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 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.

Two Way Traffic

Followers of this blag might be surprised to learn that my favorite talk from the recently-adjourned general conference was a talk by Sister Elaine Dalton, the President of the Young Women organization.  In her talk, Sister Dalton discussed how three of her sons had recently had daughters and, at least in some way, looked to Sister Dalton for help and advice in how to raise them.  She said, simply, that the best thing a man can do for his daughter is to love her mother and to show to her what a loving and gospel-centered home is like.

This might be puzzling, based on my tumultuous and often antagonistic relationship with women as a whole.  However, that's just it.  This talk hearkens back to the root of my tumultuous relationship with women, which is that my mother didn't really show her love for my father in a healthy or constructive way.  I'd like to add my testimony to that of Sister Dalton, by saying that the best thing a parent can do for their opposite-gender child is to love their spouse in a way that their child can see what a healthy and celestial marriage is like.  I testify that the counsel that Sister Dalton offered to the men of the church applies equally well to the sisters when seeking counsel in how to raise their sons.  Women are more naturally predisposed to follow this counsel without even thinking about it, but I live as a testament that this is not always the case.  It is important that, regardless of gender, latter-day saints take care to love their spouses, for their own sakes, as well as for the sakes of their children.

I'm sure that, at some point, the Lord will bless me with a daughter, much like the sons of Sister Dalton.  When this happens, I look forward to following the counsel of this general officer and showing to my daughter what a loving, gospel-centered home is like.  To me, there is little more important in my future family life than breaking the cycle of gender-based contention that started generations ago, long before anyone on my mother's side of the family had the gospel.

The gospel of Christ gives us guidance to do things that we never thought we could do, like raising a son or a daughter.  I think that's pretty grand.

[Video of Sister Dalton's talk.]

The Beaver is Doing the Richardson Dance

So, I have made my move to the great state of Oregon.  Both myself and my roommate are moved in and I'm pretty much loving it so far.  I found out that the roomy is actually 18 years old and doesn't have a driver's license, but that's not really a big deal.  The good news is that he's a computer (science) nerd and is pretty mellow.  So basically, we're both just socially capable enough to hold a decent conversation, but just socially awkward enough to leave each other alone most of the time.  It's pretty awesome.

The rest of my likes and dislikes I'll be putting into list form, so here you go:

Dislikes

• My apartment is in the middle of little Mexico.  Seriously, very few of my immediate neighbors speak English.
• The walls of my apartment are nothing but lumber, drywall, and air.  You can hear everything that goes on within 20 feet of your apartment walls, on any side.  Most this goes on in Spanish.
• Along these same lines, the door to my bedroom doesn't currently close... at all.  Neither brute force nor gentle persuasion will make it go to its home.  We'll see how quick they are on my maintenance request.
• More generally, the university is apathetic to the concerns of student housing.  Living in the 1-mile radius at BYU made rent slight higher, but it also provided some protections for students.  Namely, BYU ensured that student housing included furniture and mail keys for their students.  Since I've arrived here, I've had to spend a boatload of cash on furniture and I haven't been able to check my mail.
• The university and surrounding entities are profoundly liberal.  I went to a GTA orientation this week in which one of the presentations was on "The Diverse Student Populations of Oregon State University."  My dad suggested that this particular brand and level of liberalism was best described by the term 'pure collectivism,' with which I can hardly disagree.

Likes

• The people in my ward are pretty freakin' awesome.  I've never been quick to make legitimate friends, but it's been happening here so far.  
• There are more women than men.  During my Memorial Day trip up here, I figured that the ratio was about 60/40.  After attending this week, I'd estimate it's more like 55/45... either way I see plenty of women without feeling like I'm swimming in the estrogen ocean.  When you're an engineer, that's a nice change of pace.
• As I mentioned already, my roommate is pretty cool.
• The university has really nice accommodations.  The nice thing about going to a state school is that no one's all that apprehensive about spending the taxpayers' money.  As a grad student, I get my own desk and shelf space with my own computer.  It's pretty legit.
• Even in a disastrous football year, the students have spirit.  At BYU, students often walked around in other universities' apparel and wore pink and brown horizontal striped shirts to football games even when the team went 11-2.  I would always vomit a little in my mouth when I'd see someone wearing a USC shirt on campus (or even worse, the University of SpUtah.)
• I have my own car here.  Honestly, I'm sure how I survived 4 years as an undergrad without at least something resembling a motor vehicle.

 So far, I've been thinking that the state of Oregon and Oregon State University are pretty cool.  This might be really put to the test when I head down to the DMV to get my car registered in Oregon, but I'm going to need to actually be able to check my mail before that happens.  ;P

The Algorithm

In order to solidify one's place in nerd history, one has to make a few things part of his/her everyday life. One of these is to try to quantify just about anything, regardless of how effectively it can truly be quantified. Another of these is to have a dysfunctional dating life such that one would be just as inclined to stay at home on Saturday nights and play MMORPGs than socialize with the opposite sex.

So naturally, last Saturday night I was sitting around in my Animal House pajamas when I got a brilliant idea. I would make an algorithm to quantify what sort of women I'm attracted to. Could this actually be useful? Perhaps. While I was at BYU, I often ended up not going on dates because of the paradox of choice, among ...many... other things. The algorithm could give a hierarchy to queue, such that I might know who I should take out. I don't claim that it will actually work out that way, but at least it's a nice thought.

So, here it is:

R = 0 For S > B

where

and

A = Attractiveness

P = Subjective Physical Attractiveness on a 1-10 scale
IQ = Intelligence Quotient
σE = Deviation of Eccentricities
σEM = My Deviation of Eccentricities
T = Testimony Factor, 1-10 scale
C = Charity Factor, 1-10 scale
R = Responsibility Factor, 1-10 scale
B = Perception of Time Spent in Constructive Activity (B stands for 'Books'), Percent
Tw = Perception of Time Spent in Things that Look like Constructive Activity but Aren't (Tw stands for 'Twilight'), Percent
S = Perception of Time Spent in non-Constructive Activity (S stands for 'Shopping'), Percent
H = Humor Factor, 1-10 scale
FG = Pro 2nd Amendment, 1-10 scale
AR = Reciprocal Attraction, 1-10 scale

There are six separate pieces to this equation that all deserve to be looked at in more detail.

Emotional Stability, ES

The two sigma (σ) terms in the equation represent the number of standard deviations away from average the mental and emotional eccentricities of me and a prospective partner would be. In practice, this serves as the personality term of the equation. If I think that I and a prospective partner is way different from me, I could make the difference in sigma terms as high as 6, lowering the overall attractiveness. If I think that someone is similar to me in a way that would be conducive to a relationship, I could make the difference in sigmas zero, so that the 'Big 3' term wouldn't be divided up at all.

The Big 3 Parameter, 2P(IQ-70)/ES

The 'Big 3' represents the three points of most emphasis when looking for a date: looks, brains, and personality. This parameter can vary anywhere from 0 to 1200, making it approximately 46% of the equation.

The Spirituality Parameter, 8T*C

This parameter is a simple product of my perceptions of testimony and charity. I've expressed my desire to end up with a woman who has a testimony and who lives according to that testimony in the past. Any woman who's a member of the church will probably end up with at least 7s in both testimony and charity unless I know she's involved in sketchy activity. Variance of 0 to 800, 31% of the total.

The (Anal) Retentiveness Parameter, R(B-T-S)*H/25

Basically, I want a woman who's responsible, but knows how to laugh at things when they're funny. Through much of my life, I've noticed that there are often women who read and women who go shopping. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with shopping, I'm just making an analogy to priorities between something I find constructive, like reading and something I find mostly non-constructive, like shopping. In the world of books, there's also crap that looks good, but really isn't at its core, like Twilight. The same applies to life. As a side note, everyone needs to have non-constructive activity once in a while in order to remain sane. This isn't reflected in the equation and is one of its weaknesses. In order to keep the term from going negative (and thus punishing for humor) R is taken to zero when S exceeds B. I should also mention that this factor tends to not favor younger women, who don't look as responsible as their older counterparts, even though they could have been just as responsible at the same age. I considered using an age correction factor, but decided against it. Variance of 0-400, 15% of the total.

The Gun Factor, FG

I like firearms, and I wish everyone else did too. Especially for women in this day and age, knowledge of how to use a gun is a valuable tool that could save one's life. I have to bump down women who don't feel this way a notch, especially when their reasoning is something naïve like "Guns kill people." Variance of 0 to 100, 4% of the total.

Reciprocal Attraction, AR

People are generally more fond of people who like them. I'm not sure this needs any more explanation than that. Variance of 0 to 100, 4% of the total.

The theoretical total of this equation comes out to 2600 points, though that would be ridiculous, just like scoring a 0 would be ridiculous. Most women will probably come out to somewhere between 850 and 1750, though I don't know for sure because I haven't really tried it out much yet. However, I have tried it out, so here are some case studies.

Case Studies

The first evaluation is a woman (yes, she is real... as far as I know) who I find very attractive physically, mentally, and emotionally. This woman manages to remind me of my good qualities without really showing my bad ones. In short, she's a gem. We'll call this woman 'Exhibit B' for anonymity's sake.

Exhibit B

The next is of a woman who exemplifies the Everclean song, "Sweet Spirit" with tragic precision. She's a great person, but I could literally find nothing, from head to toe, that I found physically attractive about her, and trust me, I tried.

Sweet Spirit

This next one is a younger woman I met my senior year at BYU. She's weird, but in a similar way to me. She had great priorities and a sneaky sense of humor, though she ignored me about half the time, so I'm not sure how that would have worked out. We'll call her 'Princess Zelda.'

Princess Zelda

Now, I'm sure you'd love to know how fiancées 1 and 2 stack up. So here you go.

Fiancée #1 (Clearly thinking with the wrong head)

Fiancée #2 (Might have killed me in my sleep if we got married)

So that's how it works. As a footnote to this blag post, I'd like to mention that I developed this algorithm primarily with the goal of picking out dates and bringing order to the queue rather than picking a spouse. Personally, there's one big thing that's missing from this methodology that would be key to picking a spouse and that's sanity. The ES factor helps quantify it, but if fiancée #2 was to be truly rated on sanity, she's go from 1429 to -138 instantaneously. I like quantifying things, but I think picking the one should be a separate deal.

So here's to me (maybe) having a semi-functional relationship with women. Cheers!

...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.

Shawties

Since my future for the next year, or so, has been decided, I can now turn my blagging attention back to more philosophical topics. The last 18 months of job search and grad school blagging have been solid, but definitely not the most exciting topics I've ever written about.

Recently I've been thinking about women. I've found out that my mom is ready for grandchildren and has a specific desire for Asian ones, which explains why she's been telling me my soul mate is an Asian woman for years now. Yesterday, she even started making me a profile on the scourge on human existence know as match.com. Luckily I was able to change the password on that profile and delete it before any real damage was done. I tell you this so that you can understand why I've been thinking about women and romance over the past few days. It really has nothing else to do with this post.

The point of this blag post isn't to page Dr. Freud. Rather, I want to discuss a phenomenon that I'm a part of whether I really want to be or not. A little under a year ago, I went to an Independence Day barbeque with a good friend of mine (and cutie) Hannah with one of her friends who shall remain nameless. At some point during this event the Friend of Hannah made a comment something along the lines of, "I don't think tall guys should go out with short women, because tall guys should be for tall girls, you know?" I'm sure that I'm butchering that quote, but 11 months has taken its toll on the precision of my memory. As a side note, this was pretty awkward for Hannah and I since she stands at a petite 5'1" and I come in 13 inches taller at 6'2". I don't hold anything against Hannah's friend for her commentary, but I have to say at this juncture, that I disagree.

I've always found this whole concept to be fairly shallow. If I meet the woman of my dreams who meets every criterion on The List and more, you couldn't pay me to care whether she's 4'10" or 5'10". When it comes right down to it, height is just another physical characteristic that's much less important in the long term than things like personality, mutual interests, and reciprocal charity. A woman of below average height is just as capable as a woman of average or above average height of having these intrinsic characteristics. A certain amount of physical attraction is always important to a relationship, but it is nowhere close to the most important things. The only applicable downside of going out with a more petite woman that I can think of is that the mechanics of kissing are somewhat challenging. As long as there's a step around, it shouldn't be a problem.

Adding to this conundrum is the attitude that taller women usually take toward it. Most of the taller women that I've met seem to have a little bit of an entitlement mentality when it comes to taller men. Unfortunately for them, it all comes down to simple economics. Tall men are a scarce resource that most all women want, at least to a certain degree. The scarcity of this, or any other, resource causes the price of that resource to go up. In a simple economic model the consumer with the highest willingness to pay is the one who comes out with the scarce resource. Romantic relationships can rarely be explained fully by a simple economic model, but the principle holds true. The woman who wants the tall guy more will end up with him assuming approximate equality in physical and character traits among the women. In my experience, the more petite women have been willing to pay more than they taller women and have thus often end up with them. As a footnote to this paragraph let me say that the 'price' of a tall man can include a wide variety of things and not just what you're thinking. Get your mind out of the gutter. ;)

Since I've been talking a whole lot about women who are shorter than me, you might be interested to know how I feel about women who are taller than me. Most of the men that I know would not be comfortable dating a woman who was taller than them, and even fewer women would be comfortable dating a man who's shorter than them. Let me just say that, in my life (not just adult life, but my whole life), I've only met about 5 or 6 women who were taller than me, and only one or two of those were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Just so we're clear, I'm taller than about 99.99% of American women. I'd estimate that there are about 18 women of that height who are single, active members of the church in the States. If any of those 18 women are interested in me, I will certainly reciprocate. However, in a pool of potentially millions of women, a number like 18 is something that my engineer friends would call "negligible." Basically, I'll cross that bridge if I ever come to it... which is unlikely.

So the moral of the story is that there can potentially be a wide variety of things that contribute to a man's interest in a woman, and height is almost never very high on the list. A short woman shouldn't be dissuaded from interest in a guy solely because he's significantly taller than her and tall women shouldn't take tall men for granted. As usual, this could just be me, but I think I'm pretty well-founded on this one.

Until next time, my friends.

Ask and Ye Shall Receive

About six months ago, I did a SWOT analysis of my life. In this analysis, I detailed what I thought my greatest weaknesses were at the time. In the mean time, I have put a finger on exactly what one of my greatest weaknesses is.

I realized this when I went to a graduate open house for Virginia Tech, one of my prospective graduate schools. During this open house, professors gave presentations about their current research and prospective students were encouraged to talk to them about it and ask them questions. The fact that current graduate students were passing out more beer than I had seen in one place in my life up to that point put me somewhat on edge. It was this slight discomfort in the situation that pushed me over the edge and allowed me to realize a greater source of anxiety and dread in this situation: that I was basically be told to go up to these professors and ask them for research money. I was absolutely paralyzed and realized that I could not be effective in this act, and this is my greatest weakness.

I feel incredible discomfort and anxiety when I ask anyone for anything.

To put it in microeconomic terms, there is nothing from which I get more utility than not having to ask people for things. In more practical terms, there is almost nothing in the world that's worth the anxiety of having to ask for it. I would and have passed up money, notoriety, help, and love because they would have to be asked for. In the case of the Virginia Tech open house, I was unable to approach professors with questions on their research, and along with it, a vastly increased possibility of going to a top-10 civil engineering school for essentially free because the anxiety I felt over asking for something outweighed even these great benefits.

Just in case you haven't made the connection yet, this is probably the best reason that I have been on a whopping 4 or 5 dates (depending on your definition of a date) in the last two years. Asking for dates and general companionship from women is and even greater stressor, because it compounds the anxiety I feel over asking for things with the fear that I have of ending up in a relationship like my parents'. Those who are really quick might be inclined to ask, "Well, weren't you engaged? Twice?" To you I say, "Well aren't you perceptive." Yes, I was engaged twice. However, both of these had flown pretty far over the cuckoo's nest. Far enough, in fact, that they were even willing to ask guys out. And that's how they started, both of them. This isn't to say that I've never asked a woman out; I have. Suffice it to say that these were not pleasant experiences for me and never progressed past that one date.

When I realized that I avoided asking for things because of the anxiety that I felt, I sought to know where this behavior came from. With only a little self-awareness I was able to identify the cause: Operant Conditioning. In this blag, I've placed the blame for many of my emotional issues on my mother. However, both of my parents can share the responsibility for this one. Since my mom spent money like a drunken sailor on a three day pass, it was in my dad's best interest to prevent her from spending as much money as he possibly could. My dad, thus, punished me every time that I asked for something that cost money. I don't know about you, but when I was five, everything that I wanted cost money. I don't remember what most of the punishments were, but I distinctly remember my dad saying, "Boy, every time you say 'I want,' I'm gonna beat your @$$." Granted, he didn't actually beat my @$$ all that often, but that phrase definitely stuck with me. I learned to simply not ask for things.

To tell you the truth, I have no idea how I would overcome all the years of learning that I have experienced. I can tell you one thing: I certainly won't be asking for help any time soon.

The Denkers Curse

First some background. My dad was born 'Gary Denkers.' He was the son of James and Kay Antoinette (Toni) Denkers. After these two divorced, Toni married a guy named Wes. He then adopted my dad and his 3 siblings and their last names were changed. This is why my grandpa on my dad's side (who's my only surviving grandparent at this point) has a different last name than my dad and me. My dad spent the first 16, or so, years of his life as Gary Denkers.

Now to the content. There is an interesting phenomenon on my dad's side of the family in which the men tend to get married very young to equally young women who end up being psycho and treating them like crap. My dad and I like to call this the Denkers curse. The Denkers curse has been present in at least the last 3 generations: my dad, his dad, and his dad before him.

My dad got married at age 21 to a woman who's almost six years older than him. I've previously expounded on the relationship between my parents in this blag and how this has done its share of screwing me up in the head, so I won't elaborate too much here. Suffice it to say that my mom has a really weird way of showing her love, even insomuch that those receiving it don't recognize it as love and sometimes wish that she wouldn't so much.

My grandpa got married at age 20 to a woman who could barely be called a woman at age 18. My dad was their first child and I've done the math, he was born about 6 or 7 months after they got married. From what my dad has told me, his mom was totally whacked out in the head. To be fair, she was only whacked in the head when she was drunk, unfortunately her blood alcohol content rarely fell below 0.20 because she chain drank screwdrivers constantly. As I previously mentioned, my dad's parents ended up getting divorced when he was about 8 and his mom remarried a few years later. About the time my dad was 18 (9 years before I was born) his mom committed suicide in their garage by carbon monoxide poisoning. Needless to say, I've never met her. I don't totally know exactly what the time frame is, but my grandpa also ended up getting remarried sometime afterward. I've actually seen the relationship between my grandpa and his second wife. She is substantially less psycho than my grandmother, but I still kind of thought that she treated my grandpa like he was a used tampon that gave her TSS. You can only imagine my surprise when my dad told me that she'd mellowed out in her old age. The moral of the story: my grandpa is very deeply 0 for 2.

I don't know a lot about the relationship between my great grandpa and his wife, I only know what my dad tells me. From what he has told me, my great grandmother was a very physically large woman who had a personality to match. This is where I get my large frame. I hear that she was great if you were on her good side, but that she was totally domineering if you weren't. I can only imagine how her husband was on her bad side more often than not.

I don't say these things to bash on women or to try to garner pity. I say this because I very deeply want to avoid the mistakes that my fathers have made. At this point I am 22 years old and am now over a year older than even the oldest of my ancestors when they got married. Also, even if I met a perfect companion as listed two posts ago today, I would still not get married before age 23. Granted, I only barely escaped the curse with my life. I was engaged to be married to fiancée #1 when I was 20 and to fiancée #2 when I was 21. I am very grateful that these relationships fell apart, because I can now see the writing on the wall of what they would have been.

There's also a factor in these three relationships that I have not yet mentioned. My dad told me a couple of years back, "If you and your prospective spouse stay in the church and keep the covenants you've made, you will do just fine." The biggest problem in these relationships was that these people weren't very active in the church for much of their lives. My great grandparents were what Elders Quorum Presidents would call "Semi-actives." They made it to church every once in a while, but never made a habit out of it. From what I've written here, it should be obvious that my grandparents were keeping the commandments of God much at all. Fortunately, my grandpa and his second wife have returned to the church and been active in their ward. After leaving home at 18, my dad was inactive for right around 25 years before he returned. My mom wasn't a member of the church when they got married and they originally built the foundation of their marriage on something other than the Gospel of Christ. What I take away from this knowledge is not only that getting married when you're young and stupid can be a terrible idea, but also that if a marriage has its piles driven deeply into the bedrock of Christ, there is nothing that remove it. It may be damaged and it may not look pretty from the outside, but it will stand strong.

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.

Lower Bound

I've been thinking recently about This Post that I made over a year ago concerning the number of women worldwide with whom I'd be mutually compatible. After I thought about it, I realized that the number I came up with (66) was a very conservative estimate and practically represents a theoretical upper bound to the actual number of women with whom I could have a relationship. I am now revisiting this topic to make less conservative estimate so that I can find a value closer to the lower bound.

In the same format as before:

Membership of the LDS Church (as of Dec. 31st 2008): 13,508,509
Using the same number as before for comparability.

...who are active: 7,429,680
Instead of the way-conservative 76% activity rate, I used a much more pessimistic value of 55%.

...who are female: 3,714,840
Yeah, the world is still pretty much half women.

...who live in developed nations (and speak English): 1,300, 194
Say only 35% of LDS women live in developed nations and speak fluent English.

...who are in the proper age range: 130,020
Saying a seven-year age range represents 10% of the populace probably represents an approximate lower bound.

...who are "beautiful" in my opinion. 2,965
Saying that women must be 2 standard deviations above average in the characteristics that I'm looking for isn't even that big of a stretch.

...and intelligent: 68
I maintain that an IQ of 120 isn't that much to ask when mine is in the range of 145.

...who aren't already married: 21
Are 70% of Mormon women 18-25 married? Probably not. This represents one of my less reasonable assumptions from the first time around.

...who are interested in me: 4
I think 1 standard deviation below average is about right.

If I carry all of my digits instead of universally rounding up, it comes out to 3.22, since those tenths and hundredths start to be significant when you're talking about single digits.

Were you surprised it didn't hit zero? Because I was, the way it was looking there for a second.

130,020/4 = 32,505 weeks, which is about 625 years at one date per month.

The once every six months trend has remained pretty steady, so at that rate, it would be more like 16,252 years.

Just remember: The optimist sees the glass as half full. The pessimist sees it as half empty. The engineer sees a safety factor of 2.

Comparison Shopping

Disclaimer: This post is a joke, and if you take it seriously, you're stupid.

Recently, I've realized that dating women is a lot like gambling at casinos. Not having much experience with either women or gambling, I came up with some characteristics of both. Let's examine the evidence, in both scenarios:

• You can't win if you don't play.
• You're more likely to get struck by lightening 35 times than you are to win the jackpot.
• They'll dump you shortly after you run out of money.
• If you lose too big, too often, they'll take your house.
• Your odds of getting arrested skyrocket.
• They seem like a better idea when you're inebriated.
• They're pure consumption. Every dollar that you devote to them is gone forever, and you'll never see it again.
• Along the same lines, you'll never be richer than the day before you started playing.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that women should be illegal in every state except Nevada... ironically where prostitution is legal in some areas. XD

Shotgun Approach

I've decided that, instead of trying to dedicate an individual blag entry to each of things that I have floating, or dancing, or screaming in my head, I'd just say a couple of things about each of them.

• I graduated from BYU. After enduring through countless hours, tests, and erasures... and being subjected to the sadism of BYU Math and BYU Poli Sci, I'm finally done.
• GPA's: Overall - 3.54, Generals w/ Religion - 3.56, Generals w/o Religion - 3.40, Civil Engineering - 3.53, Management Minor - 3.80.
• If BYU ever posts my degree to my transcripts, I will be unemployed. Technically, you don't count as unemployed until you're out of school. However, I've felt pretty unemployed for the past 4 months.
• I actually have a job interview on Thursday for a job in Babylon. After 8 months of carefully placing resumes around the country, I finally got an actual interview.
• The job doesn't pay what I wish it did, but it would be at least somewhat related to my area of study and it would by far superior to nothing. It's for a construction materials testing technician. Basically, I would make concrete cylinders and break them according to ASTM and AASHTO standards.
• I could appreciate finding a job in Utah. I mean, I did leave BYU without a ring, after all. Between the girls and the friends I have in Happy Valley, I'd like the opportunity to work and to continue living in Utah.
• I've had the song, "Paint with All the Colors of the Wind" from the movie Pocahontas stuck in my head for the last 6 days. It all started when I heard Candace Shields sing in sacrament meeting. Her voice reminded me of Pocahontas, and now that I don't really have much in the way of responsibility or business, the song has been stuck in my head.
• Once I actually get a job, I'll actually get a car for the first time in my life. There are many ways that I want to be like Jesus, however walking everywhere I go isn't one of them. My dad and I have been talking about getting a brand new Chevrolet Cobalt. :D
• I've decided that, if I get a Ph.D. I want to get it from Georgia Tech... mostly just because I want to sing their wicked-cool fight song at a football game.
• At some point here soon, I'm going to make a poster to parody the BYU BGS poster that asks, "Leave BYU Without a Degree?" by replacing the word 'Degree' with 'Spouse.'
• I've decided that I want to name my firstborn son, 'Scott Manning,' not only after the legit rockstar Scott Manning, but also in honor of the man who came up with arguably the most useful and most controversial relationship in fluid mechanics, Osbourne Manning.
• I kind of want to change my middle name to, 'The Hands,' or 'μαλάκα,' or 'τα χέρια.'

That should pretty much do it. Now for the Georgia Tech fight song, a clear beacon of morality in these latter days :P

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...

SWOT Analysis of my Life

Recently in both my marketing and HR classes, we've talked about "SWOT Analysis." This method of analyzing a business looks at the both the internal factors of a business' potential progress (strengths and weaknesses) and the external factors (opportunities and threats). I figure that at this juncture, it really couldn't hurt to do this kind of analysis for my own life to help me to attain both my relatively short-term goals and my more long term goals. Some of these goals include: getting a job for after college, getting married, being a halfway decent person both morally and socially, and achieving exaltation and eternal life after this life is said and done. Certainly not an inclusive list of goals but a good start... Anywho, on to the analysis:

Strengths

• Pure Intelligence - It was Marion Morrison who said, "Life is hard, and it's even harder if you're stupid." In my case, I have intelligence on the order of about 4.5 standard deviations above average and it will serve me well in achieving almost all of my goals, as long as I don't begin to suppose that I'm smarter than God, that's always a dangerous path.
• In the Long-term, a Useful Degree - Though right now I kind of feel like I've been getting a very-much-more-difficult-than-usual BA in English for the last 4 years, after the Great Depression v2.0 passes, my degree will actually regain value and I should... SHOULD be able to actually find good jobs that will pay reasonably well.
• My Testimony - I don't feel bad telling all 4 people who read my blag that is says in my patriarchal blessing that my testimony will become a cherished possession. While this hasn't happened yet, I at least know, on the most basic level possible that The Christ is the redeemer of my soul and that the Eternal God loves me whether I feel it or not. And along with this knowledge come hope for the future in this life and hope for the things of a better world, as Ether put it.

Weaknesses

• Social Awkwardness - Based on the way my parents raised me, it's almost a miracle that I made it out of high school alive. People who know me well can tell you that I have virtually negligible shame and am likely to say and do things that will make you feel awkward in social situations; and Aric F@$$w@$$ was even willing to give me an award in the same. This lack of PCness is also combined with the fact that I'm an engineer and have spent several hours a day for the past 4 years in the Clyde Building and just generally that I'm a Mormon. It all adds up to quite a bit of social awkwardness.
• Lack of RM Badge - Serving a full-time, proselyting mission is an absolute right of passage for young men in the LDS Church. Most young, LDS men will tell you that their mission was the "Best two year of their life." I didn't have those two years. I'm perfect willing to admit that ever since I didn't go on a mission, I've had a harder time finding sufficient motivation to live the gospel as I know it to be true. Even the temple of God itself has become a house of remorse and lamentation... and full of old, pretentious douchebags who ask any dude in the baptismal font when he's going on a mission. Also, if you'd told me when I was 18 that first dates could be more awkward than they already were, I would have laughed you to scorn. However the standard first date question, "Where did you serve your mission?" has done a disturbingly good job proving 18-year-old me wrong.
• Insanity - You might think that I'm joking and/or exaggerating when I say that I'm friggin' crazy. I would submit that you're only right some of the time. As an update to my last post, I am not qualified for Army OCS because I've been treating for chemical imbalances in my brain. I don't know if the Air Force has similar qualification standards... it hasn't come up. In some very limited contexts, being crazy might help me to obtain my goals, but for the most part, it's just a hindrance and a limitation as far as I can tell.
• Physical Fitness - The 89th section of the Doctrine and Covenants says that those who abide by its precepts will be able to run and not be weary. I've clearly not been following that counsel very well. A lack of physical fitness could very well keep me out of the military for good and is certainly not an asset when trying attract a potential spouse. In the long term, I could end up living like my Grandpa on my dad's side who has had at least 5 heart attacks of varying severity and can barely get up out of chair without being short of breath.

Opportunities

• Cars and Money - If, by the grace of God, I am actually blessed to find a job in my chosen field, I will, for pretty much the first time in my life, be able to afford a car and not live below the poverty line. This will give me much greater opportunity to have fun, do good in the world, and maybe, just maybe the benefits of dating might exceed the social and emotion costs. And if you haven't seen the Good Charlotte Song, you should. PS-The video for that song looks suspiciously like the Single Adults dance that I saw 5 minutes of in Cedar City.
• HDR & RKCI - Probably my best opportunities for employment are with HDR in Denver and with RKCI in the Utah Valley. A few weeks ago, I talked with one of the PM's for HDR who lives in my stake back home and he said that they recently got the contract to design an extension of the light rail system in Denver and they would need to staff that soon. Anyone who has driven through Lehi, UT over the past few weeks has noticed that there's massive construction going on on I-15 in this area. To most this in an inconvenience, but to me it is a sign of sweet, glorious progress. RKCI won the contract to oversee quality control on the I-15 core designs and has been hiring recent graduates in Civil Engineering and Construction Management.
• Women - Over the past several weeks, I've met several women who I'd like to get to know better, which doesn't necessarily happen very often. Let me just say that my current ward is freaking awesome and I wouldn't mind living around here for several more years, even if it meant living in an insect-infested dump. I'm sure that there are nice women all around, but dang, Hampton Court is where it's at. :D

Threats

• Crapconomy - I never would have thought in 2002, when I decided that I wanted to become a civil engineer that some douchebag* would enact AA reform that was meant to give minorities a better opportunity for home ownership, but really just allowed I-banker types to speculate in the housing market. Since this actually did happen, the demand for Civil Engineers has shifted down significantly as those who were working in private development move to whatever projects are left and government infrastructure spending nationwide grinds to a halt. What it all adds up to in 2010 is that anyone without 5 years experience and/or a masters degree isn't going to find a job in civil engineering very easily anytime soon.
• Obamacare - Sometimes I wonder if Barack Obama sits in the Oval Office and thinks, "Hmm, how can I screw over William 'The Hands' White today?" I'm sure that Obamacare benefits somebody (who's probably black, btw) ,but it's certainly not me. Since my health care provider knows that it will have to cover more prospective college graduates soon under Obamacare, it's getting rid of the ones it has now in order to cut its losses. Additionally, uncertainty in the future of health care is making its costs increase, making something that was unaffordable two years ago, ridiculously expensive. With the crapconomy the way it is, if I don't have a job in the next month, I'm not going to have any health insurance... period, and I will be thoroughly Ephed. PS-Vote Republican.
• Militant Feminazism - Over the past few years, I've liked to say, "If chivalry is dead, it was choked out by the smoke of flaming bras," or something like that. More recent generations of women seem to feel entitled to an equal opportunity, and even worse, equal outcome with their male counterparts without sharing in any of the negative aspects or burdens. My generation, in the world, seems to like to minimize and reduce as much as possible the differentiation between men and women. The Latter-day Saints of my generation seem to do the same thing, but to a much lesser degree (ie. without militaristic enforcement) and only picking and choosing the situations in which women should be indifferentiable from men. Overall, militant feminazism is the greatest threat to my desire and ability to procure a spouse... and I might just have to devote an entire blag post to my views on it.

So there you have it. To me, this is scarier than $h1+ and kinda makes me want to cower away in a corner. However I have hope that all will work out and that I will be able to use my strengths and opportunities and the knowledge of my weaknesses and threats to my advantage to be able to achieve both my short and long-term goals.

*It's probably best that I don't know who this douchebag is, because I would find him and shank him in the face with a red-hot cast iron prison shiv.

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