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Musings of a Single Thought Diva
By Erin Ann McBride and
Juli Hiatt Caldwell, your hostesses for today. Please keep your
arms and legs inside the column at all times, and enjoy the ride!
Being
a Single Thought Diva does have its challenges. One must
look fabulous at all times, because you never know who is watching,
whether it be Mr. Right, the CEO of a talent agency, Prince William,
or your aunt Myrtle, who will return almost instantly to your
mother with a complete, alphabetized and cross-referenced list
of why you are still single.
Additionally,
Single Thought Divas must be ready to jet off at a moment's notice,
whether to Paris, Institute, or the nearest dinner party.
And let's not forget her obligations to her public, where she
must regale her friends and family with the tales of her fabulous
life. But in order to regale her friends and family, she
must have a fabulous life. Why is why the Single Thought
Divas (both married and single) have had to cut back on their
regaling! We need to have a little more time to devote to
life, and a little less time talking about our lives. So
we'll be seeing you every other week with our fabulous tales,
rather than every week.
Marriage from the Crest of Thirty
It
is no secret that the Mormon culture places a high premium on
marriage. After all, it is the most important decision we
will ever make. The person we choose to marry defines the
rest of eternity, not to mention your mortal life. But something
funny happens on the way to the altar in our culture. We don’t
start dating until we are 16, and don’t seriously date until we
are 18, and yet thousands among our ranks will be married by the
time they are 19 years old. The same girls that are incapable
of picking a major are somehow capable of knowing that they have
met the perfect man with whom to spend the rest of their lives,
buy the groceries with, pay the bills with, argue over landscaping
with, and plain pick out house with. Shouldn’t you have some
idea of what the real world is like before deciding on whom you
want to spend the real world with? It’s truly mind-boggling at
times.
Weddings
Think
about the last three weddings you were invited to. How well
did you know the happy couple? Were you truly excited to be there,
celebrating the happiest day of their lives with them? How
old was the couple? And how long had it been since the couple
had started dating? When was the last time you attended a wedding
that really screamed, "This is the most important and happiest
day of this couple's life. We love them and you so much
that we wanted you here to celebrate this landmark occasion?"
We can't speak for everyone, but hey, we're never too shy to speak
for ourselves!
One
Single Thought Diva recently found herself in the cultural hall
at the local stake center holding a cup of pear juice mixed with
ginger ale (not a concoction we recommend if you actually like
your guests). The darling young couple (both bride and groom
were 22 years of age) stood in a line shaking hands with dozens
of people they had never before met. The Diva couldn't help
but wonder at the concept of having to be introduced to the
people who chose to come out and celebrate the most important
day in one's life. There was something rather odd about
the whole idea. Shouldn't the most important day in one's
life be primarily celebrated by people you actually know?
You would expect that the people you love and know the most would
be there to rally round you and celebrate this landmark occasion
with you. And not so many people that your mother has to
lean over and explain their connection to you.
Single Men and Weddings
The
next funny thing that our beloved Diva noticed was the lack of
single men in the room. As tends to be customary in our
culture the Diva was attending the ‘bride’s reception” (as compared
to the groom’s open house), which meant it was only friends of
the bride’s parents and the bride. The groom had brought his
brother, so there was one single guy at least. He had also
brought his parents, who were looking rather bored and out of
place in a mile long receiving line, accepting the congratulations
of a hundred complete strangers.
Outside
LDS culture, it is well known that a wedding is a great place
to meet other singles. Oddly enough, it is quite possible
to attend an LDS reception and be the only singleton in the room. We
thought about this anomaly and think we have figured it out.
Outside of the LDS world, you expect to find all of the single
friends of the bride and groom at the reception, but inside the
LDS world (particularly outside of Utah) you don't expect to see
their friends at all. The friends generally live scattered
all over the country, and choose not to attend the weddings of
their friends. And after all, who would fly across the country
to attend a boring LDS wedding? LDS weddings are rarely
considered the most exciting event of anyone’s week. So we put
out a plea to engaged folks (and their mothers) everywhere. After
you get engaged, make sure you stay friends with all of your single
friends. That way you can invite them to your wedding reception,
and they can meet other singles and get married and be just as
happy as you. And single people, these are your friends! You
love them! Save up! Go to their weddings! Celebrate their happiness!
And meet other singles in the process!
Non-LDS
weddings tend to really be a celebration. People talk about
how much they love the couple, and less about how they are remotely
connected to the couple. People toast, cheer, cry, and celebrate
the momentous occasion. There's dancing, excitement, and
love in the air. When was the last time any of that happened
in the cultural hall? Strange customs for a culture that
puts such a high importance on marriage! Liven up your wedding
reception! This is the happiest day of your life, and the most
important decision you will ever make — so act like it!
Just Be Yourself
It
was the conference heard round the world, resounding in the ears
of all women. Elder Holland spelled it out for us clearer than
ever before. “We ask you to stay true to the standards
of the gospel of Jesus Christ and not slavishly follow
the whims of fads and fashions. The Church will never deny your
moral agency regarding what you should wear and exactly how you
should look.”
And
we can’t help ourselves when it comes to echoing this fabulous
statement. You have the right to choose to do what you want.
If you are a Single Thought Diva you choose to yell, “Down with
low rise jeans!” and wear your granny pants with pride. Maybe
some of you actually like low rise jeans, and that is great for
you. But as for the Divas, we choose to not wear jeans that constantly
show a funny little flap of white clothing that, no matter how
hard we try, finds a way to untuck itself and bunch up outside
of our jeans. It’s not attractive. Its stupid looking! And
we can only imagine how many people have been standing in a line
behind us watching us tug fruitlessly at a shirt and hiking up
our jeans, trying uselessly to keep our unmentionables out of
sight and out of mind.
Ladies,
just be yourself! Stop trying to look like someone else! Stop
hurting yourself to be something you are not! Be your own kind
of beautiful! Just don’t do it wearing sloppy flip-flops!
Men — Our Favorite Subject. Always has been, Always will be.
We
like men. How can we not? Just the right look from the right
man can send shivers up and down a Diva’s spine, and leave her
with goosebumps. When a well-timed smile can leave you floating
for hours, how can you not love men? It’s their communication
skills we don’t love.
And
we concede here that men have a whole different set of issues
that can’t be given a cute name like ‘diva.’ Men and women simply
communicate differently, and the longer both men and women go
without communicating with each other, the more difficult it is
to understand what is intended in a simple phrase.
Women
assign much more meaning to words than the typical guy actually
means. It’s like we all start out speaking English to each other,
but somehow what the Single Diva hears is something in Swahili
while the guy is pretty sure she switched to Arabic.
Single Divas also
expect a lot of LDS guys, and rightly so. No man or woman should
get married just because someone else keeps telling you it’s time.
There is no settling allowed! But a man is expected to earn enough
to support a family, fulfill his church callings, be a righteous
priesthood holder, love his wife and support in all her dreams/career/desires,
bring her flowers or chocolates or whatever every week, remember
her birthday/their anniversary/the anniversaries of the days they
met, held hands, kissed, etc. The list goes on and on. The Single
Diva needs to keep her standards high when it comes to the gospel,
but cut the guy a little slack in the finances department. No
diva should expect her new husband to provide a home comparable
to the one her parents have, or keep the gas-guzzling SUV, or
put a full-solitaire rock on her hand.
The
trick is to learn to have fun in the moment and forget about the
expectations we had before a new relationship started. Unload
your baggage, drop it of with the valet, buckle up, and form new
expectations that match the person and the circumstances. Just
be yourself and don’t expect more than someone is willing to give.
In the Lord’s due time, you’ll find the one who is willing to
give themselves to you completely.
Your Thoughts
Thanks
to our readers who sent in ideas for our anonymous bishop in Arizona,
who needed help finding some ideas on dating on a budget. Many
of our single readers are college students, and can’t afford to
go all out with dinner and movie every time they want to go on
a date. Some of the ideas we got included doing mystery shopping
at a restaurant, so your meal would be reimbursed, going to the
family history library center, or going to the park to play on
the swings and monkey bars. One creative contribution suggested
roasting mini marshmallows over candles, and another suggested
making cookies and doorbell ditching your ward membership and
leaving the cookies on the doorstep.
Another
reader with a great sense of humor decided that the bishop in
Arizona needed to contact “Larry” from our last story, since he
seems to be an expert at the cheap date!
Our
good friend Dave in Virginia commented on Jenny and Larry as well.
He wrote, “Jenny obviously saw something in the guy to continue
going out with him. The first date would be a ‘charity date,’
but the rest are because something inside of her wanted to continue
seeing him. If she complains because the guy was a jerk every
time she went out with him, why did she see him more than once?
She, or any gal, has the right to say ‘no’.” Dave is absolutely
right. If you don’t like someone, agreeing to more than one date
is simply leading them on. Nothing good can come from convenience
dating.
Judy
wrote, “This isn't really a 'date' story, but it was somewhat
scary. For my 26th birthday, my best friend and I attended
a singles dance in SLC. A short, balding man asked me to
dance, so I consented, as I love to dance. He then proceeded
to invite me over to his apartment, where he said he and his roommates
were photographing girls for modeling.” We are going to stop
right here. Any girl should know that any guy who invites a girl
to his apartment alone is up to no good. Period! This seems
like common sense, but some of us forget that even bad people
can show up to church functions, most likely targeting LDS girls
because they are so trusting. In this case, Judy prayed about
whether to go, and negative feelings convinced her not to, and
later that man was featured on the news for criminal action in
his apartment.
WANTED: Advice
Laurie
is an accomplished, talented, individual who is completely frustrated
with her dating experiences. She has found, now that she is in
her 30’s, that many men on the dating circuit are either old enough
to be her father or intimidated by her resume. She wrote, “I
think I want to be married more than those around me realize,
and probably more than they do, but I think they interpret my lack of single-minded zeal and desperation about
it as not wanting to be married. I served as an Army officer
for ten years (mention that and it's a great guy turn-off), managed
to get a masters degree, jump out of airplanes, and become a scuba
diver. These are things that interest me. Honest conversation
interests me. Flirting makes the Martian language sound really
easy to learn (haven't tried a language course in Martian but
I'm sure some Sci-Fi devotee could hook me up). I just don't
do it.
“So
when I attend singles dances out of a sense of duty, I am generally
miserable and I don't exactly throw out the enthusiasm/come hither
charms for guys (again, I'm 32 and the guys are about 45 at the
youngest) to pick up on. When I relate these factors and the
generally bleak picture of ever dating (much less marrying), it
evokes a shaking of heads, sighs, and recriminations about being
picky, not seriously wanting eternal life, and not trying hard
enough, or lacking courage.” She mentions that she has been severely
scarred psychologically by online dating sites, LDS sites included,
and she has no idea where to go from here. Does anyone have insight
or wisdom to offer Laurie?
You
know where it goes: erinandjuli@meridianmagazine.com.
We can’t wait to hear from you!
Thanks
and have a great week.
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