Where’s Waldo?
By Erin Ann McBride and Juli Hiatt Caldwell

Does the challenge of finding someone to date remind you of a live action “Where’s Waldo?” game?  You know Waldo has to be out there, hiding in the picture somewhere, but he is so camouflaged in a huge sea of little men with striped shirts and red hats that you can’t pick him out.  You turn page after page, thinking sooner or later you’ll spot him. After all, everyone else seems capable of finding him. You scan the crowds for hours, but just can’t find a Waldo with a good sense of humor, decent table manners, and the motivation to go on dates.  How often have you heard yourself, whether inside or outside of your head, yell out “where have all the good ones gone?”  Where is Waldo?!

(I don’t know that I would really want to date somebody named Waldo though.  I fear I would spontaneously laugh out loud every time I lost him in a crowd.  Could you ever yell, “Hey, where’s Waldo?” with a straight face? But I digress …)

The dating game gets more and more complicated as you try and figure out where Waldo is mysteriously hiding.  You think you have found him, jump for joy, and then find out, no, he was just an imposter.  There are no “good ones” left.  All the Waldos have left the building.  You think it would be so much easier if the remaining Waldos would wear red hats with knobby things on top to let you know they are the good ones.  “I have a knobby red hat, I am not afraid of commitment! I like asking girls on dates!  I even pay for dinner!”  But alas, real life dating is never that easy.  All of the real Waldos have disappeared into the woodwork alongside of the liars, jerkfaces, creeps, and complete morons. 

You try over and over again to meet new people.  You search for Waldo in a crowd, turn the page to a football game, a picture full of men, spot an interesting fellow, try him out, but upon closer consideration, discover he’s not wearing a knobby red hat.  Instead he’s wearing a red bowler hat, which is not only the hat only a commitment-phobic serial dater would wear, but a very bad fashion accessory at a football game to boot. 

Waldo is getting so hard to find that you decide you need reinforcements.  You call in your friends, neighbors, mother, and others to help you spot Waldo in the parade scene.  Man after man marches on by, but you can’t recognize an authentic Waldo for anything.  Your mother, however, seems to be capable of spotting dozens at a time.  Your girlfriends attempt sit side by side with you watching the Waldo wannabes walk past, blinded by their striped shirts, unable to spot a knobby red hat.  And your grandmother, well, we won’t even mention what your grandmother is able to spot.  But let’s just say, he’s not even close to resembling your ideal Waldo.  

Where have all the good men gone?

And of course, the men are wondering where to find a good woman.  Here’s the sad law of inverse proportions:  the single people who really need to know where to look are clueless, while people who have no need to look know where to find just the right person for you.   This law states that the more certain the interfering party is that this match might be eternal, the more likely you are to have a terrible time on the blind date you agreed to after months of polite refusals.

So Where Do We Go Now?

Blind dates were just the start.  Now there are websites, and even billboards?  How far will our families go to get us married?  People are desperate to meet a good member of the opposite sex.  We have to admit, even from way up here in our lofty thrones, peering down into the world of singles, we’re having trouble finding the good ones too.  They are hard to spot amongst the commitment-phobes, superegos, drama queens, jerks, divas, spineless jellyfish, and wimps.  From the outside, most of them look the same.

Where is Waldo anyway? 

Well, we here at a Single Thought Headquarters have decided to help you out a bit.  We figure if Lance can have a website (and we know this because many of our readers sent us the link to his website, which we admit we first thought was a cruel joke), and Anmarie gets a billboard, we can have a hybrid billboard and website.  But rather than advertising just one person, we are going to help everyone.  We want to find the good ones out there and share them with the rest of you.  We are going to find Waldo!

Before we go much farther we have to say this one thing.  There is nothing wrong with being single.  In fact, we wish more people would try to enjoy their single years a little bit more.  Our problem lies with the people who think there is something wrong with being single.  But we’ll save that for another day.

We now open our humble inbox to all the good ones out there.  We invite all the well-meaning friends, brothers, sisters, fathers, roommates, cousins, and co-workers to say what’s so great about your friend/roomie/child/sibling.  There are a few rules we must abide though, and here they are:

• First name only, and location if you like.  These are not advertisements in any way.  We are just showing all the great singles out there that there are a few left to choose from.
• Tell us why this person would make a great eternal companion.  Quirks are included.  We love quirky!  Unique = personality.
• We won’t guarantee anyone a date, because we repeat again, these are not real ads!  This is just for fun.  However, if you make your friend’s (or your own) ‘personal ad’ funny, you have a better chance of getting it posted next week.  “Take my daughter, please,” does not qualify as funny. Neither does the sorry bit about the fisherman listing for a wife, asking that all applicants send pictures of whatever fishing vessel they might have.
• Please don’t tell us why the person you are nominating for a Single Thought ad is so amazing, then finish it all off with, “but he’s single.”  This one phrase does not negate all the other great qualities you just listed.  The term ‘single’ is full of potential.  It is not a liability!
• “I just don’t understand why she’s not married at 26,” won’t work either.  There’s still a lot of life to be lived, regardless of age, rank, serial number, weight, height, or acrobatic ability.  These ads are celebrations of the great things your single has to offer the world, not just a marriage.
• We are giving Erin Ann away as the grand prize.  No kidding, guys!  She’s all yours if you can come up with a clever by-line.  How often do you get the chance at a date with a world-famous author?  Her mother went into hiding to recover from the embarrassment when we announced this contest, so if you hurry, you might not even have to deal with a mother-in-law!  You won’t find this offer in any store. Act now!

Send your imaginary ads to erinandjuli@meridianmagazine.com.  Multiple submissions are accepted, welcomed, even desired! 

Singles Speak

Doug sent us an email this week that reminds us how hard it is sometimes, to be a single man in a church that exists to exalt the family.  He said, “Yes, I often feel judged for being single ... like it's somehow a sign of spiritual weakness. I'm sure it's tough for single women for all the obvious reasons, but for single men in the Church we have the added burden of being frequently reminded that we are not fulfilling our priesthood duty.  People love to quote Brigham Young, who apparently said that any single man over the age of 27 is a menace to society.  Did he really ever say that?

“It's hard to feel like a worthy priesthood holder if being single means you're not doing your duty.  Like we don't have all the other 'being single' issues to deal with already (loneliness being only one of them) ― but now pile on guilt.”

G.L. wrote something along the same lines, reminding single women that sometimes guys feel like we feel (even if they don’t often express it), and they are not alone.  He said, “What I'm looking for is someone who has similar life experiences to me.  I'm not very experienced with women.  While I've had pseudo/online relationships with women before, I've never had what you would call a steady girlfriend and have done a fairly decent job at behaving myself when I've been with a girl.  I want to find someone who has common sense, is aware of the world around her and enjoys learning things.  She also needs to have a sense of humor and love to laugh, because life is very drab if you can't laugh and laugh at yourself.

“Because of my age (30) and my standards, I do have more pressure to get married.  I may put more pressure on myself than anyone else does, but the pressure is still there.  I go to my home (family) ward because I don't feel like I fit in the singles ward and there are no single women in the family ward.  Because of my sometimes poor self-image, I have a hard time extending myself out to new groups.  If someone comes up to me and starts a conversation or the conversation is started mutually, I have no problem talking to them.  Needless to say, right now I want friends and then the girlfriend/wife will follow after that.  I guess I'm just impatient.”

Jay wrote in to remind us that even though ultimately marriage is the long-term goal we’re all shooting for, it doesn’t always have to be the immediate goal.  He advises dating to be friends first.  He said, “If friendships form, then I would see if there is something more there potentially.  All this relieves the stress of thinking, ‘could this one be the one?’ or worrying about marriage on the first date.  That is such a downer and gets in the way of the goal.”  He also let us know that prayer should be part of the dating process.   

He also suggests praying to know who to ask out, and advises asking out all kinds of women, even the ones you think might say no, if they are modest and set a good example.  Try gauging your own standards using the Strength of Youth pamphlet.  Would you want to go out with yourself? Just remember that Elder Oaks recently advised adults that using this pamphlet as a guide on how to date are misguided.  Once you are an adult, don’t date like the teenagers.  Group dates are a blast, and we all love them, but if this is the only way you date, you’re doing it wrong.  Date publicly, double with friends, but spend time with just each other.

Finis …

Special thanks to the guys who wrote this week.  We often hear from men who want to hear more about the other single men in the Church.  Any ideas you have for them is greatly appreciated!

The ball is in your court, readers. Any response to any of the above?  Be thinking of your funny ads and send us your best and worst at erinandjuli@meridianmagazine.com.  We can’t wait to hear from you!

Thanks and have a great week!