Two Rants In A Row?

Well, I had so much fun ranting last time that I think I’m going to do it again today. So, get ready for some more of my accusations and such.

First off, I’ve got a question that could be aimed at both gals and guys. Why do we always seem to want to date the single person that is going to forever be un-date-able for us? Either they obviously do not like us, or the two of us would never work out. This kind of goes back to one of my older posts about music. If I like to listen to heavy metal and the girl I want to take out hates it, then, obviously, there are going to be all kinds of problems with us later on. So, why do we do it? Why set our sights on someone that is so far out of our reach that we’ll never catch them? I really don’t understand it. And I’m not trying to imply that I never do this. I do it all the time, but why? Is it just our need to attain the unattainable that drives us to do it? The world may never know.

Another question I have for girls is this: Are so many of you as shallow as you come across? I can’t count the number of times that a girl has told me that they could never date so-and-so because they have too long of hair, or not enough hair, or some other silly little thing like that. Are things like that really so important that you wouldn’t date someone because of it? And if so, how did you get that way? Is it because of the world around us? Is it because the media tells us to be beautiful and love those that are beautiful? I know that this doesn’t apply to all girls, but it does to quite a few of them. And, yes, I am aware that a lot of guys feel the same way about the girls they date. But, what drives us to feel that way? What about those of us who aren’t “beautiful people”? What are we supposed to do?

I’d also like to know why it is that when a guy is in a relationship, girls don’t feel the least bit awkward around them, but when they are single, it’s like we become some kind of creature that girls feel the need to avoid. I’ve noticed that this happens a lot in the LDS church. So, what is it that causes these feelings in women of the church? We guys are the same person whether we’re single or in a relationship, yet you all treat us differently depending on our relationship status. Are these feelings caused by some fear that we, heaven forbid, might ask you out now that we’re not dating someone steadily? If so, what would be the problem with us asking you out? Are you worried that because we ask you on one date that it automatically means we want to marry you? If so, that’s just silly. It is possible to go on a date with someone without having to worry about spending time and all eternity with them. Some of us just like to go on dates to have fun and get to know you.

But, that’s enough of my ranting for today. Oh, and I’m sorry about not posting for almost a week. Again, I don’t have internet at home so the only place I can really post anything is at work, and we’ve been short staffed this past week, so I haven’t had time to type anything up.

As usual, I’d like to get input on these topics, so leave some comments.

Stop! It's Ranting Time!

I think it’s high time I did some complaining. So, I’m going to take some time today to rant to all of you about some of the things that are stressing me when it comes to dating. Yes, I know that I kind of already do that, but today it’s going to be more…accusatory. So, get ready for some ranting.

First off I’d like to get a few things off my mind where girls are concerned. Girls: Why on earth do you do such a good job of making a guy think you like him and then cruelly informing him that you have no romantic interest in him? Why do you lead us all on so much? If you like us, just tell us. The same goes for if you don’t like us. Don’t spend weeks (months, even?) acting like you are interested romantically if you’re not. Guys for the most part are not too extremely bright. We won’t usually catch your subtle little hints that you’re trying to send to us. We need to be told in plain English what you think. Don’t drag us through some interminably long rigmarole only to let us know that you just don’t like us that way. Guys tend to get attached to a girl faster than the girl will to the guy, so when you lead us on, it’s that much harder for us to get over you when you leave us. Also, while I’m on the topic, why do girls get themselves into a relationship with a guy when they know deep down that they don’t like the guy enough to marry him? What’s the point of that? And don’t tell me it’s to learn from. Getting into a relationship with a guy just so you can learn from it and then dump the guy is terribly rude and cruel. If you don’t feel that you could ever like someone enough spend your life with them, don’t stay with that person for several months to see if things will change. There may be the chance that they will, but that chance is pretty slim. They say that first impressions are hard to change, so the feelings you have for a person are going to be the same no matter how long you date them.

Now, just so that it doesn’t seem like I’m only picking on the girls, I’m going to chew out my fellow guys for a second. Guys: what the heck ever happened to chivalry? It just astounds me nowadays how many guys don’t even open doors for a girl they’re with. It may just be me (but I hope it’s not) but I always open doors for a girl. Car doors, house doors, store doors, you name it, I hold it open. It’s just second nature to me. But apparently not all men feel the same way. This leads me to one more complaint for the girls: Let us guys open doors for you! If you know that a guy is going to try to hold a door open, don’t try to beat him to the door just so you can open it instead. I’ve dated two different girls who would fight me about opening the doors. Just let us do it. We’re not trying to secretly treat you like we’re better, we’re just doing it to be nice, so let us be nice. Anyway, back to the guys. I know that when a girl breaks up with you, it’s a really hard thing to handle, but cowboy up a bit. Things are always going to work out for the better and you don’t need to spend years pining for your lost love. Besides, when you’re moping about like that, you’re ruining any chance you have of meeting another girl. Girls like to see strong men and when you whine and complain about how hurt you are, it’s really a turn off. It’s fine for you to be sad about it, but you don’t need to let every single person you run into know how sad you are. I would say that this applies to girls as well, but it doesn’t. Girls are much better at hiding their emotions from the world, so nobody really knows how sad they are. They just have other ways of letting it out. Guys, on the other hand, seem to feel the need to share their grief with every person they come across that pays them any attention.

Well, that felt good. I think I might make Fridays my weekly ranting day on this blog. Sorry if anyone was offended by anything I said in this. It wasn’t aimed at any certain person(s), just guys and girls in general. But, if I have offended you, let me know in the comments. In fact, leave a comment if you agree with me.

Bundles Of Joy

I’m going to take a break from talking about dating and single life and talk about something that I find amazing. Just yesterday, I was at a hospital while my brother and his wife were having their first baby. I was out in the hallway with the rest of my family, but I got to hear the first cries of the newborn baby. Now, I know that this is not my baby, but I still found it to be an amazing experience. And baby Jaden is even more amazing. When my brother brought him out to see the rest of us, I couldn’t stop smiling. Jaden (the baby) wasn’t crying, but had a look of concentration on his face as his little eyes searched around him seeing everything for the first time. I’m now an uncle for the first time ever. I can’t wait for the moment when I have my first child. I know that raising children is a very hard, time consuming task, but I can’t think of anything that would be more fulfilling.

I read in the news that our President Obama is still trying to get people to come over to his side on the issue of abortion. I will say this now: I will never be pro-abortion. I can’t understand why anyone in their right mind would be okay with aborting a child. A life is a life no matter how old or developed it is, and ending that life is murder. Just looking at the adorable face of my newborn nephew and thinking of how it would be if he had been aborted makes me terribly sad. I know that, when politicians talk about it, the issue of abortion is referred to as “an issue of choice”, but if people really believed that it was about choice, they would never abort a baby. What about the baby’s choice? Does the baby even have a say in the matter of whether he gets to live? No. The baby has to live or die by whatever choice his mother makes. Something about that doesn’t seem fair to me. (Please note that I use the term ‘baby’ and not fetus. It’s just my choice of words.) Even if the child someone is carrying within them was brought about against their will, it’s my opinion that the baby should still be given a chance. Besides, if you became pregnant against your will and decide to abort the baby, aren’t you also taking away the free will of the baby? (Yes, I am aware that there are extenuating circumstances that would change this, but I'm not talking about rape. I'm talking about when people are having protected sex willingly and get pregnant anyway.) There are plenty of other options out there besides abortion. Adoption is the first idea that comes to my mind. There are so many couples out in the world that would love to have a child of their own but, for medical reasons, are unable to. Why not give them the option of raising your baby if you feel you are unequal to the task?

I know that there are people out there who will disagree with me. But I know there must be people out there who feel the same way as I do. What are everyone else’s thoughts on abortion? Share them with us in the comments.

Marriage & Moving

First off, let me apologize for the lack of posts in the last few days. I don’t have internet at my apartment, which makes it kind of hard to post anything on an online blog. But, this is the perfect lead in to today’s post. It doesn’t deal with dating, at least not directly.

I live alone in my own apartment. I have no roommates. I enjoy not having to worry about other people making their payments on rent and utilities and such. But, I’ve been told that living on my own is the perfect recipe for trouble.

Right now I’m not dating anyone, so there are never any girls over at my place to get in trouble with. But, what happens when (and if) I start dating someone again? Do we just avoid my apartment like the plague and just hang out at her place? (Or her parent’s place?) And what do we do if she, like me, is living in her own place with nobody else? Do we always just hang out at places that other people are at? What if we want to watch a movie one night? How do we go about doing that if neither of us can be at the other person’s place? The person who has informed me that I’m setting myself up for trouble was my bishop. So, what do I take from that? Are young single LDS adults never supposed to move out of their parent’s house until they are married? That seems counterproductive to me. I guess we could all try to not move out of our parent’s house until we are married or until we find a roommate. But what if we can’t find a roommate? I’m not the type of person who’s just going to move in with a complete stranger. I want to know the people I’m going to be living with. To me, and this is just my opinion, the church should encourage people to move out of their parent’s house. It’s part of growing up. If we were to all wait until we were married to move out of our parent’s house, there would be some of us who wouldn’t move out until well into our 30’s, or not at all.

On the topic of finding roommates, I’m told that moving into an apartment with a good friend can strain or ruin that friendship. When you’re around someone that much, you start to find more and more things about that person that bother you, and eventually those things are going to come to the surface as a fight. Now, I might be crazy for saying this, but I think I would like to keep the friendships I have. But this puts me in a quandary. If I’m not married, and I don’t want to ruin any friendships that I have, how do I move out? According to certain church authorities, I shouldn’t.

Now, remember, I already have moved out. But what about those of you who are thinking about it? Should we wait until we say “I do” to say “I’m moving”?
What does everyone else think? Am I just crazy? Let me know in the comments.

Living With Loss

One of the integral parts of dating is breaking up. However unpleasant they might be, break ups are going to happen. Most of us will experience at least one break up in our dating career. I’ve only known one person who never had to deal with the nastiness of a break up. He married his first girlfriend. But the odds of that happening for everyone are rather slim. So, how do we deal with a break up in the healthiest way possible?

The best advice I can give is to not dwell on the feelings and thoughts you’ll have after a break up. If you allow those thoughts to control your actions, things could get pretty ugly. It’s natural for anyone to feel sad and depressed after a break up, the key is to not let those depressed feelings take control of you. Try to find things to fill your time. The more time you spend doing things, the less time you’re going to have to think about the break up. Also, try to be around people that are going to make you happy. Most, if not all, of us have at least one friend that can always make us laugh. Try to spend time with that person. Going along with that thought, try to not be alone. When we’re alone, we don’t talk much (hopefully) which leaves our mind free to think about anything and everything, and believe me, after a break up, your mind is going to want to think about the ended relationship, which we don’t want. Try to be around other people as much as possible.

I’m not saying that you should bottle up the sad feelings you’re going to have completely. That’s not healthy. If you don’t let those feelings out, they’re going to build up and eventually explode out of you. I’m just saying that you should let them out in such a way that you still have control over yourself. I know that most guys will disagree with this, but sometimes you just need to have a good healthy cry. It’s therapeutic. But don’t let it get out of control.

Another thing that can help is to talk to people about your feelings. Talking will help you get your feelings out in the open, which will help us get past them. This is where being around friends and family will come in handy. Family will always try to help you through your problems, and if your friends are true friends, they will too.

So, what do all of you think? What have you done to help get yourself through a break up? Leave a comment and let me know.

Avoiding Awkwardness

With LDS dating, where do you usually meet the people you date? For most of us it’s either at school or at our ward. Dating people from your ward can be a good thing, and at the same time, it can be a bad thing. The good points would include being able to go to church meetings and ward activities with them. Plus, you’ll probably know them before you start dating them. It’s actually pretty nice.

But, as I said, there are some bad points to dating a wardie. What happens if the relationship with this person goes sour and you break up? You can always try the “let’s be friends” route, but that’s not always the healthiest for recently broken up people. When you break up with someone, it tends to make things awkward when you’re around that person. It’s generally easy to avoid those kinds of confrontations when you’re not a church or activities, but what do you do when both of you are still going to all the same meetings? How do you avoid those awkward encounters with each other? You could always try going to a different ward, but if you’re like me and you like your ward, that’s not going to really seem like an appealing option.

Then there’s the problem with all the other people in the ward asking you all those probing questions. “How are you and so-and-so?” “I haven’t seen you with each other for a while, what happened?” You’ll have to tell them that the relationship is over and no matter how you do it, people are going to do 1 of 2 things: They’ll either feel sorry for you, or feel sorry for the other person. Which one they feel sorry for will most likely depend on who did the breaking up. Either way, things are going to just be even more awkward for you at church. Every week, people will ask you “How are you holding up?” or something similar to it. I’m not saying that I don’t appreciate people’s concern for me, but it’s hard to let someone who was important in your life go when people keep bringing them up around you.

Once again, I’d really like some input from any of you who read this. Leave me a comment telling me how you’ve handled ward relationships and break ups.

LDS Dating Faux-Pas

Dating non-members is a touchy subject for a lot of LDS people, single or not. I know that most, if not all, single LDS people want to get married in the temple, and we should all know that someone who is not LDS will not be able to go to the temple with you. The time may or may not come when you ask someone on a date or be asked out by someone who is not of our faith. So, what do you do with that situation?

I know from personal experience that there are plenty of people out there who are not LDS, but are still wonderful people who can be tons of fun to be with on a date. But if you can’t marry this person in the long run, does that automatically mean that you can’t go on a date with them? Or do you look past that difference and just have a good time with them?

In my last post, I talked about soul mates and how you can make them to be whoever you want. Let me put a scenario past you and you tell me what you think. You meet a girl at, oh, let’s say the store. You talk with her for a while (never mentioning religion) and you find out that the two of you have quite a bit in common, so you exchange numbers with each other. You call her a day or so later to ask her on a date, she says yes, and you get together that Saturday and have a wonderful time with each other. The two of you go on several more dates together, each time having more fun than the last. The two of you grow very close over the course of a month or so. (We’re going to pretend that you still haven’t brought up the subject of religion.) By this point, the two of you have expressed love for each other and have kissed once or twice. But then, while out on a date together, the subject of religion is broached and you find out that this wonderful girl who you’ve grown so fond of is Catholic while you are LDS. What do you do? Do you immediately break things off with her due to your differing religions? Or do you stay with her? What would your thought process be at this point? You’d probably realize that you couldn’t get married in the temple. There’s always the possibility that she’d be willing to convert to Mormonism, but for this scenario, let’s pretend she’s strong in her beliefs and wants to stay that way. If you really love each other, what would happen? Would you be so staunch in your beliefs that you’d be willing to sacrifice your love for your religion? Could there be any kind of compromise between the two of you? If you did end up getting married, how would you raise your children, Catholic or LDS? There are so many questions that would crop up, it might drive you crazy.

I’m not trying to infer that I know the answer to these questions. I really don’t, and I’d like to know all of your thoughts on this subject. Have any of you been in a relationship with someone who wasn’t LDS? Please, share your thoughts in the comments.

Soul Mates: Do They Exist?

Today I’m going to talk about something that has caused me grief for a long time. So, I’ll apologize now if this post ends up being super long. I’d like to talk today about soul mates and how we find them. Everybody may not admit it, but most people hope that there is a soul mate out there for them. It’s comforting to think that, somewhere in the world, there is a perfect match for you; a yin to your yang. Everybody has probably had that dream in which we are with that perfect person. I know I have. It’s nice to think about, but very unrealistic. I’m not trying to be negative or anything, quite the contrary. I’m just saying that there couldn’t possibly be just one perfect match for you. The odds of actually finding that person are astronomical. I wholeheartedly believe that the perfect person for anybody is whoever we decide to make them.

We have been given free agency, so why don’t we use it? I’m positive that God didn’t put us on this earth to only be with a specific person. (The only people he did that to were Adam & Eve.) We’ve been given the ability to choose who we want to be with. And it is our choice, no one else’s.

This brings me to my second part of today’s post. The person we choose to be with forever and all eternity is our choice and our choice alone. Too often I hear of great relationships ending because one person got an answer to a prayer saying that they are not supposed to be with the other person. This is nonsense. We shouldn’t be praying for an answer to every single choice we have to make. We have free agency, remember? People need to learn to make up their minds for themselves. If you’re dating someone and are unsure of whether you should be with that person, then decide for yourself whether it’s right. Asking God to decide for you isn’t the way to go. You’re going to know how you really feel about the person you’re dating. They’re your feelings, not God’s. I’m not trying to discount prayer in anyway, but it seems to me that if God had wanted to make all of our decisions for us, he wouldn’t have given us that great gift of free agency. Besides, didn’t we all learn in primary that during the war in heaven the leader of the side that lost wanted to make all our decisions for us? And isn’t that why he lost? It was a bad idea and our Father didn’t want things to be that way. He wanted us to be able to make our own decisions, whether they were good or bad.

I know there are going to be a lot of people who read this who disagree with me, but that’s just too bad. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and this is mine. But I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic. Do you think there really is only one person out there for us or not? How do you feel about the topic of praying about being with somebody? Leave me a comment and let me know.

Make Or Break Because Of Music?

After talking with a friend about my last post, I’d like to take the question that I posed last Friday about music even further. I’ve already talked about what might happen when you’re in a relationship and the girl doesn’t like the music you listen to. But my question for you today is: How do you get into a relationship with a girl when you don’t agree on something as simple as the music each other listens to? Usually, at least, in my opinion, you date people who have similar interests as you. Now, I know from experience that this is not always the norm. Some people can overlook the little differences that each other has and can make a relationship work with that person.

But what if, before you’re even in a relationship with someone, something as simple as music is already a problem? Do you automatically mark that person as someone who you could never seriously date? Or do you try to work out the problem? I would hope that, if you really like the girl you’re dating and really want to try a serious relationship with them, you’d try to work out the problem. Come to some kind of a compromise that would make both of you happy.

I guess my real problem with this (and the reason I’ve written two posts about it) is that, in my experience, most girls are not willing to compromise with a guy. Either the guy has to start listening to music that the girl approves of, or the girl is gone. But, isn’t that just a little bit controlling? I’m not saying that the girl has to start listening to music they don’t like, but can’t they just let us guys be ourselves and listen to music that we do like?

And just so everyone knows, music isn’t the only thing this can apply to. It could be anything: music, books, movies, etc.

So, what is everyone’s opinion on this? Am I blowing this way out of proportion? Or do I make a good point? Let me know.

The Music Of Love?

When it comes to music, I like to listen to music that I’m sure I wouldn’t feel comfortable playing around a nice, LDS girl if we were to go on a date. I like to listen to many different genres of music. I like heavy metal, techno, alternative and others that I’m not going to take the time to list. So, my question today is: When you’re in a relationship with a girl, and she doesn’t approve of the music you listen to, what do you do? Do you just stop listening to that kind of music all together? Or do you just not listen to it around the girl?

I’d hope that the girl wouldn’t want you to stop listening to the music because, honestly, the music I listen to is part of who I am and I’d really, really hope that the girl would like me despite what I choose to listen to. I know that language in music is a real sore spot for most LDS girls, which it should be, but if they were to just look past that at the rest of the song, I’m sure they’d like it. Yes, I remember that picture from The New Era of the cockroach in the ice cream, and I remember the message associated with it. But, sometimes you have to just eat around the cockroach and enjoy the rest of the meal.

Today, however, there are alternatives to eating around the cockroach. Most places that sell music now sell both the original, unedited version of the songs, as well as edited versions of the songs that cut out most, if not all, of the language. I usually try to buy the edited versions, but I’ll be the first to admit that my entire music library is not clean.

So, this brings me back to my original question? What do you do in a relationship when the girl doesn’t agree with what you’re listening to? How do those of you that are married or dating deal with the problem? Let me hear some of your feedback.

All Day Long

I’d like to pose another question to you today. How much is too much when it comes to a date? I know that in high school, when you were going to a dance, your day was pretty much full. You’d have a day activity that would take most of the morning and afternoon. Then, you’d have a couple of hours to get changed into your dance attire. Dinner would follow that and after that you’d finally head to the dance. After the dance some people would even go to someone’s house and watch a movie. All in all, it added up to many, many hours spent for one date.

So, now that I’m older and out of high school, what would happen if I were to take someone on a date like that? If we were to spend the whole day together, would the girl like that? Or would they grow tired of being with me by the third hour? Do girls get intimidated when a guy plans a day long activity for them? I know that I personally have planned dates that involved more than one activity and have lasted for several hours, but do girls like that? Or would y’all rather have short, simple dates? Or, does it depend on who the guy is that’s taking you on the date? I’m honestly asking in earnest here so if any of the girls that read this have input, I’d love to know it.

Persistence A Virtue?

Deal or no deal is my question for you today. If you ask a girl out (or a guy, for any female readers) and they say no, does that mean that you just give up on taking this person out? Do you automatically assume that there is no way that the girl will ever change her mind, or do you wait for a while and then ask again? They say that patience is a virtue, but is persistence? I personally would say that, if you really like this person, you should keep asking them. Look at rejection as a challenge, not a defeat. Who knows? The girl might be impressed by the fact that you don’t take no for an answer. Or, conversely, she might be annoyed. But you’ll never find out which, unless you try.

Now, you need to make sure that you don’t step over the line that divides persistence and stalking. Some people will get really annoyed and scared when someone won’t leave them alone. So, be persistent, but within reason. Don’t call the girl/guy every single day and ask them out or you might end up with a restraining order instead of a date, then it wouldn’t matter how persistent you were.

Anybody have any thoughts on how to be a persistent dater, but not a stalker?

 

A Simpler Time

I recall my time in high school with fondness. Things weren’t necessarily better for me back then, but they were much easier. One of the greatest things about life back then was that I didn’t have to worry about rent or bills. And it seemed like dating was much simpler, while being infinitely more complicated at the same time. Almost every other month (sometimes every month) the school would put on a dance for the students. Some of the dances were formal and gave us a chance to dress up in our finery, while some were casual and more relaxed. Both types of dances were great fun for those that went.

Now, to explain my contradiction: Dating was simpler back then due to the simple fact that people didn’t seem to say “no” to a date proposal as often as they do now. Saying no to someone who had asked you on a date was usually thought of as rude. I think the only time it was ok to say no to somebody was if you were already going on a date on the night in question. I think the reason that saying no was such a faux pas is that people spent so much time thinking up creative ways to ask others on dates.

This leads me into the complications of high school dating. A simple phone call would never suffice. You’d have to come up with some original, creative idea to ask a girl/guy out. I can clearly recall coming home one night to find that my room had been cleared out with a note left on what was left of my bed stating that I had to follow various clues to find all of my things again. The clues eventually led me to a note that asked me to a dance. Don’t get me wrong, I had a great time finding my stuff, and the fact that I was asked to the dance made my day, but couldn’t she have just showed up at my house, chatted for a bit, and then asked me to the dance? I guess that I honestly miss having the opportunity to think up creative ways to ask a girl on a date. Once you’re out of high school it’s kind of strange to ask someone on a date that way. Your date might think you’re a little off in the head, and that could lead to an interesting date.

Now, being single and LDS, I attend a single’s ward every week. Yes, we do have activities planned occasionally, but never anything like a high school dance. If you’ve ever seen the LDS comedy ‘The Single’s Ward’ you probably noticed that they seem to have dances at the ward quite frequently, and that many of them require you to ask someone to go with you. Now, I’ve been in my single’s ward for close to 3 years, and I don’t think we’ve ever planned an activity that required you to bring a date. All of them seem to promote “hanging out” over “dating”. Didn’t a general authority give several talks to the young single adults saying that hanging out is bad? I think that it’s high time that single’s wards start planning something that requires us to pair off with people for the night. There really isn’t a better way to get to know somebody than when you spend an evening with them and focus on only them. Plus, this would give all of us in the ward the chance to go back to our high school ways and think up creative ways to ask someone to the activity. It would be really fun, I think.

Newly-Single

Being LDS and single, I’m very keenly aware of the pressure to get married that’s being exerted from church leaders, parents, ward members, friends, neighbors, pets, the random people I run into at the store, and possibly even rocks and trees. I don’t know who originally came up with the idea that LDS people should get married before they turn 25 (because after that, you’re a menace to society), but I don’t entirely agree with it. Yes, I would eventually like to get married, but on my own timetable. I look back at my last few serious relationships, and it seems like we both felt so much pressure to get married that we looked past our differences (some of them even being what some would term “deal-breakers”) and only focused on the fact that we both wanted to one day get married, so why not to each other? Obviously, the fact that I’m still single should help you to realize that none of those relationships worked out. I think it was just a few days after I went ring shopping with my last girlfriend that I realized that I’m not ready to get married. (For some reason, this sudden enlightenment didn’t hit me until after she’d already broken up with me. Good timing, eh?) But now I’m getting all the pep talks from various people about how “things will work out for the best” and “there is still someone out there for you”. I already know all of this. If I’ve learned anything from the past 7 years of dating it’s that there is always someone else out there for me and that, eventually, things almost always work out for the best.

This isn’t to say that I’m giving up on dating, far from it actually. I’m just going to be a bit more cautious about who I date and how serious I allow things to get with somebody. In my last two relationships, the girl and I declared ourselves boyfriend and girlfriend before we had even gone on a single date. I know, I know, that’s really not a good plan and I realize that now. Sad, though, that it took me two relationships to figure that out. So, now I’ve got to figure out how to take a girl on a date without giving the impression that I want to spend the rest of my life with them, which is really hard to do with LDS girls. The pressure for them to get married is much greater than it is for LDS men. But that’s because they tell themselves from an early age that they’re going to marry a nice, handsome return missionary before they turn 21. (I’m probably exaggerating this just a bit, but not by much.) This could pose quite a problem for someone like me who’s just trying to go on friendly dates.

This isn’t the only problem I’m having as a single, LDS male. The main problem I’ve had these past several years goes right along with what I just said. LDS girls tell themselves that they are going to marry a nice, handsome return missionary. So, what’s a non-return missionary to do? I could probably count on my fingers how many times I’ve been shot down by a girl because of this. (Well, I could count them all on my fingers if I had about 20 hands.) I’ve never once heard the leaders of our church tell girls to only date return missionaries and to absolutely never date someone who hasn’t served a mission. To me, it seems like most of them are told that by their parents, or even themselves, which is sad. There are so many young men who didn’t serve missions, such as me, who are still great guys. And yet, so many girls will look at these men and only see the fact that they didn’t serve a mission and immediately tell themselves that this person is not dating material. It really, well, sucks for a person like me.

So, now I need input. First, how can I find LDS girls that are willing to go on dates with me and can overlook the fact that I didn't serve a mission? Second, how can I keep myself from getting super attached to the girl on our first date and vice versa? Let me know if you have any ideas.