Prepare yourselves for something truly awful:
Over the past year I've gone on more blind dates than anyone I know. I've lost count of how many men I've met. No exaggeration. Its far less fabulous than it sounds. I've tried to approach dating with the openest mind ever. I believe that you'll never make a basket if you don't shoot the ball. So I've been shooting the ball a lot.
Essentially my MO has been: if he has the guts to ask me to dinner I have the guts to say yes.
I think I'm done operating that way after tonight.
The back-story is pretty good all on its own but the punchline trumps it so I'll make it short.
At my cousin's wedding luncheon in June, my parents sat at the same table with two single friends of the groom. They were charmed. My mom thought I might enjoy going out with one of them. At the time my mind was at its openest to any and all dating experiences so I agreed. The man was given my number.
It took him 6 months to call me. The phone call was awkward. The lunch date was fine. I didn't hear from him again (which was more than fine) until after my mom had run into him at a mission farewell of one of my brother's friends. He asked about me and that incident must have encouraged him to call me again. After another PAINFULLY awkward phone call earlier this week I agreed to have dinner with him tonight.
The following conversation occurred during dinner and is in no way a fabrication or an exaggeration:
Me (trying to find something interesting to talk about): So do you live alone or do you have roommates?
Him: I have roommates...pause...well I live with my parents...pause...they're eighty so I help take care of them
I've never been great at math but I started crunching some numbers...
Me: So they must have had you pretty late. Were you a surprise there at the end?
Him: I'm not even the end
Me (starting to freak out): You grew up in Cottonwood Heights right? How old is your youngest sibling? Maybe I know them from school.
Him: You're in your 20s right?
Me: yeah...
Him: My youngest sibling is 40...I'm 47
You did not read that incorrectly. I'll type it again to make sure everyone got it...47!!!!!! That's within 5 years of my father and 4 of my mother. I feel sick as I type this.
He knew the date was over as soon as that number dropped. He had to of known (as I did but for very different reasons) that this date was DOA.
BUT WHY DID HE CALL ME IN THE FIRST PLACE?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! First date, fine. Its blind neither of us know what to really expect (except he had met my parents so he had to have had a good guess about my age). But why did he call me for a second when he knew he was so much older than me?
This has really pushed me to my limits. I'm done. Tapping out. I can't do it anymore. No more guilt about missing opportunities. My mind has been so open my brain has obviously fallen out. From now on I'm only going on dates I want to go on. Which is almost the same as saying I'm never going on a date again. I'm adopting a cat, naming her Emily Dickinson, wearing a zip up hoodie to work, keeping my ibuprofen and tampons in a fanny pack and pulling my hair up with a chip clip.
I'm sure this will all look better in the morning right?
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Mind Reading
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Pedestaling
Such an odd little culture we have isn't it?
I've always been the kind of girl who can do and LIKES to do for herself. I appreciate the offer, home teachers, but I can change a light bulb and take out the garbage myself. You know what else I'm pretty capable of doing? Putting up chairs and tables and opening doors. Now before you roll your eyes and think that I'm setting this post up to be some feminist rant...hang on and hear me out.
I think we as a culture are guilty of some unfair pedestaling. Which is not a word. But it will be once you understand what I'm saying.
How often have you heard it said, over the pulpit or otherwise, that women are more spiritual or in general, better creatures than men? At times I have been very guilty of this kind of thinking and I think that it is wrong. Its wrong because it sets women up on a pedestal. And makes base, lowly creatures out of men who need the priesthood to save them from their natural state of irresponsibility and inactivity. Wrong.
Remember that oft quoted talk that GBH gave where he said that it wasn't until woman was created that the work could be called good? (I couldn't find it with 30 seconds of searching or I would have linked it here). I don't think that the work couldn't be called good without women because we are so angelic and special. It couldn't be called good (or finished) because women are essential to the plan. Adam couldn't be without Eve and vice versa. Just like I can't declare myself dressed without both shoes on my feet, or my sandwich made without peanut butter AND jelly. We're necessary, not special.
Men in the church are taught to respect, protect, and provide for women which is all well and good but they shouldn't be revered.
Women the world over get put in second place so I'm grateful that the church does its best to given women their due but the problem I have with putting women on a pedestal is that it simplifies their good works and service as merely being part of their nature, and conversely that any good work by a man should be a congratulated surprise.
I'm so guilty of all of this its not even funny. So to make reparations I offer the following (write it down people as I have a history of rarely being complimentary to the Mormon man. Its an unattractive quality, I know.)
Men have it tough. They have heavy priesthood responsibilities that frankly I'm glad I don't have to deal with. They deal with pressure to be providers that I have never known. I know plenty of men that didn't go into fields they wanted to because they didn't feel they would make enough to provide for a family. Which seems unfair. It would be especially hard to feel like a useful provider in a world where women are increasingly able to provide for themselves. I truly believe that people become what you expect them to be and because of this "pedestaling" (women=angels, men=dogs) you are not given the credit that a Son of Adam deserves.
Now get it in gear and find someone to marry already. We're all waiting around for you and your childhood is over I'm sorry to tell you.
And as for not letting me put up chairs etc? I was put on this earth to work and to build the kingdom just like you. I'd rather work beside you than watch you do the work for me.
I think I have a total of two male readers. If you agree or disagree or have something to add from your POV I'd love you to comment privately or publicly.
I've always been the kind of girl who can do and LIKES to do for herself. I appreciate the offer, home teachers, but I can change a light bulb and take out the garbage myself. You know what else I'm pretty capable of doing? Putting up chairs and tables and opening doors. Now before you roll your eyes and think that I'm setting this post up to be some feminist rant...hang on and hear me out.
I think we as a culture are guilty of some unfair pedestaling. Which is not a word. But it will be once you understand what I'm saying.
How often have you heard it said, over the pulpit or otherwise, that women are more spiritual or in general, better creatures than men? At times I have been very guilty of this kind of thinking and I think that it is wrong. Its wrong because it sets women up on a pedestal. And makes base, lowly creatures out of men who need the priesthood to save them from their natural state of irresponsibility and inactivity. Wrong.
Remember that oft quoted talk that GBH gave where he said that it wasn't until woman was created that the work could be called good? (I couldn't find it with 30 seconds of searching or I would have linked it here). I don't think that the work couldn't be called good without women because we are so angelic and special. It couldn't be called good (or finished) because women are essential to the plan. Adam couldn't be without Eve and vice versa. Just like I can't declare myself dressed without both shoes on my feet, or my sandwich made without peanut butter AND jelly. We're necessary, not special.
Men in the church are taught to respect, protect, and provide for women which is all well and good but they shouldn't be revered.
Women the world over get put in second place so I'm grateful that the church does its best to given women their due but the problem I have with putting women on a pedestal is that it simplifies their good works and service as merely being part of their nature, and conversely that any good work by a man should be a congratulated surprise.
I'm so guilty of all of this its not even funny. So to make reparations I offer the following (write it down people as I have a history of rarely being complimentary to the Mormon man. Its an unattractive quality, I know.)
Men have it tough. They have heavy priesthood responsibilities that frankly I'm glad I don't have to deal with. They deal with pressure to be providers that I have never known. I know plenty of men that didn't go into fields they wanted to because they didn't feel they would make enough to provide for a family. Which seems unfair. It would be especially hard to feel like a useful provider in a world where women are increasingly able to provide for themselves. I truly believe that people become what you expect them to be and because of this "pedestaling" (women=angels, men=dogs) you are not given the credit that a Son of Adam deserves.
Now get it in gear and find someone to marry already. We're all waiting around for you and your childhood is over I'm sorry to tell you.
And as for not letting me put up chairs etc? I was put on this earth to work and to build the kingdom just like you. I'd rather work beside you than watch you do the work for me.
I think I have a total of two male readers. If you agree or disagree or have something to add from your POV I'd love you to comment privately or publicly.
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