Meridian Magazine : : Print

More than a Hammer, Less than a Wife
By Erin Ann McBride and Juli Hiatt Caldwell, elves in training

So what exactly does a single guy want for Christmas? Well, it turns out, when you get right down to it, guys and girls want pretty much the same thing when they must face the holidays alone. Someone to cuddle up with, cozy in front of the fire, or someone who won’t take it personally when you face-plant them in the snow after they lost the snowball fight; someone who understands you and accepts you despite everything.

For the benefit of the guys, here is a list of things guys say they want, but not just for Christmas. It’s a little harder to find this than looking in the stocking. And this will benefit the girls as well. When it comes right down to it, we want pretty much the same thing — someone to share the ride with. The roller coaster is no fun if you have to ride it alone. So here it is: what the guys want for Christmas, New Year’s, Columbus Day…

A Little Honesty, Please!

“As a newly single man who never wanted to again be single and once more endure the horrors of dating, I've come to the profound conclusion that I find myself in my current dilemma because of sheer laziness on my part. That's right, as a younger — and dare I say more eligible — man, I found the local dating pool of young LDS women to be rather slim, and when no sparks occurred with the LDS women I did date, I took the logical action. I did nothing.

“More enterprising young men might have shipped themselves off to some LDS school of higher learning where eligible young women were as thick as flies on a three-day-old steak. Not me! I thought that an act of desperation, and thought that love should somehow find me. When it finally did it was in the form of a non-member...and well, here I am single again, so we can all see how well that worked out!

“So now I've been forced to approach dating with a new, previously untested, work ethic. By harnessing today's modern technology I've found a way to get rejected by 100 different attractive LDS women in the time it used to take me to get rejected by one! If my already fragile self esteem can take the brutal virtual bludgeoning, I figure my politely worded requests for immediate marriage can be ignored across the nation, and in a matter of weeks I can start being eliminated as a potential mate in countries I've never even heard of before!

“I fully realize that I'm not as good looking as I was 13 years ago, when I was 210 pounds with 2% body fat and had more hair on my head than the bands Led Zeppelin and Bon Jovi combined, and know I can't afford to be too choosy, but I have set some standards in a potential mate, and I'll share some of the warning signs that I look for — all of these are actual case scenarios.

“Warning Sign #1: When the woman uses the word 'slut' in her screen name. I don't know, but there's just something about this that screams STAY AWAY! I mean, I thought the whole point of looking for an LDS woman was to avoid this type of behavior.”

So girls, if you’re looking for a nice guy, choose your cyber moniker to reflect your inner beauty.

Warning Sign #2: No photo is included with her online profile. Perhaps we men are supposed to be overwhelmed by the beauty of these women's personalities and inner selves by virtue of the 12-word description that they use to describe themselves, or perhaps there is a more ominous reason they don't include a picture?

It’s always nice to see the face (and recent one, not your best picture from 1998) to go with the face.

Warning Sign #3: When in the section of the online profile where a women is supposed to tell a bit about their personality they have just these three words: I AM A MODEL. Okay, that's four words, but if being a model is the sum total of their inner selves, I'm betting they can't count that high anyway.

In the eternal scheme of things, that won’t matter and a guy who can take you the distance isn’t going to be attracted to that.

Warning Sign #4: If under the ‘What I do For Fun’ section, 'shop' or any variation thereof is listed, all men know that they should run screaming for the hills. Rich men and poor men alike will cower in fear at this admission. Nine out of ten dentists agree that it's a toss up between drug addiction, alcoholism, and shopping as to which one is the faster way to financial ruin.

Guys in general fear shopping and all it entails because that’s just a girl thing to do. Guys go shopping when they must, and avoid the mall at all costs. If we go there with you, it’s only because we know she wants to. We are bored to tears. Please spare us.

Warning Sign #5: The woman in question is 28, never married and lives with 10+ children of her own. I didn't make this one up, either…

“I just need that one special person to fall head over heels in love with me. And I think she's waiting for me somewhere, right now...in Bolivia. Unfortunately she doesn't have an internet connection.”

If You Want Us to Call You, Give Us the Right Info

First, if we run into you at a dance but don’t get to know you much, we will likely provide our contact information instead trying for yours because of the false info we have gotten and the ones who can’t bother to respond. All you need to do is email back something like, ‘just checking to be sure I got the address into my address book correctly.’ We will take it from there but you will be expected to take a minor first step in the process. Finally, remember if you give us your email address for contact that you can’t be running a filter on that address limiting, it to your address book. There is no way to tell someone who doesn’t answer from someone who never got it in the first place. I find running an email down line that about 1/3-1/2 of ladies are running some such filter to avoid junk mail and can’t be gotten to without an effort on their part beyond just giving the email address. There are nice guys out there. You just have to date them when they ask.

In other words, don’t give a guy bad information if you have no plans to go out with him. If he asks you for you number or email address, he most likely wants a date but wants you to contact him first to make sure you’re interested. It’s much easier to hear, “Thanks for the invitation, but I’m not interested,” than to get your hopes up and realize you’ve been played
again.

Lighten Up!

I just want to suggest that as singles, we shouldn't be overly sensitive or seek offense, but rather develop the reflex of giving the benefit of the doubt to our brothers and sisters. I just got another "You're a really nice guy but...” My home teachers tell me to get even more involved with the work and let things will fall where they will. You don't know me so I only expect you to listen. It's frustrating but I would rather never remarry than divorce again. My only criterion in dating is an active sister around my age.

See, girls? They’re not all chasing the 18-year-olds.

Don’t Make Sudden Moves

Make gentle, kind, thoughtful moves, moves that build confidence. Don’t tell him he’s going to lose you if he doesn’t (fill in the blank); that would be completely baffling and unnerving. For one thing, he doesn’t know he has you. You have not yet communicated to him that you are loyal to him. Secondly, if after knowing him this long, your feelings are such that you could evict him because the meter has expired, he possesses nothing, and has nothing to lose.

Play by the rules. Here they are: (1) be honest, (2) be kind, (3) be unselfish.

Notice that they have nothing to do with time. You can be both romantic and realistic at the same time when playing by these rules.

A Regular Guy Questioning

If he is old fashioned, it means he is looking for a helper. An appropriate helper. What
Genesis calls help meet is (appropriate) for him. The questions on his mind will include:
If I invite her into my life, how will that affect my life?
Will she be happy with me, or judgmental?
Will I be happy with her, or have to make a lot of concessions? (There are always concessions; Young men are oblivious to them, and older men very leery of them.)
Will my life get easier, or harder?
Will the romantic feelings last, or is it a facade?
Is she someone I can work with smoothly, or will each day harvest a crop of difficult negotiations?
Will she fit in to my extended family, and love them, or will there be clashes?
Can I trust her with every dime, every key, every account, every book and tool, every possession,
      the care of my health and home, every feeling and weakness and liability and
      imperfection, everything in my life?
Can I trust her with the nurturing and total outcome of my children?
Can I trust her that with her there will be no more loneliness, and that all my capacity for love will
      be occupied?
Does she love me enough, and trust me enough, to follow me for a lifetime, without regret?
Is that really what she wants?

When you have, one by one, consistently, answered these and similar questions for yourself, in the affirmative, and communicated your answers to him convincingly, on all channels, he will have no further reason to wait.

What He Wants the Girl to Do on a Date

1. Do not order the most expensive thing off the menu, then nibble at my plate and get a doggie bag for yours so you can have it for lunch tomorrow.

2. Do not begin telling me on the first date where we should live after we marry, what we should name our kids, or what jobs we are going to have.

3. Do not tell me that you will marry me if I buy you a new car.

4. Do not tell me that you generally do not sleep with members on first dates, but have made exceptions (there was no second date).

5. Do not bring your knitting to do during the movie. I get the hint when you are knitting baby clothes or baby blankets that you will make a good mother, but did not need that information on a first date.

6. Don't ask me on our first date if I have prayed about the relationship. It is not a relationship yet, it is a first date.

7. If you asked me out, I assume that you are paying. If you have asked me out and designed the evening, do not expect me to have my credit card or checkbook handy to pay for your choices, regardless of their cost. The person who initiates the date, male or female, should pay (even though I paid anyway in this instance out of embarrassment and because she brought no cash).

Just be yourselves! The longer we play games, the harder it is to win.

Thanks to all the men in our Meridian life who contributed these insights over the past two years. We hope the spirit of joy, giving, and purposeful dating infuses your lives as we celebrate the most precious gift given to us, the birth of our Savior, who has given us the gift of eternal life.

Merry Christmas! Erin and Juli

P.S. Let us know your dating resolutions for the New Year or send us your truly hideous dating stories from the year past. The best of the best may just win a signed copy of our novel, Beyond Perfection! Send all your tales of dating woe to erinandjuli@meridianmagazine.com.