Why I'm not married yet

DISCLAIMER: If you're looking for a depressive rant about the sad status of my love life, go somewhere else. (Also, you might want to ask yourself exactly WHY you're looking for such a thing, and possibly seek help.) This is not the rambling of a lovesick loser lost in his laments, but an intellectual look at the reasons behind my — and perhaps other people’s — lack of the One Ring to Rule Them All on my left hand.

Two more of my friends recently got engaged. Another one or two are close. My friends, none of them older than 22, are all biting the matrimonial dust. And those are only the male friends. My old female friends, for the most part, were sucked into the marriage dimension a long time ago.

And yet here I am, lingering in limbo. I don’t feel any particular pressure to get married, but it would be nice, sometime down the road, to have an assurance that my wife wasn’t killed by a stray arrow in the war in heaven. It would be nice to discover that romance was more than, in the immortal words of The Monkees, “fairy tales / Meant for someone else / But not for me.

“What’s the use of trying? / All I get is pain / When I wanted sunshine / I get rain …”

Thought the use of that song carries the risk of relegating this serious reflection to the status of whimpering melodrama, it really can sum up how I feel sometimes.

I try to think what my problem is. I’m attracted to enough girls to rule out the possibility of my being gay. I think I might just be too picky.

My ideal girl is smart, talented, attractive, spiritual, and mature. The exact definitions of those qualities are a little flighty, allowing for some leeway, but I know exactly what I want, and I’m not willing to budge.

Somebody once told me that in order to find the one, I have to be the one. That could be why I’m not yet married. Have I learned enough? Have I honed my talents enough? Have I attained a level of confidence enough to accent my attractiveness? Have I grown enough in my spirituality? Am I mature enough?

I don’t know.

To employ a horribly sappy metaphor, my heart has been broken at least three times since I’ve been home from the mission. Not that this is any unusual feat at BYU–Idaho, where loves are found and lost like the rise and fall of petty empires, but it still hurts.

If you jump off a diving board and do a belly flop, you try again. If you belly flop again, you still climb up the ladder to give in another shot. But what happens if you get the same result the fifth or six time? Statistically speaking, you’re going to eventually do a flop-free dive, but try telling yourself that when you stand dizzily at the top for the eighth time, your stomach still smarting from the last seven impacts.

That’s how I feel about the whole love thing. What’s the use of trying? All you get, after all, is pain. The Monkees knew what they were talking about, even if they could’t spell worth a flying banana.

My point in writing this blog isn’t to sound depressed or desperate, only to get my thoughts onto the screen — where, like any good writer desires, people can read them.

If, by some crazy random happenstance (to borrow a line from Dr. Horrible), my future wife is already one of my Facebook friends, listen up. I’m trying to make myself better for you, so be patient.

I'll find you soon enough, but it's not my priority yet. I'm not yet what I want to be for marriage. It would also help if I had some money.

Wife, be ready for me.

Also, I sometimes quote Star Wars in my sleep, so be prepared for that.

On MY mission ...

I run the risk of sounding like an arrogant punk, I know. I only ask that during the short slice of time when your eyes are perusing this column, you suspend any judgment of me and instead evaluate what I have to say.

As my mission drew to a close, I harbored the impression that once I got back, I would be honey to all the beautiful flies out there, to use a completely unflattering metaphor for girls.

I thought that using my newfound powers of spirituality, I would be able to woo any girl I wanted.

Now I wonder what alien parasite burrowed into my brain, forcing upon me such naivety.

Here at BYU–I, everyone is a returned missionary. Sometimes I swear I can hear the Manwaring Center vending machines reminiscing among themselves about the good old days when they baptized a village in the Amazon.

Hardly an FHE goes past without those weary words “When I was on my mission …” RMs are full of stories. If they’re not telling about the time they had to spend a night in an active volcano, they’re describing the incident where they followed a hunch and converted half the country’s mafia.

The details may vary from RM to RM, but the premises, unless we’re cautious in the sharing of spiritual experiences, can be a dime a dozen.

However, it’s not my intention to sound cynical.

The mission experience was a microcosm of life, all the hopes and sorrows of life compressed into two years. The Spirit abounded. It’s only natural for RMs to let flow the rivers of memory. It’s another idiosyncrasy typical of those quirky communes of righteousness we call wards and stakes.

And another thing — there were a lot of missionaries out there who were mediocre at best. My mission, during the two years I resided within its borders, contained a significant number of those who considered themselves outside the realms governed by petty things like rules. My mission even had a few real bad apples, the ones who got into trouble I can’t even mention.

Anyone who has served a mission should know what I’m talking about. Perhaps you were one of them. And not to sound narcissistic, but it might irk missionaries who tried their best that such former elders are also claiming the title of RM.

And what is a returned missionary, exactly?

Before I came home, my mission president told me that there are two kinds of returned missionaries.

First, there are those who come home after two years or eighteen months of dodging rules and enduring the admonitions of priesthood leaders confident that at long last they have earned the exalted title of returned missionary and can take their place in LDS society. These missionaries went on a mission and returned to life as it was.

Then there are the ones who return home, but don’t return to the way things were. They can’t. The people they were before the mission are forever buried beneath a polished sheen born of hard-learned lessons. For them, the RM title isn’t an honorific, like a cold medal pinned on a uniform. It’s an invitation to continue the growth that so accelerated during the course of their service.

Listen to me. I sound like John Bytheway. Again, I’m not trying to vaunt myself above anyone else. I won’t tell you what kind of missionary I was. I’ll let those who know me now and who knew me on my mission be the judge of that, one way or the other.

But, girls — remember those two kinds of returned missionaries? Which one do you want to marry?

Give everyone a chance; the principle of repentance is real. My only request, really, is that every returned missionary act like one.