I used to think it was just me. Co-workers (who are not Mormon) would ask, “Why don’t you have a boyfriend?” Um…obviously because I’m such a huge loser. I thought that maybe if I was more outgoing I would date more. Or if I was nicer or cuter, I would date more. Maybe if I lost 10 pounds it would make a difference (it didn't). I started to feel really bad about it. Then I got more observant. It seemed I wasn’t the only girl at church with this issue. A lot of my friends and acquaintances, who I thought were completely normal, nice, attractive girls, weren’t getting asked out either. After talking to a lot of these girls I realized there was one common feeling among them: What is wrong with me that I can’t get a date!?

Another thing I started noticing was that out in the “real world” (meaning not church), guys had a completely different reaction to me. They would smile and flirt with me. Go out of their way to hold the door open for me. I’ve had complete strangers come up and tell me how nice I looked. I also noticed that many completely average girls (average in appearance, personality, intelligence, etc.) had no problem finding dates/boyfriends/husbands. What was going on? I mentioned this to some friends and got all sorts of feedback. I heard things like:

“The guys from work would always ask me, ‘Why don't you have a boyfriend!?!’ They were always complimenting me and couldn't figure out why I didn't date more. They obviously thought I was dateable, but guys in the ward... I mean, they always seem to be waiting for a written invitation.”

Or:

“I feel bad that guys at church never ask me out. It's really not fair because I don't think I'm actually that bad.”

WHAT? I don’t think I’m actually that bad? I’m sorry, but no girl (especially this one who is such a cute girl) should have to walk out of CHURCH feeling like that!!! And I’ve thought it myself many times, “Am I really that bad?”

After being frustrated with my thoughts, I decided to conduct an extremely scientific study. I got the pictures of five guys and five girls from church. I tried to pick five guys who I thought were reasonably normal, dateable guys. I also picked five girls who I thought were fairly representative of the types of girls that are found in our ward. Representative meaning reasonably attractive girls that I would think should have no problem finding dates, but for some reason do have a hard time with it. I also tried to pick pictures that showed what the people actually looked like. I didn’t pick pictures that made the guys look like dorks and the girls look cuter than they actually were.

THE TEST

I first paired each guy picture with two different girl pictures. I then asked two guys (who are around my age) that I work with to help me out. Without telling them what I was up to, I had them look at the “couples” I had paired together. Their job was to tell me if they thought the couple was equally matched as far as physical attractiveness went, or if one person could be considered out of the other person’s league.

THE RESULTS
Of the 10 couples:
Co-worker #1 said there was:
1 instance of the guy being out of the girl’s league
4 instances of acceptable matches (with two cases of the girl being more attractive)
5 instances of the girl being out of the guy’s league

Co-worker #2 said there was:
1 instance of the guy being out of the girl’s league
6 instances of acceptable matches (with a few of the girls clearly holding the upper hand)
3 instances of the girl clearly being out of the guy’s league

When I told one of those co-workers what I was doing, and that these girls had hard times getting dates, he didn’t believe it. Then he told me to have one of the girls (a specific one) call him!
Apparently these girls are 'good' enough for non-LDS guys…so what’s the deal?

To be continued…

Dating Requirements

I was given an assigment (by someone who really has no business giving me assignments, now that I think about it), to come up with a description of what I'm looking for in a guy and post it in my blog. That's a little more personal than I ever meant for this blog to be, but seeing as how exactly two people read my blog, it shouldn't be that big of a deal.

I've decided to make a list and break it into three categories:

• Non-negotiables - Traits I absolutely must have. There is little to no flexibility in this category.
• Would really like to have - Traits I would really, really like, but don't absolutely have to have all of them.
• Extra's - Things I don't really expect and am extremely flexible on, but would cool.

So here goes.

Non-negotiables:

• Mormon (actively participating)
• Taller than me by at least 5 inches (I'm practically a midget - this isn't asking too much)
• Has to be able to deal with me and my occasional, extremely infrequent, moody demeanor. I'm pretty good at hiding this for at least a few months, so hopefully he'll be in too deep by the time he figures it out. :)
• Have a grown up job. Part-time librarian isn't going to cut it.
• I'm struggling with how to word this one...someone who I can talk to about anything, meaning nothing, and still consider the conversation good. Kind of like an episode of Seinfeld.
• Must be willing to discuss problems in the relationship. Not every day, but if there is an issue I don't want to ignore it until it becomes a huge deal.

Like to Haves:

• Older than me. Yes, you read that right. While I do have mini-crushes on the 23 year old hotties, for an actual relationship older is better. I think 30-34 is a good age.
• Either good with money or willing to let me handle the finances without getting all 'I'm the man, I should be in charge' on me. I'm tempted to move this to Non-negotiables.
• Likes to give me a lot of attention. There, I said it.

Extra's:

• Dark hair and blue eyes.
• Takes care of my car for me, meaning takes it in for maintenance, maybe cleans it once in awhile. Or at least shuts up about the fact that I'm rarely going to vacuum my car out.
• Knows how to fix things around the house.
• Makes more money than me.
• Enjoys cleaning.
• Slim to medium build.
• Someone whose family I like.
• Wants to live in Utah.

So what did I learn from this? I have a lot more non-negotiables than I thought I would starting out. Maybe I'm being stubborn, but I still don't think that any of them are asking too much. Now for the kicker, do I think this person really exists? I do, but he is most likely already married or he's a got a lot of options in life, but I thought that going in, so no harm done.

So be honest, am I too demanding? Knowing me and my quirks, is there anything I didn't include?

Recommendations

I just wanted to point out some cool things I've found on the web recently. First, the two new blogs I added to my watch list. Elizabeth hooked me up with the 'Seriously, So Blessed' blog. It's hilarious! It pretty much exaggerates every annoying thing about Mormon culture and packages it in one neat little blog! Just a warning, if you're not Mormon you probably won't get it.

Second on the new blog list is the 365crockpot blog. This lady decided (why, I do not know) to cook something in her crockpot every day for 1 year. She posts all of her recipes she finds, as well as her review of them, on a daily basis. Some of the recipes look awesome, and I can't wait to try them. My coworker said that the lady kind of looks like a crack-pot in her picture, but I think she just looks really excited about slow cooker cooking. Which maybe is the same thing, I don't know.

Another cool thing I found is this class action website: http://www.listclassaction.com/ Basically, TransUnion (one of the three big credit bureaus) recently agreed to settle a class action lawsuit. Although the court has to finalize it, TU has agreed that as part of the multi-million dollar settlement they will provide 6 to 9 months of free credit monitoring to consumers, in the form of unlimited access to the TransUnion version of your credit report AND credit score. This is awesome for anyone who is just curious about their score and for anyone who is watching their credit. I am looking to buy a house in the next year, so this will really help me out. You have to sign up by 9/24, so if you're interested look into it soon.

I'm writing this note to inform you that you are no longer my Facebook friend

I have a slight problem. It's a minor problem in the grand scheme of things, but a problem nonetheless. My issue deals with Facebook etiquette, and as far as I know Miss Manners hasn't come out with her Facebook manners edition yet.

There are a few friends I have on Facebook that I would like to 'unfriend'. I know that sounds immature and spiteful, but I'm basically just tired of seeing the status update for these particular unnamed people in my news feed. These are the type of people who update their status with some annoying nonsense every hour about how amazing they are. You know the type.

There are two people I am thinking of in particular. Both of these friends are people whom I no longer actually talk to in real life. To be honest, one of them I never really talked to in real life, he's just trying to build a facebook friend empire or something and so he friend requested me even though it's obvious we can't stand each other. So what's the problem you say? Just unfriend them! The problem with the facebook friend empire guy is that I will most likely end up in the 'People you may know' section if I unfriend him, so he will know. That shouldn’t matter because I
A: Don't even like him
B: Will most likely never see him in real life again
But I don't want to hurt his feelings. I actually doubt he has feelings, but that's another post for another time.

The other guy doesn't have that many Facebook friends, so he's more likely to notice when one goes missing. He probably wouldn't say anything, and I most likely won't see him ever again either, so I guess I should just suck it up and do the unfriending.

I feel that because both of them will be aware of the said unfriending, I should send them a friendly message beforehand stating the reason. That's what I think Miss Manners would suggest. Or at least Dear Prudie, she's a little more with the times.

Dear Friend A:
I have decided that our Facebook relationship is no longer working for me. I find you highly annoying in real life, and even more annoying when your personality shines through on the Facebook news feed. I know you value your success in life based on how many networking contacts you have, but I have decided that I can no longer be part of your Facebook Empire. Really, don't you think having 341 friends that you don't actually talk to reeks of desperation a bit?
Sincerely,
Me

Dear Friend B:
Once upon a time you and I used to care what the other was doing every minute, but that was a long time ago, and let's be honest, at this point we just don't. So I am going to have to delete you as my Facebook friend. Please don't take this personally. Or do, it doesn't really matter.
Sincerely,
Me

Too prideful to flirt

In one of my earlier posts I made the comment that I cannot flirt to save my life. I found out today that this isn't necessarily true.

I was at the post office looking confused at my options, or at least I imagine that I looked confused, because I was. Someone came up behind me and asked if I needed help. I most certainly did. I turned around, and there right before my eyes was the hottest postal worker I have ever seen. I won't go into the boring details, but he helped me pick from my shipping options, found me an envelope, chastised me for procrastinating my mothers birthday gift, and was basically incredibly adorable.
Now here's the weird part: At one point I heard myself giggling at something he said. Now those of you who know me (and really, who else would be reading this?) know that I am not a giggler. I can't even tell you the last time it happened. Once I realized this had happened I was completely mortified! It didn't matter, I kept flirting and giggling, and I'm sure there was a hair toss or two in there somewhere. After I left I found myself trying to come up with an excuse to go to the post office again very soon.

So I guess I can flirt, I just typically choose not to. I guess I don't like flirting because it seems fake and makes me feel ridiculous. I'm too prideful to flirt! Except when I'm caught off guard by a hot mailman. Anyone have anything they need mailed?