I have nothing but time...

I often hear people complain about not having enough time to do the things they want to do. I have the opposite problem. I have more time on my hands than I can handle, and not enough things to do with it. I'll say that I have at least 40 hours of unscheduled time a week. What do I do with that time? Usually I come home from work, see what's on TV, and before I know it I've watched two hours of King of Queens and it's 8:00 p.m. Sometimes I'll throw an episode of Two and a Half Men just to mix things up. So I'm pretty much pathetic.

I've also been feeling that lately (and by lately I mean possibly always), my life lacks any sort of meaning. I go to a job every day that is fine. It pays the bills, but I'm not passionate about it. I'm really not that passionate about King of Queens either, so where does that leave me?

I've been thinking about what makes a life meaningful. The answer is probably different for everyone, but for me I think it comes down to two things:

A. Quality relationships with other people, and
B. Doing something that makes a difference in other people's lives.

I need some serious work in both of these areas. I've always been kind of a loner, but I can't say that it's been good for me. How do I change this? And when it comes to doing something that makes a difference, it's hard to know where to get started.

So once again, I am full of questions but no answers. Questions are my specialty. Maybe that's okay. I once read that you have to know the right questions before you can get the right answers. That made me feel a little bit better, but I do hope I figure out the answers (at least some of them) relatively quickly. Like I said in my last post, I'm no longer a 'youth', and it's time to figure things out.

I'm no longer a "youth"

The other day I read a headline that said something like, "Youth vote picks Obama to win." My first thought was that of course people my age would pick Obama to win. It makes sense that he would get the 18-35 year old demographic. Then I read the article and realized that it meant youth as in too young to vote. Oh. That hasn't been me for awhile.

A month or so ago I had a conversation with my 21-year old brother about music. It went something like this:
Me: "Have you heard the new Gavin Rossdale song?"
Him: "Who's Gavin Rossdale?"
Me: "He was in Bush!"
Him: "What's Bush?"
Me (somewhat exasperated) "He's married to Gwen Stefani."
Him: "Oh, I know who she is."
He probably doesn't realize that Gwen Stefani started out in a band called No Doubt. Why would he? That was ten years ago and he was 11.

Watching sports, it kind of hit me hard that EVERY college athlete is younger than me. I know it's obvious, but I remember just like it was yesterday that those players were adults so much futher into their lives than I was. I'm to the point where many professional athletes are also younger than me. The ones who aren't are starting to think about retirement.

So, I've started to realize I am no longer a youth. And I must admit it came as somewhat of a shock. I feel exactly the same as I did when I was 18. I have no more of a clue what I'm doing with my life. The difference is that I'm expected to have my stuff together now. Has anyone else dealt with this? What do you do when you suddenly realize you're a grown-up, and it's nothing like you imagined it would be?

There's no such thing as runner's high

I'm sure you've heard of runner's high. Supposedly when you run, you're supposed to experience some sort of euphoria that some people compare to getting high (I guess). I'm seriously doubting the existence of this phenomenon. Those of you who know me know that I HATE running. I'm not exaggerating here. Even in the short period of my life where I was serious about running (serious is probably too strong a word), I dreaded my nightly run all day, every day. I admit, sometimes after I ran I would feel somewhat invigorated, but mostly what I felt was elation that I wouldn't have to do it again for at least 24 hours.

My brother runs. A lot. He's been asking me for years to run a 5k with him. He was recently on a mission, so I got a few years off. But he's back now, and wants to run a 5k on Thanksgiving, which is a mere 6.5 weeks away. I foolishly told him I would. I need some sort of goal to get me back into working out, and I figured this would take care of the motivation factor. Who wants to run a 5k in 45 minutes? Not me!

But then what? I've tried keeping my mp3 player stocked with new music. I've tried different types of workouts. Nothing seems to stick. What do you do to stay motivated? I'll take all of the suggestions I can get!

Top 7 reasons why I hate politics

7. My vote - lets be honest, it really doesn't count.
6. The fact that your vote doesn't really count could actually be a good thing if you're one of the many who vote for the political candidate that their favorite celebrity supports. (Me, I do pretty much whatever Oprah tells me to, so...).
5. Debate moderators encouraging candidates to jump down the other's throat. It may make for good entertainment, but I have no desire to watch the future president of the United States act like a teenage girl competing for head cheerleader. I want to know what you're going to do in office, not how stupid you think the other guy is. Ok, I'm kind of going to go off on a tangent here, but last year I went to a presentation of a former U.S. Senator. He expressed his disgust at the way politicians have turned to personal attacks. In his day (1950's to 1980's) you disagreed with someone's politics, but you still had respect for that person. Why can't we go back to that? I'm so tired of having to feel defensive of my opinion. I'm an intelligent human being who makes informed choices. If you are the same and happen to make a choice opposite from mine, I respect that. So please do the same for me.
4. This whole two party system just doesn't work for me. Let's get some more options in there.
3. Name dropping. It just happened in the debate I'm watching. I don't care that Henry Kissenger is on your speed dial. What is YOUR opinion. And on a slightly different note, I highly doubt that Biden was filling up with gas the other day and had a conversation with an average Joe about how much it cost to fill up his tank. Commence with the eye-roll.
2. Candidates who keep repeating untruths about the other side's campaign long after it has been proven to be false. This is rampant on both sides.
1. A quick browse of factcheck.org tells me that I can't believe a single thing either side says in their commercials, speeches, or debates. So what's the point?

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…