Exploring a Mother's Question

For the past two weeks my mother has been in town, helping my sister prepare to enter the MTC (which happened on Wednesday). We went on food adventures, I introduced her and my sister to pupusas, fun was had by all. We even had a mud mask party wherein dear friends and family mud masked the night away. After this event and beyond in the week, my mother and I were discussing dating and whatnot, and my mother asked a question in relation to my red delicious friend and myself. The question is this: "What is wrong with the girls here?" She was commenting on the consistent singularity of the two aforementioned men.

And that is a very good question. You would think that at a university of over 30,000 students with similar morals, all committed to living the same standards, that somewhere there would be some magical connection. I mean, that's like 30,000 students that feel that family ranks up there in the top three of important things, and marriage is in just about everyone's top 10 of things to do in college. I've heard countless talks and remarks about the great opportunities for the young people of the LDS church at the Church-sponsored schools (BYU, BYU-I, BYU-H). Where are these opportunities?

I don't have any answers, but I do have musings. A list of perhapses, if you will. 

Perhaps my associate and I need to work harder at dating. Not a very good perhaps. I have tried, and often felt like I am grasping empty air for all my efforts. I know he has as well. I do my best to get to know a lot of people, and I work closely with attractive females all the time in the theatre department. I establish very few pre-parameters, willing to date people in classes, all majors, within the ward, through friends. I do my best not to shut down any possible channels. Also, outside of Provo I have never had a problem with dating. Anywhere outside of Provo. Ever.

Perhaps the ladies are crazy. Let us be honest: A definite possibility for habitually passing this up. And when I typed this I mentally motioned to myself.

Perhaps I have lost my ability to meaningfully connect with people. I would argue against this based on the friends, acquaintances, and allies I have acquired here at the BYU. 

Perhaps the ladies are waiting for something better. It's possible that someone better exists, but with the combination of my looks, personality, steadiness, and mental acuity it would be difficult. Not impossible, but seriously evaluate the decision before you make it.

Perhaps I don't know how to date. I'll get into this after my list of perhapses.

Perhaps I simply do not fit the mold of what is considered eligible here at BYU. I mean, I do study theatre, Welsh, and how to play the ocarina. And I spell it theatre.

Perhaps I lack faith in the Lord's timetable. But I've heard a lot of talks that say that the timetable on this subject is sort of my business and that if I don't do it then I get chastised. In my defense, it's really hard to get married when people don't want to date you.

And lastly, perhaps I think about it too much. Or not enough. Happy mediums do tend to elude me.

But let's revisit two of my perhapses: Working hard enough at dating and not knowing how. Legitimate concerns. The following opinions reflect only upon the opinionator and no one else.

From where I stand, if you feel like you're working hard to date, you're doing it wrong. And maybe I'm wrong. However, it's the times when I've felt like I've worked the hardest that I also feel like I'm trying to hold back the tide by standing in the surf with my arms outstretched. Futile at best.

From where I stand, the most meaningful and lasting relationships of my life have happened almost naturally, like the confluence of two rivers. I didn't walk up to my best friends and say, "Hey, will you all be my friends?" And I'm not saying that maintenance of relationships is effortless. Life has a tendency to pull us together and apart with equal frequency, and it takes dedication and consistent effort to resist the natural forces pulling against. What I am saying is that you have to cobble together a friendship or romantic relationship from odds and ends laying about the shop then the natural entropy of the universe will always exceed any amount of effort you can muster to keep your makeshift relationship together.

In my mind a romantic relationship develops thus: Boy and girl meet and find common ground. They talk and get to know each other. As they get to know each other they find themselves attracted to one another. No one has to pass a note that says "Do you like me?" because they automatically start spending time together, and then more time, and more time, until that attraction blossoms into something magnificent. Then, each side being committed to taking what has naturally bloomed to greater heights works together to find deeper love, deeper affection, and deeper wells from which to water the garden.

And that's my ideal. I know people that have started off with a "Hey, I don't know you, let's go on a date" and turned it into a "You may now kiss the bride." But that's just not how I function. And that's why I say I don't know how to date. I don't know how to take straw and spin it into gold. I know how to take a seed, water it, nourish it, care for it, and watch it grow. I don't know how to cultivate barren earth. I don't know how to build dams to redirect flow in a direction the river was never going to go. I don't know how to do the Provo dating scene. And I have yet to find a women that is as lost as I am, that is willing to grow alongside me and flow in the same direction for a while. I feel like a lasting relationship is less about grafting in foreign branches and more about planting two seeds in the same ground and delighting as they grow and intertwine, making one tree out of two.

So maybe in the long run it's less about what's wrong with women here, and more about what's wrong with the societal structures and expectations. Or it could be what's wrong with Matt's fantastical imagination. No matter what, I know what I'm looking for, even if I never find it. 

And to all the ladies that do not want to date me, I bear you no ill will.