The 10 Dates of 2014

I go on too many dates.

Almost a year ago, I blogged my goals for 2014.  The only resolution I really followed through on was #4:  to average at least one date a month.  I actually went on over 12 dates--or things that could be considered dates if you're really open minded (actually, like a million, if you count "Speed Mingling"), but with probably 10 different men.  Here are the chronicles of those dates, using aliases to protect the innocent.  (Also, if we went on a date this year and I forgot about you, well, I'm sorry, but you should have made a better impression.)

January
The Ex:  Remember all of those seasons of Friends when Ross and Rachel weren't dating and they hung out all the time and it was fine?  My most-recent-at-that-point ex-boyfriend and I tried that by going on a romantic starlit dinner cruise (it was his work party; I was his plus-one).  It was fun and not too awkward, all things considered.  This ex and I are probably on good ex terms now, in that we don't actually ever see each other but when we do, it's just fine.

No, really.

February
The Now-Married Guy:  Mind you, this church-acquaintance was not married when we went on our sort-of-date to a fried chicken place that is right next to my gym.  This one truly met my goal for this dating project--to sit across a table from a guy I didn't know super well for an hour and make conversation. It was good conversation--we mostly talked about weird things we'd eaten--he'd eaten way weirder things than I had.  Anyway, as I said, he got married recently* to a really awesome woman, which is cool because it is always good when cool people marry each other.

April
The Lawyer:  I had tickets to see Legally Blonde: The Musical at Berklee College of Music, and, as having tickets for stuff is the best way to ask someone out, I took the opportunity to invite the most appropriate date to such a musical--a lawyer friend of mine who lived in my old neighborhood.  I think he probably liked the show even though the law stuff was probably all wrong.

May
The Most Interesting Man in the World:  In April I threw a dinner party and it resulted in me getting invited on dates by every man at that dinner party.  The first date was a performance by the Alvin Ailey Dance Company.  It was an amazing performance.  Now, the guy...as he was telling me about his life and occupation, I kept thinking, how are you a person I know in real life?  I probably couldn't tell you what his actual job is, but his stories were fascinating and very different from my stories, most of which revolve around my very boring grad school life.

The Going-Away Date:  I actually owed this guy a date from a time when he asked me out two years ago when I already had a boyfriend.**  So before he moved away forever, we had a really fun Boston date wherein we went to Quincy Market and took a water taxi around Boston Harbor.  Then we sneaked into a high school prom and got mistaken for people who sell drugs to teenagers, which, if you've seen either of us, is kind of hilarious.  Good times.

June
The One Who Turned into a Boyfriend for a Little While:  Truth be told, the first date with this guy wasn't the most amazing date ever.  It was dinner and walking around Boston, but nothing spectacular.  I didn't give up on him, though, because, for one thing, he was an accountant, and isn't that the type of guy that women are all supposed to end up with?  It actually took a decent amount of time (note the multiple other dates in June) and tedious flirting for us to actually become a Thing, but eventually it turned into a pretty cool thing.  Of course, whenever I have a boyfriend that I really like, one of us has to move thousands of miles away for work, so it was a very short-lived pretty cool thing, but I'm okay.

The Home Teacher:  My awesome home teacher (who also had to move thousands of miles away...stupid Southern California taking all of my people) gave me a ride from the airport one night, and to thank him, I took him to the Jeremy Messersmith concert.  He really liked it, which is important because it stresses me out when I introduce my friends to my favorite things.  Also, he's one of those really outgoing people, and because of him we got to chat with Jeremy and his guitarist!

The Brother of the Groom:  In June I went to the wedding of my very good friend.  At the wedding, I met his younger brother, who was really cool, and who also happened to have nothing to do the next day, so he invited me to go kayaking and eat pizza afterwards.  It was a very fun day.  Although this guy also lives thousands of miles away (what is my problem?) and is probably too young for me, I decided that if we had ever gotten together, our "how we met" story would have been the best sitcom ever, albeit one that got canceled after a half a season because that's what happens to all of the good sitcoms (#saveSelfie).

October***
The Only Man in the World Who Appreciates Men Dressed Like Elderly Women as Much as I Do:  I went to a Golden Girls Drag Show with my friend.  It was rad.  Enough said.

November
The One for Whom I Can't Think of a Good Alias Because I Know That He's Probably the Only One Mentioned Who Will Actually Read This Post:  I went to one fantastic and one just-okay theatrical production with this person, and both times we ate delicious burgers beforehand.  He is awesome and tall and nice-smelling and all sorts of other flattering adjectives that he will read when he reads this.

I hope people don't see this blog post as me being, "hey everyone, look at how many dates I went on this year because I'm so pretty and awesome!"  If you do think that, I'll remind you that I currently have zero boyfriends.  Also, most of these were friend-dates with little-to-no romantic expectations.  Also, I think 2014 was a fluke year and I do not expect as much dating "success" in 2015 (because I'm kind of crabby...and also quals).  This was just my following up on a goal to become better at social interaction, and I think I did okay.



*We're Mormons; we get married quickly; it's fine.
**I almost said "yes" when he asked me out.  I still tell this story as an example of why it's important to use the word "date" when you're asking someone on a date...because otherwise you could just be going to a thing together.
***Lest you think I was having a "dry spell," remember that there was "steady dating" in there...like the kind of stuff you're not allowed to do until you're sixteen.

Special Dating Post: Finding Your Holiday Romance

Merry Christmas, gentle readers!  If you're anything like me, you're probably finding yourself single this holiday season.  If you are me, you're finding yourself single this holiday season and spending all of your Christmas vacation watching made-for-TV holiday movies on the Hallmark Channel and ABC Family.  But, because I am brilliant, during this time I figured out exactly how to find true love just in time for Christmas (or New Year's Eve, at the very latest), and while it may be too late for me, I would love to impart this wisdom upon you, gentle readers.  Here are four strategies:

1. The Lie.  Heading home for the holidays?  Family giving you a hard time because in addition to their disapproval of your career choice, you're still single?  Just hire a fake significant other to come home with you--nobody will suspect a thing (which is good, because the truth would just about kill your great grandmother).  Your faux-beau could be an actor, an acquaintance, or just someone that walked into your place of employment one day.  It doesn't matter whether you like each other; it doesn't matter if they're not single in real life; it doesn't even matter if you kidnapped them at gunpoint; once you reveal personal secrets to each other and once you're forced to kiss under the mistletoe in front of everyone, the sparks will fly and you will go from "fakin'" to "taken."*  
2. The Relocation.  No luck finding love in the big city?  Just find yourself in a tiny town for the holiday.  Extra points if it's against your will, and even more points if it's a town that's inexplicably obsessed with Christmas.  Your true love will be pretty easy to find in said small town, because he/she will literally be the only other person your age.  When you first find yourself attracted to this single-parent/widower/veterinarian/volunteer-hockey-coach, be careful, because (as their not-apparently-related older acquaintance will tell you), nobody ever thought he/she would move on after nonspecific-tragic-event.  But in the end (and after you use your big-city know-how to save the town from some crisis), you will be in love, not only with single-parent/widower/veterinarian/volunteer-hockey-coach, but also with small town life, and most importantly, with Christmas.  
3. The Switch.  Don't like your life?  Take somebody else's!  Swap houses with a complete stranger (bonus points if it's a city-mouse/country-mouse situation--see #2).  This is probably one of the more high-reward tactics:  not only will you end up with someone from stranger's hometown, stranger will end up with one of the many people with whom you're having no luck romantically!  Two lovebirds, one stone.  
4. Magic.  Sometimes a case is so hopeless that earthly forces are insufficient.  In these cases, thank goodness for magical Christmas ornaments and older men who may or may not be Santa Claus.  They will manipulate the world so that you'll have a chance to relive that bad date over and over until you get it right, or they'll keep letting you run into that handsome stranger until he realizes how wrong-for-him his snooty rich girlfriend actually is.  At the end, you will give a kiss to your new honey, and a knowing wink to a light in the sky that is definitely your guardian angel and not an airplane.

Gentle readers, there is one week until Christmas.  I have full faith that, by using one or more of these tactics, you will be engaged by 2015.  Good luck!

*I am so, so sorry for that rhyme.

Dating Post #4: It Takes a Village...Actually, No, It Does Not.

After a number of posts in which I claimed to be a firm authority on all things related to Mormon dating, I had a minor freak-out when I suspected that I might, in fact, be a huge fraud.  I had this entire thesis that dating is not a difficult or stressful thing, and yet...  Would I have to retract all of my dating posts?  Make a public statement that I actually knew nothing and we were all up a creek and it was anyone's guess whether we'd just die alone?

But I took a second to think it over.  Why is dating, which has been happening forever, and Mormon dating, which has been happening since that one day Joseph Smith made eyes at Emma Hale while he was carrying a shovel* so stressful?  I think I figured out the reason:  Other Humans.

Other people, especially single Mormons, love to talk about couples--who's dating, who went on a date, who just broke up.  Gossip is no virtue, to be sure, but if it just ended at the gossip, it might be fine, but it continues to meddling.  From the giving of unsolicited (and often poorly-founded) advice to people on the verge of relationships to the hounding of the newly-broken-up, people have this desire to involve themselves in other people's love lives.

I've been reading a lot of Jane Austen lately.  My favorite Austen is Emma.  I think it's very relatable to Mormons because Highbury is basically one big singles' ward full of busybodies.  Think about it:

• Emma gives bad relationship advice to Harriet, leading Harriet to get heartbroken.  Multiple times.
• Mrs. Weston and the Coles speculate whether Mr. Knightley and Jane are an item.
• Emma and Frank gossip about the relationship between Jane and Mr. Dixon

Clearly, Frank and Jane had the right idea with the secret dating.  Sure, everyone talked about it afterwards, and maybe Frank wasn't the best secret boyfriend, but at least their relationship had a chance to develop before all of England had to throw in their tuppence.**  I love this line from Mr. Knightley's response to the speculation about him and Jane:  "[Cole] gave me a quiet hint; I told him he was mistaken; he asked my pardon, and said no more.  Cole does not want to be wiser or wittier than his neighbours."

Let us not want to be wiser or wittier than our neighbors.  Here are my helpful hints on how to do this:

• On giving advice:  Don't.  Okay, that's hasty.  No, actually, it's not.  Don't give advice.  Because really, why are you doing it?  In twenty years, will whether or not two people decided to date each other matter to you?  Are you really that concerned with the happiness of two random people in your ward?  Probably not, which means you're probably doing it so you can take some of the credit for whatever happens.  But what if someone asks for your advice?***  Then, sure, give it.  But realize that you are not one of the two people involved, and therefore you don't know everything.
• On people getting together:  Did you see two people holding hands once?  Yes?  Was it in public?  No?  Could there be a chance that the entire world doesn't know about it yet?  Yes?  Could there be a chance that that is on purpose?  Yes?  Should you tell other people about it?  (Say it with me, now,) NO!!!!  At the very least, wait for the official press release (aka, when they sit together in church).  
• On existing couples:  Unless you're have some sort of...um...ahem...arrangement with a couple, you are not part of that couple.  By all means, like them, think they're cute when you see them together, invite them to fun little brunches, but don't keep track of them like they're mating pairs of endangered bull trout or something.****  Like I said before, people have been dating forever.  It's not really that interesting.  Now, if every time they kissed one of them turned neon green and started levitating, that would be interesting, and please, write a report for Nature or something.*****  
• On people breaking up:  See above, re: you don't know everything.  But I liked X and Y together so much and they need to get back together and I want to make it happen and let everyone know that it was all because of meeeeeeeeeee!  No.  Stop.  Maybe there's a tiny, tiny chance that if you meddled they'd get back together and everything would be fine, but the more likely outcome is that, for whatever reason, one or both members of the former couple will end up feeling even worse about things than they did in the first place.  So console, eat ice cream, have angry dance parties, but don't meddle.       

Maybe this is one of my harsher dating posts, but really, the meddling and the gossip has got to stop.  It's making something which should be fun and wonderful and simple a lot harder and terrifying than it should be.  If you won't hearken to my words, listen to the Fresh Prince:

*That's what happened in the movie, at least.
**Because it's Britain.
***By reading this blog, I'm assuming that you're asking me for advice.
****This is not a hypothetical thing.  People actually have lists.
*****Because this is just the kind of crap that Nature is into.  That and Machiavellian yeast and stuff.

Relationship Post #2: Bound and Rebound

(Listen to this song while you read.)

I was talking about old boyfriends with a friend once, and she asked me if one man I dated was a "rebound" relationship.  It was then that I decided that I disliked the word "rebound."  It sounded cheap, like this was just some rando that I was using to get over the previous boyfriend.  The purpose of this post is to make us stop feeling guilty about rebounding (unless you're treating your rebound person like dirt, then by all means, wallow in shame).

Sometimes after a breakup, we're left with big, ex-shaped holes in our hearts.  They're not the kind of holes that you dig in the dirt, though; they're through-and-through projectile wounds.

Just like this.*

And then the next people come along and try to fill the hole, but like most bottomless holes, everything they put in just falls right out the other end.  They can't fill the hole.

And this is frustrating and we feel guilty because, so often, those "next people" are wonderful and kind and far too patient with us.  But they can't fill the hole.

But then something remarkable happens:  somehow, they mend the hole.  They put the bottom back in, so that it can be filled.  I know that kind of sounds lame.  I mean, we can't be sending these people greeting cards that say "Thanks for being the guy that helped me be ready for the next guy," but that's what they did, and it was necessary.

Sometimes we need people to make us feel something other than despair.  To help ourselves feel that the last person wasn't the "be all, end all" of love and romance.  To help us end a chapter or close a book.  To mend us and put our bottoms back (there is no way to make this not sound weird).  So we can again bound and rebound.



*The perfect .gif for this would have been from the Buffy episode "Primeval" where First-Slayer-infused-Willow/Xander/Giles-hybrid-Buffy punches Adam through the chest and rips out his uranium power source,** but alas, that .gif could not be found, so I had to make do with Spiderman.
**Laura, this isn't a typical scene on Buffy, should this description happen to turn you off from trying out the series.  Season 4 was just weird.

Dating Post #3: Barry White and Sadie Hawkins

Congratulations, you've succeeded at a legitimate method of obtaining someone's contact information.  Now you're ready to ask them on a date.

OMG it's SO terrifying.

Why is asking for a date so scary?  Maybe it's because we have these dysfunctional language translation devices in our brains that work something like this:

Seriously, guys, I'm a PowerPoint ninja.

I will say this once:  if you want dating to stop being something that freaks you out, you need to get the heck out of this mindset.  When dating (or anything) becomes a big deal, it becomes stressful.  Therefore, to make dating not stressful, you need to make dating not a big deal.  How is this done?

First, Date Often.  I knew a couple of guys at church who made a point to go on a date every week.  I actually went on a date with each of them, and when they asked me out, I wasn't thinking, holy cow, he wants to marry me; I was thinking, cool, I am his date this week.  No pressure!

That leads me to my second point:  Your "Date" is a Person, and Not an Activity.  When a date is an activity, it says, "Hey baby, I've created an entire series of events solely around you."  This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but if you're afraid of sending premature "I love you" vibes, there's a different approach.  When your date is a person, it says "I was going to this thing anyway, and I thought it would be nice to not go by myself."  Hence, you bring a Date.  And you get bonus points because your date now thinks that you're super thoughtful for inviting them to go to this activity with you.

Now, what if you're one of the 63% of my readers who are female?*  You're probably thinking, how does this apply to me? I can't ask a boy out because societal norms and traditional gender roles!  Sisters, it's 2014.  You can ask out a man, and really, unless you get all Glenn Close about it, you shouldn't worry about coming off as too "forward" or "aggressive."  If you're still nervous about unleashing your inner Sadie Hawkins, here are my secrets to asking a man for a date:

1. Cultural Activities.  This goes back to the "your date is a person" philosophy.  Until you turn into one of those ridiculously wealthy old ladies who sits alone in her private box at the opera house every weekend (one day...sigh), you'll probably want to attend concerts/plays/ballets with another person, and nobody is going to think that's weird.  In Boston (or any other place with large university and arts scenes), it's really easy to find events that are inexpensive enough to buy two tickets.  Speaking of cheap things...
2. Online Discounts!  I tell you, Groupon has revolutionized the art of girl dating.  You can find discounted dinners for two at pretty decent places, and if you want to be all sneaky and "cool" about it, you can just be like, "oh hey, I have this Groupon that's about to expire (in twelve weeks)...want to come to dinner with me?"  Plus, you've already bought the thing so there's none of that awkwardness about who pays.**  

I hope this has been at all helpful and supportive of my main thesis which is that dating is not this big scary difficult thing.  So go ask someone out this week.

Just maybe not like this.

*This is a made-up statistic.
**Although, frankly, if most women expect men to pay if the men do the inviting, shouldn't women pay if they're doing the inviting?  Again, it's 2014, ladies.  Loosen the purse strings.

Dating Post #2: Call Me, Beep Me, If You Want to Reach Me.

This is the post in which I'm outing myself as one of those 'older' people who hates all technology.

Remember when you wanted to contact someone and the only way to do that would be to call them on the phone?  Then they invented pagers, but still, all that did was tell the person that they had to call you on the phone.  Same with answering machines:  "hey, this is so-and-so, call me back!"  But now, there's texting, emailing, G-chatting, Facebook messaging, and who knows what else.

All these forms of rapid communication are really confusing in all aspects, but since this is a series about dating, I'm just going to talk about how these things confuse the complete crap out of trying to get a date.

First of all, when did the process of obtaining someone's contact information get to be so terrifying?  Even I, dispenser of logical, rational, "just man up and do it" kind of advice, shrink at the idea of asking a man for his phone number.*  But really, is the intimidation of asking for a phone number greater than the sadness of wishing you were texting the person right now?  Furthermore, is it greater than the awkwardness of potentially having to explain how you got a number that you didn't ask for (I'm looking at you, all you ward-directory stalkers)?  

At least he's being proactive, right?

Now, let's assume that you have at your disposal all possible ways of contacting someone:  phone number, email address, instant messaging contact, Facebook friendship, etc.  How do you actually contact the person?  What are the implications of each form of media?  Let's take a look:

Phone Call:  If you pick up the phone, dial their number (that you asked them for, you brave warrior, you), and invite them do do something, just the two of you, it's unequivocally a date.  Sorry.  This is what society has come to.  (But if you are unequivocally asking them on a date, you really should call them.)

Text Message:  If you text someone, "hey, want to go to lunch this week?" it may or may not be a date.  It could just be lunch.  The probability of an invitation being a date (or being interpreted as such) increases the later the hour.  Also, if you text someone at midnight and invite them on "a walk," THIS WILL NOT BE INTERPRETED AS A PLATONIC MOVE.**

Email:  Unless you've established some serious email rapport with a person, asking them out via email is kind of stodgy and "official" seeming.  But it isn't without merit:  if the activity has lots of details or requires major planning, or if you're just asking out a person who likes paper trails, emailing could be the way to go.

Instant Messaging:  This says one of two things.  Either 1) "hey, I just saw you were online now, and I want to invite you to this totally casual thing," or 2) I HAVE BEEN WAITING AT MY COMPUTER FOR HOURS FOR YOU TO GET ONLINE SO I COULD ASK YOU OUT.  Interpretation rate is 50/50.  Good luck.

Facebook Wall:  Facebook wall posts (timeline posts? is that what it is now?) are for birthday wishes, links to dumb videos, and "What Hogan's Heroes Character are You" quiz results only.

Facebook Message:  Is it instant messaging?  Is it email?  Some sort of lab-grown hybrid and affront to nature?  I don't even know, and then you're just sitting there checking every five minutes to see whether they've seen it because you can because Mark Zuckerberg is a sadist, and oh gosh, they read it ten minutes ago and why haven't they responded yet and this is the worst day of my life.

I think I've covered all basic forms of social media (or at least the ones that I know how to use--see above re: I'm old), but I don't even know if I've scratched the surface for all of the socially-imposed "rules" and protocols.  For instance, do the implications change if it's a second, as opposed to a first, date?  Are the rules different depending on whether the woman or the man is doing the inviting?***  I'd like to hear from all of you in the comments to get your thoughts on this!

Until next time!

 

*By the way, my "go-to" line is, upon taking out my phone and scrolling through contacts, "Do I have your number?"  This says, "I just have so many numbers in my phone that I can't keep track, and I totally assume that we're already in the 'have each other's phone numbers' stage of our budding relationship."  It also says, "I just want to have your number on hand so I can contact you in the future at some point...no pressure," rather than, "I am going to call you in 24 hours and text you every hour on the :15 until then!"  This line is not copyright protected in any way, so feel free to use it.  You're welcome
**For my non-Mormon readers (or maybe this has reached you guys as well), "go on a walk" is code for "undertake serious developments vis-à-vis our relationship."
***Don't worry, there'll be a post about women doing the inviting in the near future.

Relationship Post #1: Communication

After I started this series, I realized what I had to say fell into two categories:  1) the art and science of dating, and 2) once the dating works out well, how to have success in relationships.  This is a post in the latter category.  I'll start with a story:

This girl dated a guy once who told her that she was one of the "most reasonable" girls he had ever dated.  She took that as a compliment and wore the title like a badge of honor:  she wasn't some needy, whiny, high-maintenance nut, no sir!  She was Reasonable!

She was also an idiot.

Because she was so eager to be "reasonable," she hid her insecurities, she didn't speak up when things bothered her, and she didn't fight for things she wanted to fight for.  What she thought was this great, low-maintenance relationship was kind of an unhealthy, unhappy mess and a complete failure to communicate.

Jerk.

First of all, I want to make a few things clear:  speaking your mind, having insecurities, and wanting the things that you want don't make you "high-maintenance."  They make you human.  And anyone who thinks you're being "unreasonable" for having and voicing legitimate concerns about your relationship should probably go to Relationship Summer School.  They'll have plenty of free time to do so, on account of you dumping them.  A relationship where one partner feels that they have to hide or conform or be dishonest isn't a real relationship at all--one of you is unhappy and the other is happy with something that isn't real.

Now let's talk about communicating in relationships.  I'll start with a stupid graphic with arbitrary shapes and colors to illustrate the point I'm going to make.

My Power Point skillz are off the hizzy, yo.

Good relationship communication in relationships requires two things:  Trust and Compassion.  Let's talk about Trust first:  this can be interpreted a few different ways.  It can mean "I know I can tell you this thing and it won't change the way you feel about me or this relationship."  It can also mean "I trust you with this sensitive information about my life and know you won't tell anyone about it."  Regardless, communicating things, especially big relationship-y things, requires a lot of trust.

On the other end of the communication interaction is Compassion.  This means that when your partner tells you something big or voices some concern, you 1) remember that you love them, 2) don't immediately judge, laugh at, dismiss, or disparage them, and 3) listen to them and try to see where they're coming from.  Remember that their telling you this is a sign that they trust you.  Don't try to make them change their way of thinking or make them feel like their concerns are invalid.  Just listen.  Listen and love.

I'm not saying this is easy.  To a lot of people, it doesn't come naturally.  It certainly doesn't to me; I'm inherently shy and non-confrontational and a good chunk of my DNA sucks at communicating.  But it does come.

I unfortunately have nothing snarky or clever with which to end this post, which is weird for me because that's usually where I go right after being sentimental...probably why I suck at communication.  But good luck to you all.

Dating Post #1: The Mormon Meet Cute

Welcome to the first in my blog series about dating (as a Mormon)!

Being a single Mormon compared to being a single non-Mormon is frustrating, and not just for the more, ahem, obvious reasons.  I had this epiphany on the Green Line last week:

If you're not a Mormon, you could find love literally anywhere.  The gym, an elevator, a dog park?  A pub, even.  Any of these places could be the site of your meet cute with your future mate.  But if you're a Mormon (and not living in Utah)?  Church.  Should you be fortunate enough to meet the love of your life, it will probably happen at church.*  Let's think about that for a minute:  you spend three hours per week at church, four if you're a marathon mingler.  That means that you are spending the other 164 hours of your week NOT meeting the love of your life.  Doesn't this seem unproductive?  Especially when you're part of a culture that so heavily emphasizes active effort toward marriage?  I mean, what if the person you like isn't even there that week?  What if there just is no person that you like?  Kind of a bummer.

A meet cute.

This isn't all bad.  For one thing, it takes the pressure off during the rest of the week.  Last week, when I was on the Green Line, I had been rained on quite a bit and was looking rather tragic.  But I didn't care, despite the plethora of handsome men in suits sitting around me.  I was like, whatevs, not gonna date any of these guys anyway.

On the other hand, it can be dangerous.  There's the opportunity to put too much stock in the little things, like small talk.  For instance, if the lady you're crushing on asks "how's school going?" it doesn't mean she's invested in the details of your life; it just means that she remembered that you're in school.  Even the most benign of interactions can escalate to sure signs of attraction over the course of a week in the infatuated mind.

This is the part of the blog post where I offer my sage advice.  How does one make the most of limited time in a closed population of potential love interests?  Well, first of all, be yourself.  It's fine if you want to be a cuter, more snappily-dressed, better smelling version of yourself, but be yourself.  It's bad enough someone only gets to talk to you for ten minutes every Sunday; the least you can do is give them the real you for those ten minutes.  Secondly, and I alluded to this above, but take things at face value.  Don't be all, OMG, he let me have the last cookie at Linger Longer; he totes is into me! and then spend the rest of the week Pinning furniture for your first apartment together.  Because you may never date him.  So enjoy your ten minutes talking to the cute boy, but realize that it is just ten minutes.

Finally, the most practical advice is this:  if you like the person and you're sad that you only get to see them on Sundays, pick up the phone and invite them to see you during the week!  Takes courage, but it's better than feeling unproductive, right?  Although this does have its own set of problems, but more on those later.



*Unless you're into the "flirt to convert" mentality, which I'm not, personally.  But if you're one of those types who is actually good at being a member missionary, my hat is off to you.

A New (Experimental) Label

You'll notice, if you pay attention to the labels in my blog posts, that this one has a new one:  Dating and Relationships.

You may not know this about me, but I am a teeming fountain of good advice and insight about matters of the heart,* and I feel that I would be doing the world a disservice by keeping it all to myself, so I've decided to do a very brief series of posts about dating, particularly as a Mormon, as that is the type of dating I actually know about.

So get ready.

*Or at the very least, a great deal of hilarious snark about matters of the heart.

"Just give me a number instead of a name," or Adventures in Speed Dating

I went speed dating last weekend.  Well, technically, it was speed "mingling," but considering I was forced to mingle with only men for eighty minutes, I'm going to call it speed dating.  Whenever I do something that's slightly out of my comfy zone, I have to take on a character--I am no longer regular Alex, I am "Speed Dating Alex."  Who is that, exactly?  Well, first of all, Speed Dating Alex is not named Alex at all, but "F060."  To facilitate the matching process, we were stripped of our identities and given code numbers.  I am told that F060 was a good number to have.

I will also say that Speed Dating Alex is quite the snappy dresser.  I wore my new glasses, a fun sweater, a Liz Lemon blazer, skinny jeans, and riding boots.  Sometimes I'm quite pleasantly surprised with my ability to put outfits together, even though this is something I can do only 50% of the time.*

The real question of the evening was this:  can Speed Dating Alex flirt?  Or at least be somewhat pleasant for sixty seconds?

It turned out to be okay!  There was supposed to be a minute with each guy, but because of some men's inability to actually move when the timer went off, sometimes it was much shorter.**  Let me tell you, though, all that talking nonstop in a room where 160 other people are talking nonstop is not easy.  It's actually quite exhausting, and I give myself points for being quite the trooper through it all.

Here are some of the highlights of the interesting interactions I had:

• One guy from my ward spent most of the minute talking about how embarrassed he was that our outfits were  accidentally color- and pattern-coordinated.
• Another guy told me, "you don't seem like you would have a hard time attracting men."  Neither does the praying mantis...it's a retention issue.
• One guy who carried with him a distinct Vibe, upon hearing that I studied anatomy, told me, "maybe I can help you with your homework sometime."  Now, I don't know if he meant that in the creepiest possible way, but that's how I heard it.

I wanted to Purell my entire brain.

• We didn't have tables in between us, like you would expect in speed dating; we were just sitting across from each other.  This one boy was getting quite friendly with my unprotected kneecaps (I was such a good sport during this thing, you guys).  I then learned he had just graduated high school, and not in the "I'm 30 and I just got my GED way," but in the "I was born in the mid-1990's" way.  I quickly retracted my kneecaps.
• Getting hoarse and tired, I tried to reason with one of my permanently platonic friends that, since it was a universal truth that we would never date each other, we should just sit in comfortable silence.  He proceeded to make conversation for the full minute.  I wanted to smack him.
• I knew about 75% of the men there, but of course I didn't get to talk to the one stranger I actually found to be quite cute until near the end when I was so exhausted that I didn't know who I was anymore.  He asked me where I was from, to which I replied, "I'm from here originally...no I'm not...that's not true at all."  To that bespectacled redhead from California getting a PhD in chemistry from Yale, I say, "if you're reading this, I promise I'm actually an intelligent human being when I'm not forcing myself to be acutely charming for over an hour, so look me up!"

In short, the activity was a lot of fun, and I give mad props to the committees that put it together.  I even found out yesterday that, despite the dearth of people who submitted the numbers of people they liked after the event, I "matched" with three people!  Granted, they're all guys I already know, and I'm pretty sure at least one of them was a courtesy match, but still!  

*The other 50% of the time I wear old jeans and whichever turtleneck is at the top of the stack in my dresser and cover it all with a purple winter coat that makes me look like the Grimace.

**I will say that the odds weren't always in my favor, in that I got stiffed for time with those I favored, but I got the full minute (if not more) with the "odds."

Here I Go Again...

It's Angry Blog Post Time!  Remember my post back in May about the overwhelming amount of "Single Saints" articles on my now-former ward's website?  Go back and refresh, I'll wait.

I thought they'd died down, but then this happened:

Single Saints:  The Talk

I know, I could just stop following the page and take myself off the list, but I'm a masochist and like to see all the Boston things I'm missing while I'm in my Hawaii apartment studying for the GRE on a weekend because I have no friends in my singles' branch here.  

My online written response was a simple, "oh, good grief," but my actual response was a little bit more wordy.  This "advice" (and I use the quotes because this is advice in the most loose sense, so much so that it's not actually advice at all, come to think of it) basically assumes that all LDS Single Adults have the emotional maturity of nineteen-year-old BYU freshmen.  Ooh, and stereotypes!  Did you know that, after being rejected, all single LDS women binge-eat and watch six-hour-long Jane Austen movies?  Yes, it's true!  Gag me.

While I'd love to go on about how dumb this all is, I'll instead move on to my larger point, which is the following:  IT'S NOT THAT FREAKING BIG OF A DEAL!!!!!  All these articles and stories about the talk just reinforce this idea that dating is this huge, scary, overwhelming thing where you have the potential to  have your heart completely destroyed beyond repair, and this idea is the reason nobody dates!

I dated* a guy one time.  Do you want to know how our "talk" went?  Him:  "I really like you."  Me:  "I really like you, too."  Both of us:  "Cool, now let's proceed to the snogging**."  That was it.  Done.  You know why?  Because there were enough unspoken indicators that we were already on the same page and we weren't all "high stress" about it!  

My advice (for what it's worth):  Date people that you like.  If you like them, show them.  If you don't like people, don't date them.  Girls, don't keep saying "yes" to a guy if you don't like him, no matter how good the free meals are.  Also everyone, if you're holding hands/snuggling/snogging, at least one of you is going to get the idea that something more than friendship is brewing, so don't be slutty.  Let's get the dark, looming cloud away from dating, shall we?

*Note the past tense.  Take that, all you "Not everyone is in a relationship, you know" commenters.  Not that being in one should sway one's opinions at all.  Want proof?  Check out this post, written pre-relationship.

**Kidding...sort of.

Another Post About Dating...

...because I'm pandering in order to boost my readership.

This is the only picture that I could think of for a post about LDS Singles.

I love my singles' ward* in Boston.  It's probably the best ward I've ever been in.  However, if there was one thing I could change about my ward, it would be the ward Facebook page.  I don't know who is in charge of the Facebook page, and kudos to whomever that is for magnifying their calling and whatnot, but as far as I can tell, all the ward Facebook page does is (in addition to always announcing the wrong time for Ward Temple Night) post articles like the following:

"5 Signs He's Not Serious About You"

"The Slow Cooker Breakup Method"

"Dating Mistakes Women Make"

There's a new one of these "Single Saints" articles pretty much every day.  Sometimes more often than that.  I realize that being obsessed with dating and marriage is a HUGE part of young LDS culture, but seriously?  This is overkill.  In jest, I posted a Facebook status saying, "Maybe the reason that there are so many unmarried Mormons in Boston is that we're too busy reading all of the 'Single Saints' posts on the LP2 page to actually go on dates." 

As much as it may have seemed to start out this way, the purpose of this post is not to criticize whomever is in charge of the ward Facebook page (so don't get all offended and go crying to the bishop about it, because frankly, you're doing a good job.  I probably would never put anything on the page were I in charge).  This post is about a broader thing.

Here's the thing:  I'm a firm believer that reading a bunch of articles about something isn't going to make you better at that thing.  I've never collected any data on this, but I have a strong inkling that the people who read all of these articles as scripture don't have as much dating success as the people who just say, "screw it, I'm going to go on a date."  

So don't worry if some website says that you're dating incorrectly, and don't rely on some website to tell you whether or not you're doing things correctly.  Worried that you're not?  That's what communication is for!  I'm not saying you should end every date by asking your date if they'd like to take a brief survey in order to improve your performance, but talk!

I could probably go on and make up more things that I would call advice, but then this would turn into one of those very same "how to date if you're a Mormon" articles, and we're not okay with that.

*"Singles' Ward" = Congregation of unmarried Mormons of a certain age bound to a certain geographic location.  Also, I never know where the apostrophe is supposed to go in "singles".  It's like Master's Degree.

A Response to All the Dating Chatter Out There

This is neither my Mormon Blog or my Angry Blog...but it might be mistaken for such for a second.

At the most recent General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the theme was (apparently*) "go and get married...now." Somehow, the single men of the church interpreted this theme to be "if you're not married right now, it's your fault and therefore you're going to go to hell." This prompted a lot of controversy and chatter in multiple forms, from fake motivational posters to manifestos about how women are equally responsible for the fact that the planet is overrun with young single men. As a result of all of this controversy and chatter, I've witnessed a lot of ridiculous conversations (both on facebook and in real life) in which I've abstained from taking part...until now. Here's my take on the subject, and just so y'all know, I am single (but not the bitter kind).

First of all, where are all of these single men? Apparently they're running rampant through the streets and waving their "I don't want to get married" banners somewhere, but I haven't seen them. Maybe I'm just too busy not gussying myself up and presenting my attractive feminine charms to notice them.

Secondly (and maybe finally, haven't decided yet), dating is not that difficult. Sixteen-year-olds do it all the time; intelligent adults in their twenties and thirties should be able to figure it out. Maybe if people spent more time actually dating and less time whining and ranting about who's to blame for all of the singleness out there, people would do better. Some tips:

• Guys: if you like a girl, ask her out; if she doesn't want to date you, ask someone else out; if it seems like its going well, keep dating her; if you don't want to date her anymore, stop asking her out.
• Girls: if a guy asks you out once, go...won't kill you; if he asks you out again and you like him, keep going; if he asks you out again and you're not sure, say yes and keep going until you decide either way; if you know you don't like him, don't go out with him.

Seriously...not that difficult. I guess everyone gets concerned about all the little feelings out there, but guess what? People are resilient. As a species we've had to deal with rejection for several thousand years. Don't think so highly of yourself that you're afraid to tell someone the truth about how you feel because you might destroy him/her emotionally. A pint of ice cream and a "Very Best of Cher" CD later, he/she will get over you. Granted, you shouldn't be like, "you're awful and I never want to date you again," but if you don't like someone, let him/her know that you don't want to keep dating. Don't stunt your happiness/potential to find someone with whom you actually want to be by leading someone to think that he/she might be that person.

Finally, if you're not married and want to be, don't worry, it'll work out eventually. If you're not married and don't want to be, that's fine too.

Okay, maybe this was a little bit of an angry blog post, but I'm not angry. And maybe I'm wrong about the whole thing; I will admit that my view on human interactions isn't necessarily based on interactions with actual humans, and when it comes to emotions, I am slightly exceptional in the fact that I don't have many of them. Also, I haven't had people yell at my blog in a while, so with hope I'll get my viewership up with this one.



*I say "apparently" because I didn't really feel the marriage pressure all that much as I was too busy picking out themes relevant to my personal spiritual growth.