In Response:

So sometime last week my friend pointed me at one of the newest gems in the ever growing string of Mormon Culture Satire blogs Why Mormon Girls Stay Single.

At first it was king of funny, but as I read on (I couldn't help myself) it wasn't a gut wrenching haha funny like the Fug Girls deliver or a Demitri set provides. Oh no - there was something that kind of bugged me along with the haha.

I mean, who doesn't like talking about and pointing out how goofy girls are and how this YSA state of things is 8 shades of ridiculous right?

I ended up reading the whole site - well - all 2 months hes been posting - hoping that it would get better or lighten up a bit, but the more I read the more it just seemed like something was off.

I've never claimed to be a quick one so I slept on it for a few nights and I realized what the pebble in my shoe was about it.

It was the voice of the author, given there are multiple people that post, but the voice is distinctly the same one, and that voice is everything I find loathsome about modern LDS gents.

First off, I don't like being negative, I fall into it more than I like to admit. I don't think it accomplishes anything. People get defensive and feel ridiculed and everyone just gets further ensconced in their own way of thinking as this passive aggressive act of defiance that our generation has gotten so good at. So nothing comes of it except more negativity and less communication.

However, these ideas and passages from this blog have been floating through my mind for the last 2 days and though I wouldn't dignify "Peter Priesthood's" blog with a reactionary email that I know he probably craves, I kind of want to talk about this and air some things out.

Firstly, all of Peter and his posse's ideas come with the tone and from the point of view that girls essentially get up, breathe, get dressed, and live to be approved of by a boy.

Now, this is 80% true. Most of that blog is 80% true. What seems to be lost is that PP-dog seems to have put himself on his bloggy throne and is just ridiculing the parade of girls hes ordered ("And let me guess - you have a great personality"). Not everything a girl does is to snap up a boy. I know that's hard for some guys to admit and growing up in places like Utah with all their bride worship I see how it can happen. But the world is a big place and there is a lot more to take in that Heleman Halls' yearly rounds of Freshman 15.

This is one of the things that I have consistently been disappointed in the men of the church about, where they got this crippling sense of entitlement. Did they forget that, by compulsion of nature, you need to impress US? You need us A LOT more than we need you. Yes, men do the asking but they also have to convince us to put up with you from here to eternity. Sputtering on about grooming rituals ridiculing women who dress their best is just revelatory of a sadly insecure and angry male.

From different allusions I'm gathering P-dog lives in the Washington DC area and I've been there a lot. He has a lot of material because YSA silliness is at an all time high yonder. From certain depictions he might even know my cousin. Heck, I could have even met him.

I'm so saddened by how he unceremoniously outlines the social dysfunctions of Mormon and YSA Culture, makes you feel that it's important and the ONLY way to marriage, happiness and being hot, and then tries to make you feel stupid and hopeless if you think otherwise.

My uneducated but observant guess is this is a VERY smart guy who was strung along by a girl that was way above him for a good long while but then got dropped. In his attempt to salvage any clout, pride or presence he pretends he doesn't care, is taking a cynical back seat and doing the third person assessment thing to stay away from the pain and maintain a bit of face. He employs his amazing powers of observation and fantastic pen and proceeds to belittle any kind of guy that may have thwarted and dating attempts after his break up and gets frustrated with girls that don't play by the script hes already written in his head of how it has to be or else it doesn't count or isn't valid. I'm guessing hes a bit of a control freak, like washing hands every half hour or so, always a bit over dressed, works in either an engineering or technical field, possibly law or political science (verbally technical). He's not as successful as he'd like to be and is harboring a lot of insecurities about that too (see his NY post).

Hes so used to being right that when there is something out of his control (like the feelings or workings of a girl) he has to essentially brow beat you with how ridiculous everything is and how silly you've been and why that's why you'll always stay single.

There is no hope to this voice, no love. None. I refute that. No good can come out of something void of love, no matter how much veracity or humor it may contain.

I would rather spend my days single and happy than coupled up and miserable, doomed to a lifetime of not-good-enough glares, comments and jokes from someone who operates from such dark places.

He, however, has some very good points;
I agree with all of his Facebook observations and courtesies.
Texting relationships are a joke.
Overly physically affectionate girl to girls is creepy. When I went to DC this last time my cousin's friends tried to make me feel welcome at dinner by feeling on my leg all night. WEIRDNESS.
Burberry Brit rocks (I've had it on and off for years).
Yes people should shower once a day.
Rings bigger than your knuckle should be thrown out multiple story windows.
There are A LOT of very silly girls out there. They should be thrown into the depths of finishing school immediately.
And yes, older YSA women can be petty and catty towards the munchkins that come in and out, but in all honesty, insecurity inducing guys like himself have made us this way. Society first creates criminals and then punishes them and the same principle is glaringly in play with modern YSA social dynamics. I do my best to befriend all the "spring chickens" because it's the right thing to do and my job as an "old hen". Being in a new place with new people is scary. It has NOTHING to do with teaching them good eating habits so that they can stay trim and fit for the peanut gallery. Its offensive to me that that assumption would even be out there.

In essence I kind of feel sorry for this guy and for the girls that take him seriously but I digress. There are too many wonderful and amazing things to get to. But that is my 2 cents on the matter.

It's a Little Strange

I wrote this blog on MySpace (yes I have a MySpace- eye roll away. It's a great place to find bands) a while ago and I was in a particularly sober mood that day - the universe and realities were all pressing down pretty hard then, and I've strangely found myself in the same space for the last week or so. I suppose the reds come around every 4 months. Anywho - I think its a good piece of writing and its pretty reflectionary of tonight for me so I'm going to encore it.

Disfruta:
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It's a little strange but today for some reason, I am feeling very unmarried. Now don't get me wrong – this isn't a "why am I not married??!!" whinny blog. I very rarely feel like this, much less openly talk about it. Underneath whatever kind of emotional precipitation is brewing, raging, or clearing- the Liz Landscape is a very happy one. I have a long, meaty and beloved gratitude list that is categorized, color coded, by-lined and bulleted. I just, for some strange reason, really feel like writing about this right now.

There is so much emotional fore, mid, and background that goes into a conversation like this. Singleatude in Mormon World is cleverly disguised as benign but its really a very difficult state. You're a secondary citizen in the social spectrum of things. You're not any less loved or valid, but there is a social-construct that we all have to deal with that has been built up on the scaffolding of The Gospel and you just don't get to go upstairs or are truly "normal" unless you have a ring on your finger. Every 30 year old unclad left hand is scrutinized in someway and the usual and sometimes reluctant question that pops up is somewhere along the lines of "what's wrong?" Even if it's dismissed right away, never articulated or answered – its still there. And even though you know you are perfectly amicable and hygienic and a fabulous cook - you still ask it of yourself too.

That, however, is not what I really want to speak to right now -

I really don't like the term "single" anyway - its synonyms are just obtuse: solitary, singular, solo, lone, particular. It's hardly an empowering title, much less identity. It gives you this strange subconscious license to be irresponsible and apathetic to other people and ironically this usually goes in tandem with a string of guilt for being that way, and for not being married yet...

But being unmarried is different I think. That's how I feel today – like for the first time I'm really missing something. Like when you get flowers and they sit pretty for a few sweet days and their smell greets you when you get home. But after they expire and you have to throw them out and the next week you kind of sit and think – It would be nice to have some flowers again.

I've thought about what's harrowing up all of this and I've done some emotional inventorying to see if something else is bothering me and it's just manifesting itself in singletonness. Like when something is askew the solution to all problems is just over the next life step – "If I were married I wouldn't have to deal with taking the trash out all the freaking time" And when you are married it's when you buy your house. And when you buy your house it's when the house is paid for etc….

I think I figured it out. There are a few people, very close to me, that have done this "single thing" with me. They've been my wingmen for years and years. And blindsidingly, I felt in my heart today that they are getting closer and closer to marriage and that I needed to prepare.

This made me sit up a bit and 20 minutes later I found myself crying. I don't cry very often either - not out of sadness that is. Then I started laughing in confusion at myself. I felt silly for being selfish and mourning the loss of them. Because no matter what you think, things shift when someone marries – you swear things won't change, but they do. And they should. I would expect nothing else from them. But their potentially marriedness pushes my unmarriedness smack in the spotlight and wishing for some flowers. Its simplistically cyclical and pretty much scares the hell out of me. I don't know what I am going to do without them. I'm so terrified of a life of "other" – even among people that love and adore me – the people I feel the safest with.

Then there is this creeping annoyingly true feeling in my gut – that if we were all on the marriage path together that I wouldn't feel this way at all. I wouldn't feel as separated from them and - everything else really. Solitary, singular, solo, lone, particular. I suppose we all have to figure out how to fend for ourselves – even in the complex emotional realms of the universe.

There isn't a quick remedy – there isn't a flavor or Bert and Rocky's that can rectify or a pair of heals that can do much but pacify. It's a process and I welcome and accept all of that. I truly do – But I think I will sit and see the missing flowers a little more lately.

Aristotle said that "the unexamined life isn't worth living" so I'm doing my best and Heber C. Kimball said "Quit your whining and get the Spirit of the Lord – every one of you" and I'm giving that my best too – it'll be fine. But tonight – this is how I feel.

There you go -

I know - it all really is a little strange.