Having Faith

Yesterday, one of my friends and fellow disciples in the ways of awkwardness and social unacceptability, Elisse, gave a Sunday School lesson in which she urged the congregation to reread and study their patriarchal blessings.  I read mine again yesterday after I got back from church.  There have always been three paragraphs in my blessing that have been the most interesting up to this point in my life.  One of these has largely been fulfilled (I hope), one is entirely in progress, and the third is clearly yet to be.  As I read my blessing yesterday, it hit me how truly prophetic and (apparently) sequential these things are.

Patriarchal Blessings are given to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by the Lord through ordained patriarchs and usually contain counsel and promised blessings to the individual based on his or her faithfulness.  Because of the personalized nature of these blessings, they should be considered sacred.  Members of the church are generally discouraged from reading their blessings out loud or sharing them with others outside of their immediate family.  In this post, I will share three short lines from my patriarchal blessing, which give only the most general idea of the content.  The vast majority of my blessing will not be shared.  I'm aware that this is very much the electronic equivalent of reading portions of my blessing out loud (in a public square), but I believe that the passages are short enough to maintain the personalization and sacredness of the blessing.  More importantly, I feel prompted by the Spirit to share these things as they appear below.

The three most interesting paragraphs of my blessing appear in order right in the middle of the blessing.  There are several short paragraphs before these three, and a few longer ones after these three, but the Lord put the most interesting parts to my life at this time right in the middle.

First, the part that I think and hope has largely been fulfilled:

"It is important to continue your education.  As you enter institutions of higher learning, you will be able to discern between right and wrong and cleave to the principles of truth."

 I say that I hope that this is mostly fulfill because I'm oh-so-close to getting my master's degree and, at this time, I don't plan on getting a third degree... ever.  If the Lord needs/wants me to get a Ph.D., I won't fight him on it, but I have basically no desire to do so of myself.

The part that's almost eerily prophetic is that it states that I will enter institutions of higher learning; plural.  At this point, I've studied for two different degrees at three different institutions and have, most of the time, had a spirit of discernment about me.  I have largely been able to discern truth from fallacy in what I've seen, heard, and been taught, and have been able to choose what is good.

Next, the part that I'm so in the middle of, it's slightly painful:

"The Lord knows the righteous desires of your heart.  You will be called to serve a mission to take the message of the gospel to many who have never had an opportunity to receive it."

When I went to get my patriarchal blessing in 2006, the patriarch asked me a few questions about myself so that he'd have a better idea of who I am and what my blessing should contain.  At some point, he asked me about my goals or aspirations for the future were... or something like that, I honestly don't remember the question or his response to it.  However, I do remember the Spirit actively engaging my vocal cortex to cause me to say, "I'd like to go on a mission."  The response to that statement came as the first sentence of the passage I shared above.  It didn't seem that profound at the time, but little did I know...

During the five, or so, years that I was called to not serve, I took that first sentence as a mild consolation that I would still be able to serve, probably later in life, as a senior missionary.  Since September or October, when I found out that I would, apparently, be able to serve in my youth, the entire process involved with having that first sentence in my blessing has blown my mind open so wide, you could fit a softball through it.  This has been a clear testimony to me of the omnipotence, omniscience, and infinite love of the Lord for me, on an individual level.  It's like the Lord walking out of an alley, taking off his tie, and saying "Like so," but on a much grander and more powerful scale.  (Don't worry if you don't catch that reference, but bonus points if you do.)

Finally, the part that remains unfulfilled:

"[T]he time will come in your life when you will desire to marry.  You will be lead to one of God's righteous daughters who is choice and has a testimony of the gospel."

I'm not honestly sure how the first sentence will manifest itself.  I mean, I've felt some desire to marry for a while, but it's almost like the Lord is saying, "No, you have not yet begun to feel a desire to marry!"  It kind of scares me... in possibly the least scary way imaginable.

The more profound portion of this statement is in the second sentence.  The Lord states, in no uncertain terms, that there is not only a woman for me, but that he will actively lead me to her when the time is right.  At times I've worried that there worried be a woman for me or that other things would get in the way, but the answer is pretty clearly, "Quit freaking out, dude, I got this," or probably something a little more eloquent.  If I will maintain faith, I can know that not only will there be a woman for me, but that the Lord will lead me to her in a way that will probably be about as obvious as an angel holding a blinking neon sign reading, "Pick This One!"

At various times in my life, I've had trouble cultivating and maintaining that faith to trust in the Lord.  Because I couldn't discern a clear path to the blessings based on the trends that I saw at the time, I didn't want to believe that they would be mine.  However, as I've continued to walk in the path that the Lord has set for me, I've watched the blessings unfold and become manifest in precisely the way that he assured me they would be.  He could see the end from the beginning, even though I could not.  At the moment, even though I cannot discern, in particular, how the Lord will bless me with an eternal marriage and family, he has assured me, in no uncertain terms, that he will provide me with the opportunity to receive such.  Unlike the me of old, I want to maintain faith and resolve to trust in the Lord and his goodness that he will provide the blessings that he has promised me.  I've doubted him before, but I'm going to do my best to not do it again.

The House of the Lord

Disclaimer: This post is about LDS (Mormon) temples.  As such, this post will be geared toward an LDS audience.  If you're not a Latter-day Saint, feel free to read it. There's nothing secret here, but be prepared to be bored out of your mind.

Over the years, I've had a somewhat complicated relationship with the temple of the Lord.

When I was baptized and received the Aaronic priesthood, I was able to go to the temple to do baptisms and I thought it was the coolest thing ever.  I felt like I really had a connection to those who had passed on and like I was doing something that was good and right in the eyes of God.  That experience was also the topic on which I gave my first sacrament talk.

The Denver Colorado Temple

I went on another couple of trips to the temple to do baptisms and I felt equally awesome about those.  However, as they always do, things changed.  When I was called to not serve, it also meant that I would not be taking out my own endowments when I was 19, as most young men do.  I would have to wait.  I went to BYU in the fall, and went to do baptisms a couple of times at the Provo temple.  As much as the workers in that temple tried, they just couldn't make me feel welcome.  Each time I went, I had to explain, in gross detail, why I wasn't going on a mission to like seven different ancient dudes who couldn't hear.  I felt sad and demoralized in a place where I was supposed to feel the greatest joy.  The last time I went to do baptisms for the dead was in about March of 2008, over 4 years ago.

Would I tell you a story if it didn't have a happy resolution?  The answer is yes, but that isn't the case this time around.

A few weeks ago, my bishop realized that I hadn't actually been through the temple, despite being the ward clerk.  That's not a rule, it's just a generally accepted practice.  Unendowed men are chosen to be ward clerks about as often as women are chosen to be ward mission leaders, but that's a total tangent.  The next week, my bishop had the executive secretary set up an appointment with me.  I figured that we'd start the long road to preparing for me to go the temple, but when I walked in, my bishop talked a little about the temple ceremonies, asked me the interview questions, and filled out a living ordinance recommend for me.  It took a little effort, but I got the stake president's signature as well and I was ready to go.

This last Wednesday, I went through the temple for the first time to take out my own endowments.  I went with my dad and my best friend during my time in Provo, Hyrum, who flew out especially for the occasion.  After many years of living with and being around the endowed, I was very well-prepared for the ordinances that took place in the temple.  Several people told me that it would be weird and/or slightly difficult to do it the first time, but it all came very intuitively to me and I enjoyed the whole thing.  Despite not trying particularly hard to remember the elements of the ceremony, I have a great memory at this time in my life, and I felt like I remember quite a bit.  While I was there I recaptured some of that zeal that I'd had when I was a new convert and was able to go do baptisms for the first time.  I feel like the temple changed my life a little bit that day, and that it will change my life a lot as I continue to go back.  I look forward to going to the temple again many times in the future and trying to dissect and glean all the elements of the ceremonies.  I also look forward to being sealed to an eternal companion in that holy house, whenever that might come.

At the temple with Hyrum... and his gold medal.

The temple is the house of God here upon the earth.  It has taken me years longer to get there than I ever thought it would, but now that I've seen it, I know that it was worth the wait.  In fact the blessings of the temple are worth whatever sacrifice must be made.  The sacrifices of time and money are often concerns, but these are often small, especially for saints in North America.  The sacrifice of sin may be one that is much more difficult to make.  The Lord has asked us to give up certain behaviors in exchange for those that will bring us greater happiness.  If we are like King Lamoni and are willing to give away all our sins so that we can come to know God, we will greatly blessed and will be able to find this happiness eventually.  We must give up our sins in order to enter the temple and participate in the sacred ordinances that take place therein.  I testify that the blessings of the temple are worth it and will bring you to a state of everlasting happiness.

I know that this is the case for me.

The Marriage Relationship

I should probably start this post with the disclaimer that I've never been married and will undoubtedly not be married within the next year.  However, I've gathered some things from eternal truth revealed from God, the observation of other people's marriages, and the wisdom that I've accumulated over the last 23+ years of life on this Earth, so I think I have a pretty good basis to make the commentary that I'm about to.  Also, if this doesn't reflect the reality of things as they are, I will gladly live a life of celibacy and never think about any woman ever again.

There are two things that I absolutely hate to hear from married people.  The first is almost irrelevant and the second is of dire importance, such that I believe that the eternal life of man and woman rides upon it.

First, I really hate it when married people say, "Oh my gosh, I married the (wo)man of my dreams."  All I can think is, "Really?  You had the entirety of your imagination at your disposal, and *that's* what you came up with?  I'm disappointed."  If you married the person of your dreams, I applaud you on keeping your expectations low, but I have to wonder about your sense of creativity and imagination (and I'm an engineer).  Like I said, this is almost irrelevant, but I felt like I should share as long as we're on the topic of things I hate hearing married people say.

The second is far more common and far more important.  I really hate hearing married people say, "My [spouse] made me do [insert activity name here]," or "My [spouse] doesn't let me [insert activity here]."  I hear this most often from men speaking of their wives.  I assume it's usually in jest, but sometimes I have to wonder if the speaker actually believes it.

I find this to be patently false the vast majority of the time.  I don't think I've ever seen a person being physically forced to do something by their spouse.  I'm positive that it happens in certain situations, but that's the topic for another post (yeah right, not on this blag).  I think that, in the vast majority of cases, the true reasoning can actually be boiled down to two possibilities.  A better way of saying this would be either, "I fear the natural and/or contrived consequences that would be imposed if I (don't) [insert activity here],"  or "I am (refraining from) [insert activity here] because I love my [spouse] and am willing to make that sacrifice."

While the first statement is sufficient to keep a marriage relationship together and both members reasonably happy, it should be made clear that the second statement is the higher law.  For example, it's good for a man to say, "I'm not going to go out on a boat with a pair of hookers and a briefcase full of blow because I'm afraid that my wife would shoot me in the junk and take half my stuff."  That will, indeed, keep a marriage together and keep both members relatively happy.  However, it's much better if that man was to say, "I'm not going out on a boat with hookers and blow because I sincerely love my wife and it would break her heart. (And I don't want to give her herpes!)"  I use such an extreme example because "I'm not allowed to go out on a boat with hookers and blow," just sounds ludicrous.  Feel free to substitute a more appropriate example to your life.

The gospel of Jesus Christ teaches men and women that personal sacrifice is an essential part of happiness in this life and vital to the life hereafter.  To love someone is essentially to willingly make sacrifices for their benefit.  Christ performed the ultimate act of love when he laid down his life so that we could live eternally.  We should do the same in our lives and our marriages.  I believe that it is by small and simple sacrifices each day that we show love for one another and that we should not frame these sacrifices as acts of compulsion in our speech.  If you're doing something because you love your spouse, you should say it that way. In reality, no one can force their spouse, or anyone else, to do something contrary to their own will.  If you're doing or refraining from doing something, it's because you are making a choice to do so; and hopefully this choice is motivated by love rather than fear of consequences, though both are sufficient.

If and when I get married, this will be my approach to marriage.  I refuse to approach it any other way, and I will ask my wife to strive to approach our marriage the same way.  And, as I stated before, if I'm totally off base on this, I will gladly join a monastery.  That's just how I roll.

The Problem

Based on whatever knowledge you have of my life, you might have already formulated some ideas on why it lacks romance and/or spousage.  Based solely on what you read in this blag, you can justifiably come to the conclusion that I have a few emotional issues.  However, the more distance I put between myself and my mother, both temporally and spatially, the less of a problem this really is.  You might also come to the conclusion that I'm somewhat passive around women.  This is also much less true than it used to be.  At age 16, I wanted nothing to do with girls and they pretty much reciprocated that desire.  However, at 23, I'm much more comfortable around women than I've been before.  I've also come to the conclusion that I'm less approachable to women because of my size (~6'2" and 250 lbs) and the Native American blood that gives me something of a disapproving scowl on my face even when I'm not unhappy.  You could also think that I might have trouble finding a woman who's as smart as me, who gets my sense of humor, etc.  The list goes on and on.

I do not consider any of these 'typical' issues to be the biggest problem between me and women.  This biggest problem is that both they and I move.  In the last five years, between Denver, Provo, and Corvallis, I've probably moved 7 times.  Some of those were very temporary, but there has been large uncertainty about exactly where I would be in the not-so-distant future.

For the sake of completeness, let's first discuss long-distance relationships: they don't work.

Now moving on, from about February of '10 to September of '10, I met 3 women that I could have definitely seen myself marrying.  Two of these were in Provo before I graduated and one was in Denver after I moved back in with parents.  In all three cases, I had no idea where I was going to be living a year from the date I met them.

In the case of both the women in Provo, I was getting ready to close out my time as an undergrad student and didn't really know what I was going to do afterward.  During this time, I just wasn't concerned with women because I had more pressing issues like how I was going to eat in 6 months' time.  I still held the delusion that I was going to find a job somewhere in industry, which wasn't the case.  In addition, asking a women whom you only met 3 months ago to move with you is asking a lot, even when you're 100% certain about the location.  When you have no idea where you're planning on moving, it's just downright socially unacceptable. 

In the case of the third woman, I was still totally uncertain about where I was going to be in a year's time.  I had not yet started applying for grad schools, though it was apparent that that would at least be a backup plan.  I was still not particularly concerned with women until about April of '11 for the same reasons as before I graduated from college.  By the time my future became secure enough to feel comfortable dating again, I knew that I was going to be moving to Oregon in the fall and didn't really feel the need to ask any woman to move with me.

A component of these conundra is the fact that, in 2012, women can easily lead their own lives.  In 1952, it was likely that many women were basically just waiting around for a husband.  In 1972, there was still a statistically significant chance that a woman (especially a Mormon) would not be doing much in preparation for marriage.  In 2012, more women go to college than men.  (This is largely a racial issue, but that's a post for another day.)  Women have plans for their lives like work, school, or a mission that they don't necessarily want to drop just to follow a potential spouse around.  This is another reason that it's harder to get married now than when your bishop got married.

As I move forward, I have the better part of a year and a half in Oregon before my future will, again, become uncertain.  If I find a woman who I want to marry, I have enough time to court her an build a relationship.  The prospects don't necessarily look all that bright at the moment, though I hold out hope.

Jerk Theory and the Law of Chastity

After my last post about 9 hours ago, I received a comment from one Colonel Crimson, who, I'm about 99% confident, is a SpUte fan (but hey, we all have our faults.)  After reading through a few posts on the Colonel's blag, there are two things that I want to say.

The first is that the tenants of 'Jerk Theory' or 'The Game' are at least half true.  Jerk theory basically states that women prefer men who treat them like crap; women will deny this left and right, but they often end up with guys who treat them like crap, regardless of how much they say they want a guy who's funny, nice, and smart.  In the words of the Colonel, women will follow after "alpha (α) males" (douchebags, essentially) while ignoring the "beta (β) males" who are less aggressive.  On the contrary, women will tell you that they want a guy who treats them well and respects them.  These two ideas are contradictory and neither seem to reflect the total reality.

Because of the evolution of the human race, there are compromises between aggression and docility (for lack of a better word) among males.  In primal human males, the trait of aggression was perpetuated not only because more aggressive men were more likely to pursue women with whom to reproduce, but also because aggressive men were more likely to be able to protect their offspring from outside threats and keep them alive to reproduce and pass on those genes.  However, aggression is not a universally beneficial concept in the realm of evolution.  A male who is too aggressive will be prone to killing his mate and/or their offspring and will not be able to pass down his genes.  Thus, there is a balance to strike between the aggressive and the docile characteristics of males.

Primal females had to strike that balance, and try to find a man who was aggressive enough to protect their offspring, but not so aggressive as to kill and eat them.  We can observe similar behavior in modern women.  The traits of aggression and docility are manifest as confidence and niceness (again for lack of a better word) respectively in men.  These ideas are not inherently mutually exclusive, even though one tends to take away from the other in the observed populace.   The best responses I've received from women have been at times when I was both confident and respectful.  From what I've been able to gather from my time on the Earth, women want a man who has both swagger and a deep respect for the woman who he's with.

Unfortunately, the traits of confidence and aggression often end being correlated with self motivation, greed, and straight-up douchebaggery.  Due to the nature of our evolution, the slightly more aggressive ends up edging out the slightly more docile and the aggressive man who treats women like crap ends up with more women than the docile man who tries to remember what his mom told him about being nice to women.  Thus, jerk theory is born even though a balance between confidence and respect would be more ideal.

I have to add as a slight disclaimer to this logic, that, in my adult life, I've generally pursued women who were fairly nice and docile themselves.  I'm not the kind of guy who goes after the b*tchy, slutty my-size Barbie doll.  If that's the woman you're after, then treating her like crap might just be the way to go.  And also, as if you couldn't tell from my last post, I'm not exactly the mack daddy of Heimlich County; these are just analytical observations I've made of other relationships as well as of my own along with a parallel to principles of biology to reconcile both jerk theory and what women do to reality.

Secondly, I'd like to bear my witness of the law of the chastity.  I was a convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and I've experience firsthand that sexual contact is not the way to long term happiness.  In the end, the only way to avoid the heartbreak and sadness that eventually come from illicit sexual activity is to abstain from it altogether.  I've felt empty and worthless as a direct result of the things that I've done, and it was only through the atonement of Christ that I was able to feel whole.  I have a testimony that marriage in the temple is ordained by God and I have set it as a goal for myself to make that covenant, despite all the stacked odds against me.

And to Colonel Crimson, if you end up reading this, I want you to know that I respect you, I really do.  You refuse to accept the bullsh*t that women dish out about just wanting a guy who's "nice and funny."  You've taken a step back, examined the facts as they really are, and realized that what we hear isn't usually what we see.  Naturally, I think your conclusions are slightly misguided, but I respect you for making them nonetheless.  Stay classy, my friend.

This Post is Gonna Get Like a Billion Pageviews

People who have just met me are often surprised to find out that I'm about 97% confident that I won't get married during this lifetime.  I think I usually come off fairly typical and maybe even desirable (though that's pushing it) when you first meet me and it takes a while to realize that I'm actually a stark raving lunatic.  This is probably why I've been engaged... twice... and neither of them has worked out.  Both fiancées #1 and #2 realized somewhere along the line that I'm actually a terrible idea.

The particular event that inspired this post was a bishop's fireside that, naturally, focused on finding a spouse.  Most of the people in my ward don't know me that well and were/might be surprised that I hurried off afterward to go cry myself to sleep.  I this might offer a little clarity for those who REALLY want to know.

As with my other posts about women, if you're easily offended or disturbed, please take the opportunity to look away now.  I'd also re-examine what you're doing surfing the internet, but that might just be me.

Let's examine the evidence of why I probably won't end up married anytime soon:

• My mother didn't love me enough.  More strictly, she didn't love me in a way that I (or sane people) could feel loved.  It's a terrible cliché, I know, but without the unconditional love of a mother or any other female figure in my life (which there was none) I have a hard time believing that a woman might love me, personally, for who I am. 
• My mother tragically skewed my view of women.  There's no two ways around it, my mother hates men, and it shows in the way she treats my father.  In her eyes, the only men who are worthy to live are the ones with big, fat wallets, and 12-or-more-inch long penises.  Since my mother is the only woman I really knew growing up, I somehow gained the impression that women didn't really like men, but tolerated them for the hard labor and spermatozoa.  In a cruel twist of irony, this song was made by Good Charlotte... any guesses at what my mom's name is?
• I didn't exactly grow up with the best example of a healthy and stable marriage.  My parents tell me they love each other, but it's really hard to tell by looking at them.  Their time together was usually dominated by my mom criticizing my dad and throwing crap at him while my dad swore profusely. The times they told me they loved each other were outnumbered at least 10 to 1 by the times they told me how big of a prick/b*tch the other one was.  When this is your mental picture of marriage, it's not exactly something you run out to sign up for.
• Contemporary western society doesn't exactly embrace men.  Why are men from all over living in their parents' basements playing video games all day?  It's because there's really no place in our society for those with a Y chromosome.  In courtship, men don't really have much to offer women these days, while women still expect men to significantly improve their lives.  Simply put, women still expect just as much from men as they ever did, but men have much less ground to stand on.  Additionally, society continuously deprecates men, but still expects them to have plenty of confidence and no insecurities.  At no time is this more apparent than when you ask men to approach women in courtship.
• I'm not exactly what you'd call a typical Latter-day Saint male.  There are two common simple, objective metrics by which a young woman can evaluate her future spouse: RM status and the relationship he has with his mother.  I'm not eligible to go on a mission, and as you can image from the reading above, my relationship with my mother is strained.  In baseball, I'd have one more strike, but with many women, I don't.  Women have a lot of other things they're looking for in a spouse that might eliminate me from consideration, but these are the two most damning ones.
• Nature and nurture.  In addition to my mom skewing my views of women, I was born with a chemical predisposition to not be very aggressive.  This was combined with the fact that I was an only child and spent much of my time without the company of other people my age, making me not terribly outgoing, or excited to socialize with other people.

Boom goes the dynamite.

I hope that gives you a good idea of why I'm so pessimistic about my prospects for marriage.  In my mind these all fit together fairly easily, but I'm not sure that I totally managed to communicate what's going on in my brain.  I think you get a pretty good idea, though.

...Can't Live Without 'Em

Reading through the posts in my blag, you may think that I'm kind of a misogynist douche who hates everything about women. When I went through all of my blag posts, I realized that that's kind of the impression that I gave. Let me assure you that I love women and honestly wish that I saw more of them (i.e. the 'Unfortunate' in the title.) Here are some things that I love about women, in the order that I thought of them.

• Women are daughters of God. God loves his daughters just as much (never more and never less) than he loves his sons. He intended neither to have dominion over the other, but that they should work together so that each could obtain eternal life.
• Women are generally more emotional. Whether this trait is inherent or learned is a matter of debate, but regardless of which it is, it is a fact of life. Women, in many cases, are conversely talented to men. That is to say that women often have abilities that men don't and vice versa. In a family unit, a man generally functions as the analytical, organized, and boring left brain while a woman functions as the sensitive, impulsive, and fun-loving right brain. These two work together to make a functional and cohesive family unit. Women are the Yin to Men's Yang, if you will.
• Women are often more charitable. Because of their emotional disposition, women are more likely to give of their time and their substance to help others.
  
• Women generally like children. One time, fiancee #2 said that she was going to "convert me to babies." That is to say that she was going to try to convince me that babies are inherently wonderful. This is not possible with me, nor with any man because men are generally more analytical and task-oriented. All babies do is eat, poop, and cry and they really don't do us much good for years after their birth. Basically, we evolved as a species because men like to make babies and women like to actually have them. Were it not for women's affinity for babies, the very existence of homo sapiens as a species would be in jeopardy.
  
• Women teach their children to function in close relationships. As much as progressive feminists despise traditional gender roles, they are kind of inherent in our genes. Basically, men evolved to keep the ravenous, wild beasts from killing their family and women evolved to keep members of the family from killing one another. Generally, it's a mother who teaches her children to play nice with their siblings and the other kids and makes sure that there's at least a little equity amongst her children. This, hopefully, translates into the close and intimate* relationships that we have in adulthood being healthy and functional.
• Women are generally good at multitasking. Men's brains often function in a linear, systematic way that allows them to focus intently on one thing at a time and to do that one thing efficiently and effectively. Women's brains, conversely, tend to fire in several different directions at once, which allows them to do many different things at the same time. Thus, there are many non-linear, multi-focused tasks that women can perform better than men, conversely to the linear, single-focused things that men can do well.
• Women love to talk. Hearkening back to women being more emotional, women are more likely to try to communicate across a relationship. Human nature and society often constrains women from speaking their minds, but it is a beautiful part of femininity. Inasmuch as I'm not clairvoyant, I love it when a woman actually tells me directly what she's thinking about.
• Women are often concerned with appearance. While caring too much how things look can often be detrimental, it is often important to care at least a little bit. Men generally don't really care how things look and it often results in things looking like crap. Women help balance out this effect with their affinity for appearances.

I might be able to come up with some others, but I think I got all of the most important ones. Women are great, and together with men, we are equipped with the ability to find happiness in this life and in the next. I hope that all women can embrace who they are and what makes them women. Until next time, folks.

*Unlike most Mormons, I don't use 'intimacy' as a euphemism for sex. When I say intimate, I actually mean intimate.

The List

Latter-day Saints around the world are often encouraged (sometimes to their detriment) to create a list of qualities that they would look for in a spouse. I've always thought this was kind of a corny cliché, but recently I've been thinking about what kind of woman I'd like to be with for the rest of eternity... yeah, that's right, ETERNITY! Considering the nature of my 2 previous engagements, I probably should have done this sooner, but alas, here's what I've come up with. I've ranked them in approximate order of importance, but other than the pluses at the bottom, they're all pretty important.

• Sane, or in more PC terms, emotionally stable - I'd like to think here that there's a happy medium somewhere between being totally incapable of expressing emotion and thus bottling it up and wanting to kill people in their sleep (à la fiancée #2) and being so emotive that every decision you make is dominated by emotions. Maybe this is just a pipe dream. There are various other neuroses out there, but let's just say that I'd like to be with a woman who's within about 2 standard deviations of average sanity. Just about any woman who was loved by and who still has a good relationship with her parents and who hasn't been sexually assaulted/molested will be easily in this range. These are the two parameters I look at most. I look forward to your letters.
• Compassionate, Kind, Genuine, Sincere, etc. - I've met a few hardcore, two-faced b*tches in my day and I want nothing to do with that. I'd like to be with a woman who is capable of being a caring and empathetic mother and is willing to love people for who they are. All of us make mistakes and I only hope that I can find a woman who is willing to forgive when true repentance is espoused by the transgressor.
• Dedicated to the Gospel & to Christ - I really don't want to have to drag my wife (and, by extension, our children) to church kicking and screaming. While most of the women who fit well in this category would be less than interested in me, I still hold out hope. :)
• Financially Responsible - I know that most women get some strange, ethereal utility out of spending money on things that they may or may not ever use, but there are always limits. If a woman doesn't have the capacity to know how much money her family unit is bringing in and limit her spending to less than that amount, I will run away with my fingers in my ears yelling "LA LA LA LA! Can't hear you!" all the way.
• Reasonably Intelligent - My engagement with Fiancée #1 broke off 1) because we were both a little cuckoo and 2) because she was significantly less intelligent than me. Don't get me wrong, I loved her, but when there's basically no intellectual compatibility or common ground, it's just not going to work. I generally suppose that I'm about 4.5 standard deviations above average in intelligence. Even though it would eliminate a large proportion of women, I think a woman would need to be at least 1.5 standard deviations above average to be compatible.
  
• There's No Good Antonym for 'Jealous' - I'm not exclusively talking about being jealous of other women. My companion shouldn't be worried in any way about that, because engineers make great husbands. What I'm speaking of more is something I call "time jealousy." I've met a few women who are so jealous of their husbands having hobbies or friends that they whine so incessantly, their husbands give up hope of ever having a life outside of their wife. I understand that some people need quality time to feel loved, but at some point, you cross over into the realm of the first point on this list.
• Attractive - Let me just say that I'm in no way looking for a swimsuit model (because men don't generally find supermodels terribly attractive.) Attractive women are great, but at the end of the day, you have to deal with the b*tch behind the pretty face. There are really only two things that I look for. The first is a woman who's thinner than me, because let's be honest, no one is going to be happy if a wife is flabbier than her husband. I'll admit the second is weird, but I think I'm entitled to my preferences. I don't know what it is, but I like a woman a shapely chin. Yeah, it doesn't really make sense to me either, just go with it. If a woman is reasonably thin and has a nice chin, she's pretty much all that ask for in terms of looks. (I'm also a sucker for a woman with green eyes. This is in no way a prerequisite, but it would be a solid plus. :)
• Accepting of my Humor and the Frequent Lack Thereof - This kind of hearkens back to point 2, but I'd like a woman who will crack up at my witty remarks every now and then. It'd be even better if she had a few witty remarks of her own, but I make no such demands.
• Pro 2nd Amendment - I embrace an "I will have guns in my house, and if you don't like it, you can come take them from me; I'll be waiting," kind of mentality. If a woman doesn't accept guns in the house, we shouldn't get married. Luckily, this is becoming progressively easier to find.
  
• Willing to Let me Name my Firstborn Son Whatever I Please - If he was born right now, his name would be "Jimmer."

Pluses (By no means necessary, but nice nonetheless.)

• Affectionate - I like to be touched and to touch in return. If a woman shared that sentiment, it would add a lot to our relationship.
• Sports Literate - A healthy proportion of my banter comes from the world of sports, especially from the months of September to January (Football season and MLB playoffs.) If a woman could at least appreciate an occasional game, it would be really nice.
• On a Similar Level of Nerdiness - I don't necessarily want a woman who wants to talk bearing capacity failures and prestressed concrete all day, but I would like a woman who has at least a couple of things that she's mega-nerdy about. It could be biology, literature, speech anatomy, or ancient near-eastern history, but I'd like a woman that had that passion about a thing or two so that she could talk about it all day. Also, a woman who appreciated Doctor Who, anime, and the occasional video game would be nice too.

Well, that pretty much sums it up. There may have been a few things I forgot, or that are short extensions of points already mentioned, but I think that should do it for now.

Don't Confuse the Three

Over my about 22.5 years of life so far, I've gained some wisdom that I wish everyone, especially those in my age range, understood. This wisdom is a knowledge of the segmentation of and difference between three oft-confused things: Love, Lust, and Infatuation. In the US, we often add the meaning of latter two in the first. Like any word or words in English or other languages, the definitions of these can vary depending on who you ask and the context of the statement in which the word is used. There's a whole field of people who don't make any money as they study semantics. There are often no clean cut, concrete definitions for words and when there are, the definitions are always changing. Regardless of how you define the three words listed above, I have gained some insight into three phenomena of human interpersonal relationships that I have labeled as Love, Lust, and Infatuation, and I would encourage anyone who reads this to understand them and, at least in general, refer to them as such.

Much of my insight into these three interpersonal phenomena has come through my study of religion and religious texts. I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and my knowledge of these three things is irreversibly tied to my membership in this church and to my faith. I will refer to scriptural passages and to principles of the Gospel of Christ inasmuch as they have helped me learn about phenomena of human behavior.

Infatuation

Infatuation, as I know it, is an intense desire to be with a person to whom one is physically or emotionally attracted. In contemporary America, we often say things like "falling in love," when we refer to infatuation. This phenomena can be either one or two-sided; one person can be infatuated with another either with or without reciprocation. When infatuation is reciprocated, it often results in a passionate, whirlwind relationship. The sad truth that we all must face is that infatuation, no matter how fervent, is temporary. No matter how much we think we care for someone or how "in love" we may be, the infatuation will always burn out. Sociologists have studied the phenomenon of infatuation and have found that it generally lasts, at most, two years. Regardless of who is involved, the intense feeling of attraction of one person to another will usually die out within two years time. The important part is what we decide to do after that time.

Allow me to say, as a disclaimer, that I believe in the principles of evolution and the principles of creation and I do not believe that these two are mutually exclusive. You can disagree, and that's just fine with me. That being said, I will get on with my point. Evolutionary biologists tell us that infatuation developed in humans in order to increase our reproductive output. In other words, if we didn't fall into an intense attraction for another person we wouldn't reproduce nearly as much. The genes that inhibit infatuation have been naturally deselected, in a manner of speaking. I would just add that the God of heaven created us with a propensity for infatuation so that we would want to get married and fulfill that aspect of His eternal plan. If we were really thinking about what marriage would be like instead of idealizing it through the rose-colored glasses of infatuation, I get the feeling that there would be drastically fewer marriages.

Infatuation is important, but it is even more important to recognize it and to recognize when it has faded and how one should proceed.

Lust

Paul the apostle used the word "lust" in many of his letters to various Eurasian churches in his day. The use of this word was often in reference to sexual desire and the expression thereof. This meaning of the word persists today such that it is almost used interchangeably with sexual desire. However, I propose a broader definition that encompasses more than just sexual lust. Lust is, at its core, selfishness. I would describe lust as a desire for something whether concrete or intangible such that one is willing to sacrifice the well being of others. In the case of sexual lust, one is desirous to engage in sexual behaviors for the sole purpose of satisfying his or her desire, without regard to the desires and welfare of others involved. Merely harboring these desires is enough to constitute lust and acting on them involves a greater degree of lust. I believe that lust, in general, should be essentially synonymous with selfishness and greed. Putting your own desires before those of others is at the heart of lust.

The best example of lust is that of Lucifer in the premortal life as far as Latter-day Saints understand it. In the grand council of heaven, the plan of salvation, which we are living, was presented before the children of God. In this plan, the children of God would have to choice to follow him and to be redeemed by Christ, or not. Lucifer, who is Satan rebelled against God, saying, "Behold, here am I, send me, I will be thy son, and I will redeem all mankind, that one soul shall not be lost, are surely I will do it; wherefore give me thine honor." Moses 4:1. It is common amongst Latter-day Saints to suppose that Satan's plan would have forced humanity to do good. I believe, however, that this was actually one in which there was no law and thus all would be saved by default and in which none would be able to progress. Satan so desired the glory and honor of God that he was willing to sacrifice the eternal welfare of all the children of God to get it. This is the most profound example of lust that can be found.

Love

Love is the opposite of lust and selfishness and can thus be characterized as selflessness or giving. Paul used the word "charity" to describe how the saints should treat others. Said he, "Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, it is not puffed up." 1 Cor 13:4. In this context, the word "charity" could and should be interchanged with "love." Love, in its purest form, is the state of being willing to make personal sacrifices on behalf of another.

In his book, "The Five Love Languages," Dr. Gary Chapman reveals that there are essentially five ways that a person can feel loved by another. These are the five love languages. In this book, Dr. Chapman emphasizes that it is important to speak your spouse's love language, even and especially, if it not your own. Regardless of how big or small the sacrifice might be, Dr. Chapman emphasizes that it is important to make sacrifices in order to make one's spouse feel love. He also states that it is impossible to force someone to love you, everyone has the freedom to choose whether they will make some sacrifice on behalf of others or not.

The premier example of love is, of course, the Savior, Jesus Christ. Because he desired our eternal welfare, he suffered beyond all mortal comprehension and willingly died. He made the ultimate sacrifice so that all mankind could return to God and become His disciples. The well-known scripture John 3:16 truly shows what love is and should be.

Earlier in this post, I said that it is important to know what one should do in a reciprocal relationship after the infatuation has worn off. What you should do, if you haven't already, is to love. When the infatuation wears off, you should be prepared to make sacrifices on behalf of your partner/spouse so that he or she can feel loved by you. Even better, you should get in the habit of making sacrifices while the infatuation is still there, before they even begin to feel like sacrifices. God has also commanded us that we should love everyone, not just our significant others. It is important for all of us to show love to everyone who we meet, whether we'd trust them with our children, or not. I don't know this from experience and I have never really done it myself, but I do know that this is the way that God has prepared for His children to be happy.

Thanks for that Dr. Benzley

Today I got an email from BYU's civil engineering department asking me to fill out an exit survey before I graduate and that it's required for graduation, blah blah blah. Before today, I was kind of looking forward to this email because it meant that the CE department had actually been keeping track of me and that I am indeed on track to graduate in two weeks. However, once I opened the exit survey and started filling out the questions, I was slightly less than contented. I'm sure that my department chair, Dr. Steven E. Benzley didn't mean to totally defame my character and make me look like a worthless waste of flesh, but that's pretty much how it turned out. Here are the first four questions from the survey. The rest of them are irrelevant to my point and mostly consist of me crapping on the incendiary evil that is the math department.

1. Where will you be working after graduation?
2. What is the salary range of job offers you have received so far?
3. Are you married?
4. Did you serve an LDS mission?

Those were literally the first four questions on the survey. Of all the failures I've had over the past 4 years, these are clearly the most poignant and agitating. When you submit mission papers and the Church says, "Hell no, you won't go!" you don't exactly feel like you're the king of the world. You could argue that this wasn't actually my fault, but you're certainly not going to convince my subconscious. As the Divine Comedy skit 'Zoobie and the Beast' put it, "The point of college is to get married!" At BYU, this is obnoxiously valid and rigorously followed by students and ecclesiastical leaders. Barring some tragic turn of events that would result in me getting married in the next two weeks, this isn't going to happen. My relationships with both fiancée #1 and fiancée #2 serve as the pinnacle of my inability to fulfill my BYU destiny. And finally, I've busted my A for the last 4 years to be able to earn a degree that was actually useful and would land me a good job after college. Little did I know that in 2010, a BS in Civil Engineering would be about as useful as a BA in English. My BS is genuinely BS at this point. Perhaps it's that I have no real experience to speak of, or maybe it's that my résumé just sucks, because I have applied for ~300 jobs and I have not heard back from a single one of them for an interview. Yeah, that's right, it's not my lack of professionalism or personal skills that are holding me back... at least not yet, it's actually just that people see my résumé and say, "No thanks."

So I thank you BYU Civil Engineering Department for pointing out my most significant failures from the last 4 years and then jamming them into my eye sockets. I would liken my feelings right now to a red-hot cast iron torsion sample thrusted squarely and firmly into the groin... or so. Now the best part is that I get to answer similar questions 2, 5, and 10 years from now as a follow-up. Hooray for reliving this wonderful event... and hooray beer!

Call Me a Chauvanist Douchebag, but...

Note: This is not my post on militant feminazism, that may or may not come later.

Disclaimer: This post will probably be offensive to everyone, especially married people, women, and double especially married women. If you tend to be offended by things, please refrain from reading this post... Don't say I didn't warn you.

If there has even been a deterrent to me getting married, it has been the way that married people interact. More specifically, the way that many wives treat their husbands makes me want to join a monastery and never see another living woman as long as I live. The following is probably the best explanation of why I may very well never get married and why, for years, I had absolutely zero desire to do so.
A week ago, literally on my birthday, I was blessed to give a sacrament talk on the family. This has made me think about the relationship that I had with my parents and the relationship that my parents had with each other. Naturally, the first marriage relationship that I had the privilege to view was the one between my parents. My parents really didn't have many friends, (surprise surprise) so I didn't see much in the way of other marriage relationships until I was about 16, when I joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Knowing that I didn't see much in the way of marriages between birth and age 16 is crucial to understanding my skewed views of both women and marriage.

To start off, I suppose that my mom has an IQ of between about 70 and 75. I don't mean to disparage her, but she is just not a very intelligent individual. On the contrary, my dad has an IQ on the order of 115 to 125. He has always been a very intelligent man and is probably the best-read mailman that you'll ever meet in your life. It's sad how he ended up not being able to go to college, but that's a story for another day. Anywho, the point is that there was quite a disparity in intelligence between my parents, my mom being on the lower end and my dad being on the higher end. Additionally, it is important to note that my mother had very high quantities of both pride and paranoia. She always believed that she was right, regardless of how preposterous or poorly founded her claims were. And, oh gosh, how my mother had other issues, but I don't feel the need to turn my blag followers into a psychiatrist.

From my perspective, this was not conducive to producing emotionally healthy and chemically well-balanced children. In most of the arguments that my parents ended up getting in, my dad almost always made more sound arguments because he just had a dramatically higher IQ. With my IQ and logical pattern of thought, I generally ended up relating more with my dad than with my mom. These arguments most often focused around my mother's inability to stop spending money like a drunken sailor on a 3-day pass and her inability to hold down a job. At that point, my mother was often left with nothing left but emotional responses and unfounded claims. She would usually resort of one of three possibilities: 1) Threatening to divorce my dad and take half of everything he owned. 2) Accuse him of having an affair with random women (this has actually gotten worse since we joined the Church and my dad got a home teaching assignment.) 3) Threaten to never again have sex with him. And was I in the room when these things were happening? Most of the time, yes.

All of this glorious marriage relationship goodness led me to believe that no woman really liked men and women only got married for financial incentives and that non-masochist men would only get married for one night of guaranteed sex. As my dad liked to say, "So, we've already established that you're a prostitute, now we're just negotiating the price."

Since I joined the Church, I've seen many more in the way of marriage relationships. I've seen some relationships that give me hope for the future, still the majority of them fail to inspire me to truly want to become a part of this sort of relationship. Amongst the youngest generation of Latter-day Saints that I've met, especially those who have been married for more than about 2 years, I've found that women seem to treat their husbands like an old, used tampon that gave them TSS. Women generally command their husbands as if they are indentured slaves with no agency to act for themselves, but only to be acted upon. I've seen many a dog that are treated better than most husbands of Mormon women out there.

Allow me to submit that I absolutely despise being told what to do. I'm okay with being asked to do something, but when someone commands and expects me to obey, the uncensored words, "F-ck you!" will eventually come from my lips. The Gospel teaches that we have agency and that the spirit of love will ask and exhort a man or woman to do things and never seek to force and extort. And I'm all about the Gospel.

To sum it all up, I have a really distorted view of marriage, how it has fit into my life so far, and how it might continue to be a part of my life. The marriages I've seen have not been pleasant in my eyes. I'm sure that the people who are in those relationships are happy, but I would not be happy in their shoes. I'm really unsure about how I will be able to view women and marriage in the future. I try to retain optimism, but it doesn't seem to come very easily. We'll see how it goes...

Scar[r]ed Straight

So, over the last couple of days, some of my good friends/roommates went down to Cedar City for the Utah Summer Games to compete in Ultimate Frisbee. We were in the novice division, and ended up getting the silver medal in that division. We played 4 games of Ultimate on Friday, then another 2 Saturday. All of this was awesome, and now I feel like my hamstrings are going to explode out of the back of my legs. However, that's not the point of this post.

I told you that story so that I could tell you this story. As we were driving through Cedar City, we passed a stake center/seminary building right next to a high school that had a sign out in front that read, "Single Adult Dance Tonight from 9-12." Since all of our games that day ended at about 2 pm, we decided that it was at least worth taking a look, even if all of the girls were 18 years old. After we got through 8 dudes showering in a single bathroom (sequentially), had dinner, and did a couple of other things, we made our way to aforementioned stake center.

What followed may have been the single most disturbing 5-minute experience I've ever had. Let's just say that there were definitely no 18 year-old girls anywhere to be found. And let's add that there's a very important distinction between "Young Single Adults," and "Single Adults." Though this experience only lasted about 5 minutes, if that, it seemed like it unfolded over a couple of hours. I started to get a little suspicious when we walked in to the stake center and there were a couple of older people dressed nicely and conversing amongst themselves. I figured that these were merely chaperons there to supervise the goings on of the young people. As we progressed down the hall, we say more and more old people who were dressed progressively more like young people, several of which were checking us out. As we stopped for a drink of water and saw several other old people passing us and walking into the cultural hall, we all realized the distinction that we had missed and ran as fast as we could without revealing our actual intents. On a scale of 1 to disturbing, this experience was a "Hey, you're not a Catholic Priest, don't touch me there!"

What I take away from this experience is mostly that I never want to be in the situation that I saw those other people my parents' (or perhaps my grandparents in some cases) age in. "Single Adults," are just creepy and I just don't want to be a part of that. If it involves mail-ordering a bride at age 30, then so be it. (Admittedly a very much less than ideal option.) Let's just say that this experience has given me sufficient motivation to actually want to get married at some point, and to procrastinate such a decision as little as possible. You're probably not going to see me rushing out to get married tomorrow, or any time in the next couple of months, but I've decided that marriage is something that I want to work toward and to be a part of. :D

A Little Too [Personal]

Tonight as I was perusing through Yahoo!'s "News" (very little of which is actual news) I found This Article. I found the parody of a personal ad at the beginning to be H-I-larious. I will now prepare my own "checklist" parody for both your and my amusement:

Me: 21. 6'2", 220 lbs. Hanging around the Provo area for now, but looking forward to big things (and by things, I mean money) in the very near future from my prospective employment as a civil engineer.
You: 18-23, BYU graduate or prospective MRS. Maximum 5'11" and BMI 18.5-22.5. Member of the church, but not an RM. Able to show knowledge of US federal and state policies and provide documentation of voting in at least the last even-yeared election. A second amendment sister. Major: Biology, Exercise Science, Business (not Accounting), Communication Disorders, French, or Rec Management. Education majors must complete an exam demonstrating that they can "do" as opposed to only being able to "teach." Hobbies: Italian-style cooking, video games, motorcycling, fencing, and chess. Well informed in the topics of: American sports, muscle cars, Dilbert cartoon strips, contemporary science fiction, and classic '80s cinema. Poorly informed (except in the cases of mockery) in the topics of: Vampire romance novels, Britney Spears music, Schmoop Dogg (aka Adam Nicoll), The Princess Bride, ballroom dancing, and cooking with tofu. Equally comfortable wearing 6" heals and plain white tennis shoes.
If interested, please send introductory email with appropriate documentation and a full-body photo. Please also send, as soon as possible, (3) letters of recommendation ( 1 academic, 1 ecclesiastical, and 1 from moderately close male friend). Plus (2) 1000-or-less-word essays on the following topics: "How I know my parents love(d) me", and "The University of Utah Sucks because..."

Yeah, I think that should pretty much do it. If I ever met a woman like this, she would never be interested in me because: 1. I would crap my pants upon meeting her, leaving a very bad impression, and 2. Unless she was 18, and fresh out of high school, she'd already be married, which means that 3. She would definitely not be using online dating sites. The thing that I most take away from this blag is that I need to blag about BMI... :D

y = e^-x

Disclaimer: The following blag post contains both intermediate mathematics and references to my relationships with women. In fact, this blag post contains little else. Reader discretion is advised.

As the enginerd that I am, I often try to model things mathematically. Since my experience with BYU math, I haven't been as much, but I still do occasionally. Recently I've decided that I should try to model my experience with women over my life mathematically. Therefore, this post is directed mostly at my nerd friends.

Over my life, I figure that my optimism toward women is inversely proportional to my social exposure to them. I say social because, as my friend F@$$w@$$ pointed out, exposure can mean more than one thing. Anywho, as I get to know women in general better and better, my optimism toward them tends to fall. I figure that, at birth, I had a higher optimism for women than in any other context, being perfectly naïve. As my society with women increases, I feel less and less affinity for them. I figure that the decline in optimism would be sharp at first, as I was first introduced to women, and then would flatten out as the exposure to women affected me less and less. I don't honestly think that my optimism toward women would ever actually reach zero, but would come progressively closer to it.

Any curve that would be used to model my relationships with women would therefore need to be horizontally asymptotic to zero. Two equations immediately come to mind when discussing things that are horizontally asymptotic to zero:

y = 1/x OR y = e^-x

I considered y = 1/x for about 10 seconds, but upon remembering that it is also vertically asymptotic to zero quenched that thought. Since this function is vertically asymptotic to zero, it would insinuate that my optimism toward women was necessarily infinite at birth. Considering that infants are innocent in the sight of God, this is possible and even fairly likely. However, considering that neither I neither anyone I know can remember much of their condition at birth, I'll say that this assumption is unnecessary and off-base. I'd rather model my relationships with women as a percentage of the maximum possible optimism. Since y = e^-x has y-intercept of 1 this works perfectly.

So, for the function y = e^-x, the abscissa (x) would be my social exposure to women, and the ordinate (y) would be my optimism toward women as a proportion of the maximum possible. At time t=0, my exposure to women would also be zero and therefore my optimism toward them would be 1, or the maximum possible. As time progresses and my exposure to women increases and therefore my optimism toward them decreases. Naturally, there will be sometimes when my optimism toward women will be higher and some times when it will be lower, but as a general rule, there will be a downward, asymptotic trend.

So, if anyone has the need to know how my relationships with women are going, they really only need to refer to this post. As my time with and therefore my social exposure to women increases, my optimism toward women will only decrease as a general rule. If there's ever a marriage event, there will probably be another phase of the curve which will temporarily spike the curve upward, and then bring in back down to be asymptotic to zero. However, such an event would be unlikely, and the very existence of the y = e^-x relationship would almost preclude it altogether. If it did, I would need to remodel the curve, but would probably only cross that bridge when I came to it.

Planning Ahead

So, after my recently completed EPIC roadtrip to Snowflake, AZ, there are a couple of issues which have been brought to the forefront of my mind. There were plenty of flippin' awesome adventures which will be shared in the near, future, but I'm going to need some time to organize these thoughts. However, there are others which have come conviently preorganized for entrance into this blag.

At one point during this epic roadtrip, I had a discussion with one of the friends with whom I went concerning what our plans were for the future. She listed a series of plans A-D which involved reasonable and worthy goals for a latter-day saint in her age bracket. It then became my turn to share my plans for the future. Herein I shall list, in as close to exact wording as possible, what I related to her.

Before I get into my list of life plans, I find it necessary to first list a few baseline assumptions which are pivotal to the context of my life plans.

1. The only definite unkown in my future which would require planning would be if, when, and with whom I would marry.

2. My lack of personality and/or spiritual prowess would prevent most any worthy latter-day saint woman from wanting to marry me based solely on who I am.

3. LDS women base their marriage decision, in large part, on their observances of a potential mate's relationship with his mother.

4. The fact that my mother is a narcissistic sociopath with whom I have a minimalistic relationship would deter any remaining women who found what little personality I posses attractive.

Alright, now onto the plans...

Plan A: Obtain Cars and Money--I find that when I'm feeling relatively down or depressed about my life situation, Good Charlotte's song, "Girls and Boys," is particularly comforting. Inasmuch as all human beings are shallow on some level, the ability to obtain material possessions will attract potential spouses. The drawback is that I might have the privilege of finding out first hand that an IQ score can actually come back negative.

Plan B: Obtain Bachelor Pad--Recently, one of my roommates suggested that he would like to invest in a bachelor pad after he graduates. As long as their is never a cat in this place, I wouldn't mind joining him.

Plan C: Obtain Sugar Momma--I've always supposed that I would make some woman a good second husband. Finding a woman who's already loaded with her ex-husband's money would take the pressure off of me, and maybe even allow me to live a little.

Plan D: Obtain Tall Bridge--You might be asking, "Why does he need to obtain the tall bridge when he could just find one?" Well the answer to that is simple. The first three plans involved obtaining something or another, so I decided to continue the streak. And heck... I could just charge it on a credit card... will I have to pay for it in the end? I submit that I will not! ;)

Mom-Crush

In the approximately four years since my family became members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I've observed a very strange phenomenon in my mother. Before we joined the church, my mother had absolutely no access to women in my age bracket. Additionally, before I joined the church, I had a pretty open disdain for marriage, as I saw the costs far outweighing the benefits. I'm glad to report that since I've joined the church, I've found a very strong interest in pursuing an eternal marriage if and when the time is right. But getting back to matter at hand, I've found that ever since my mom has had access to eligible women in my age bracket that she's decided that there will be one person who she idealizes and thinks that I should marry.

The first manifestation of this phenomenon was was with one Miss Lara Renz. Lara was nice, but definitely had issues. Her family has visited their home Webster Lake Ward rarely and have been contending with the current Bishop Smith over tithing and food order issues. She was also on the five year plan on her "online" high school... along with other, unmentionable, issues. To top it all off, I had absolutely zero... maybe even negative physical attraction to this woman. I will admit to one on my shallow pet peeves; if a woman does not have a chin, I'm out... and nothing could make me get over the fact that Lara's face transitioned straight into neck. Anywho, my mom decided that she really wanted me to be married to this woman, though I knew that I was having no part of it, so it wasn't that bothersome.

When my mother got over that crush, she found a new woman who she decided I should marry. Her name was Tasha N. Trembath. I threw the 'N' in there because her initials are "TNT" and I think that's freakin' awesome. Now this was quite a stretch from Lara. Tasha was about the biggest sweetheart I've ever met, and her 5'9" frame and long brown hair made her very attractive to me. Despite these factors though, I found that I just could not bring myself to date her. The reason you ask? A textbook case of the Mom-Crush. The reason that I really couldn't date Tasha is because my mother was infatuated with her to the point that the thought of her interjections into our relationship made me a tidbit nauseous.

I really don't know entirely why my mother's infatuations with me marrying a certain woman entirely turns me off to that woman, but it definitely does. It could be because I really just want to spite her. It could be because my mom would totally and entirely take her side if and when we argued over anything. It could just be because two women are generally not better than one. All I can say is that I'm merely trying to avoid any manifestation of the "Ray Barone Syndrome." Not that my wife and mother would hate each other, au contraire, they would love each other so much that they would team up against me. I'm not honestly sure what the solution to the Mom-Crush phenomenon is. I could bring home a woman that my mom would absolutely despise, (ie blonde with a thin figure and large breasts) but that just wouldn't be the woman for me. I could also move far far away, (at this point, looking at Georgia... my mom wouldn't be caught dead there,) and I will probably do so as soon as possible. Somehow, I believe the true solution relies on finding some sort of balance between the two.