Dropping Hints
By Erin Ann McBride and Juli Hiatt Caldwell

How does a family ward handle the singles among their ranks?  Think of the Borg in Star Trek: “Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated …”

Almost Perfect

Catherine is a very accomplished individual. She is smart, intelligent, fun to be around.  As a convert to the Church, she somehow finds a way to blend her religion with her cultural heritage (she is the daughter of Chinese parents).  She’s just graduated from college, attending her family ward while going to activities at the nearest singles ward, two hours away. She faithfully attends FHE at the stake center every week as well.  She has somehow managed to maintain a 4.0 GPA in spite of all of this and is exploring options for grad school.  As far as women go, it’s hard to find one better. 

But here’s the kicker: the well-meaning sisters in her ward have absolutely no idea how to relate to Catherine.  She is not necessarily the fly in the soup … they love Catherine.  How could they not love such a sweet, determined girl?  A girl whose testimony is so strong?  A girl who always lends a helping hand?  A girl who has no children, and therefore a girl whose reference point in life is so dissimilar from theirs?

Sooo…

So what does the ward do with a girl like this?  They make small talk with her, asking week after week about who she’s dating, how school is going, things like that.  Now Catherine is very willing to befriend these women, but when she needs to vent about the guy she’s dating, instead of a friendly listener she gets a few sympathetic “tsk, tsks” followed by the declaration of how happy they are not to have to deal with that dating mess anymore.  And when the women in her ward start friendly banter back and forth, she would love to join in, but when you’re young and single with no children, how do you make an appropriate, intelligent contribution to a discussion on potty training?

Still Catherine perseveres, going to all her meetings and doing the things she should.  She makes a monthly appearance at Enrichment nights.  She even attended the night that the two offered lessons were on prenatal care and menopause.  (Talk about dedication!)  Someone even kindly said to her that night, “Well, I guess you will get to use this information someday.”  We’re sure the person meant to be nice … we’re fairly sure this kind sister had no idea that it sounded a little condescending at the time. 

Catherine had been attending the ward’s temple prep class, where all the young singles had been going for Sunday school, but the class ended and the ward created a new class, with the bishop asking her to attend.  What was this new class Catherine had to attend? 

Marriage and Family Relations.

Talk about dropping hints!

First pre-natal care and menopause, (we never did find out which class she picked that night), and now marriage relations?  Catherine is a good sport and has gone faithfully to this class just as she has been asked.  Still, you know the married women folk were wild with speculation when the single girl showed up in the marriage class. Was she engaged?  Was she getting married? Had all of their unfettered advice worked?  Why had they never seen this young man, the reason for her attending this class in the first place?  Or what if she really wasn’t dating anyone?  Did she need to learn something so she actually could snag a man?

It’s like dropping a tootsie roll in an ant hill — she had no chance going into it.  The bishop had thought about sending another young single man into the class (since she is the ward’s only young single sister) so she wouldn’t feel alone, but Catherine begged him, pleaded with him not to do it.  The last thing she needed was speculation that he was the reason she was there in the first place.

All we can say from here is, Good Luck Catherine! 

My Name is Nate, I’m 32, and the Last Singles Activity I Attended Was Attended Only by Seventy-Year-Old Women.

Not every family ward is indifferent to the plight of their singles.  Some wards have more singles than others.  A recent statistic in a Washington, DC area stake showed that 60% of the stake’s adults were single.  (That number did not include divorced individuals.)  And yet, that stake did not have a well-functioning single adults program.  It is sad but true that too many people just “don’t know what to do with the singles.”

Allow us to make a few suggestions.

1. Stop thinking of the singles as foreigners from a strange land.  You were single once too, even if you have forgotten what it was like way back in the day.  Granted, things have changed since the last time you brushed off your bell-bottomed pants and egg-shell shirt.  For starters, we no longer think the words “boogie” or “disco” are cool.  And dancing is rarely considered a way to meet someone.  Most people prefer to go dancing with someone they already know and feel comfortable with.  Don’t use dances as your only activity.  Think outside the cultural hall!  And please, no line dance cha-cha-chas.
   
2. Include the singles in all of your ward programs, just as you would any other person.  One idea is to hold monthly potluck dinners for the whole ward to take part in.  Families can open their homes to other families and friends, and invite the singles in as well.  “Family” activities can easily include the singles if you stop thinking they have the plague, or a hot date on a Sunday evening.  We can attest from experience that this is rarely the case.
   
3. Many young couples or empty nesters don’t hold family home evening since it’s “just the two of them.”  Why not make a few new friends and invite a few of the singles to join your family on a Monday night?  Of course, families with children may enjoy having a new friend as well.  And the singles will enjoy feeling a part of a family sometimes.  Think how great it will be to have an extra set of hands when you have to tag-team the toddlers to get them to stay for family prayer!
   
4. Create a single adults council in your stake and allow anyone who wants to contribute to participate.  Designate a certain day each month to be the singles activity day.  The McLean Virginia Stake has adopted “Singles Second Saturdays” as the one day a month all singles can plan on having an activity.  They know to save that date for the rest of the year.
   
5. Somewhere around age thirty many singles begin to go inactive.  They feel like they have no place in the Church.  More than half of all singles will be inactive by age 40.  (Warning:  These statistics are based entirely on one author’s math and a stake roster.)  Many singles become more and more alienated in their 30’s.  Consider recalibrating your singles program to adjust for this.  Are your singles falling away because you have your thirty-two-year-old male attending potluck suppers with 65-year-old women?  Maybe a mid-singles program would help incorporate the thirty-somethings before losing them to inactivity.

We are truly weary of explaining to people “how to treat the singles.”  It shouldn’t be so complicated.  We’re all human and we all came to this earth single.  We hope that atrocities such as this will soon be solved so we can get back to the important journalism we love to share.  Topics out there such as, “How to Date a Jedi,” “When Your Man Goes to the Dark Side- How to Bring Him Back,” and “How Not to Kiss a Wookie,” are just waiting for us to tackle them.  But we can’t bring you that hard hitting journalism while we are still covering such simple basics as “Don’t Ask a Fat Lady When She’s Due,” and “Hey Single Guy, Why Aren’t You Married Yet?”

“You Should Take a Marriage Prep Course,” and Other Awful Mistakes People Make

Do you have a story of equally awful proportions that you want to share with the world?  Send it erinandjuli@meridianmagazine.com !  We love to hear your horror stories.

Thanks and have a great week!