Dear Bro Mojojo,
Why are boys SO lame?!
Seriously we have four types of Mormon boys to choose from:
1. First your creepy awkward desperate men. These are the ones who stare at you from a far counting how many breaths you take and planning things he wants to do with you in his mind. The awkward/desperate man is usually one that only a mother can love... if she's blind. They will also get down on one knee and propose to you in a heartbeat if you try to be nice to them. They have the right idea to get a woman to the temple with the wrong approach of using creepiness. These guys are usually but in the same category as the guys "with a great personality" but they usually don’t have that either.
2. Secondly, you have the missionaries. You cannot have anything to do with the missionaries because they are serving the lord and it's wrong. These boys make you think you want them because of their great Mormon-ness but then you either have to wait TWO years for something that can never be possible or they finally come home and they change right back into that teenage boy weirdness.
3. Third you have your age difference boys where you get into that stage in life where they are either waaay to young or way too old. This is a problem because you try to find anyone close to your age hot or not and there is no one in the ward or stake or city.
4. And finally you have those perfect Adonis like creatures who can sing and play instruments’ that are nice and hot and read scriptures and go to church and are just perfect. Those are the worse because you know you will never have a chance with them; they are just way too good for you.
So then this leaves girls with NO boys... they just have to go through life lonely and listen to all the old women’s questions of "when are you going to get married?"....never...."do you have a bf?.....no...... and on Sundays you get to hear all about eternal life with your soul mate........ that you don’t have.
So what are we suppose to do your looked down upon for having no Mormon boy and you have to have a MORMON one because dating a non-member is like sticking your sacrament bread in peanut butter before you eat it. So to quote one of my favorite songs... "Where have all the good men gone?"
Honestly I am not superficial, I just want a NORMAL boy who knows the church is true.
Sincerely,
Too Old for YW's and Too Young for Singles Ward
Dear Impatient,
Seriously, given your pseudonym you have to be 18 but not yet out of high school, and therein little sister, is your problem.
I'm sorry the guys you like (I'm guessing you're thinking of at least one missionary and at least one "Adonis" - and are probably inside the Zion Curtain, which is the only place where the mythological "beautiful man" is described first and foremost as a musician . . . not that there's anything wrong with that) don't like you in the same way, but you need to be a little more patient.
You also need to let go of the drama and grow up a little.
That's not meant to insult you, it comes from an old guy who cares enough about you to want you to be happy, so he'll tell you the truth even if it’s a little painful to hear.
Clearly you haven't lived nearly long enough or met enough people. When you have you'll realize four things:
1) The difference between "creepy" and "wonderful" is whether or not you find them attractive
2) The ladies at Church who are prying into your personal life either are gossipy know-it-alls you should ignore or sincerely caring friends that you should open up to, and you'll be greatly benefited by learning the difference
3) Anyone who has to state that he or she is NOT superficial . . . IS
And 4) there's another type of guy out there: the Good Guy. The Good Guy loves you for who you are because he recognizes your Divine Nature and Individual Worth; loves you not just in spite of your flaws, but because of them; loves you and wants to do all in his power to make you happy; and loves you so much that he can't imagine life, or eternity, without you. Sure, he'll be attracted to you, but that won't go away ever because he loves YOU, not just the way you look.
Now, fortunately you've written me and been told the above information. If you receive it with the right attitude your growing up might start right now.
As for the creepy guys, I'll readily admit that what they need is some courting education. I'm trying my best to fix that (its one of the top reasons I started "Dear Bro Jo"), you may want to email all the creepy guys you've ever met and recommend that they check out my column.
[Tangent Quote: "You brethren who are 26+ and creeping around the YSA ward - you've spent 5 years post-mission screwing around, leave the 18 and 19 year old girls alone and focus on girls that are your own age. They're wonderful sisters, and you need to become one of the men who's smart enough and lucky enough to take one to the Temple" - Bro Jo]
Your best chance at finding one of the Good Guys is to be sweet, happy, spiritual, fun, in a place where they exist, available for dating, and willing to go out with every non-scary (meaning honestly frightening, not socially awkward or not-good-looking) guy that asks.
Oh, and sincere. You have to be genuine. Good guys hate fake. You can't just put on the above while you're man hunting; you have to become that.
And I believe that you can, and probably already are. If you're not, fix it.
And be just a little more patient.
- Bro Jo
PS: When you meet some Good Guys, let us know, please. I'll give you a hint: we call them "men", not "boys".
PSS: You can tell who the Good Guys are because they're very frustrated with you and the many other sisters just like you. Every time they hear you whine about not being asked out, they realize that your complaint is really that you're not being asked out by the guys you want to be asked out by, regardless of whether they're Good Guys or not, AND they're more than just a little tired of you being so superficial while accusing them of the same. They're easy to spot: they roll their eyes a lot and glance towards Heaven whenever you and your friends vent your dating frustrations.
7 comments:
Could not agree with you more Bro Jo. Guys feel just as frustrated as the girls in this situation. We all need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. We get too caught up looking for "the one" and miss so many good people along the way. I think if we were to pay more attention to the eternal aspects of a person rather than the temporal, we'd see a lot more people tying the knot.
I'm not sure where in the country/world you ware, but it definitely sounds like you're either still in high school or have just graduated and haven't moved away from home yet. If you have the opportunity, please come to one of the BYUs (Provo, Idaho, or Hawaii). Even though many people make fun of meeting your spouse at BYU, there's a reason it happens so much; there's a high concentration of very good and worthy LDS young single adults all with similar goals.
To echo Bro Jo's comments, do not be fake. Though I think a more important side of not being fake, is being yourself. "She does want the real you. She may not want to see it all at once, but she does want to see it" (If you haven't seen Hitch, go watch it now. Some of the ideas presented in the movie are not correct, pre-marital sex for one, and the movie is more pointed as "guys need help", but some of the overall ideas about dating and understanding a person of the opposite sex are applicable in most any situation.
I did not even read Bro Jo's response yet and this is what I have to say: Before you even begin to think about men, look at yourself. You can't label guys into categories when you haven't even taken a chance to step back and look at yourself and see what kind impression YOU give off. You're probably in high school. Or fresh out of high school or something.
Relax.
It sounds like you really desperately need to take quite a few steps back and look at yourself. I can't emphasize how important it is to FIRST focus on yourself before you focus on the guys. There is a saying about friends; to have a friend, one must first be a friend. And about marriage as well... be the person you want to marry (or date). Not in the literal sense, but you want a good guy who will honor his priesthood and be a great match for you... make yourself attractive to that kind of man by living those standards yourself!!! And be PATIENT. This takes TIME. It actually takes a life time. But one VERY important thing about marriage is that you and your spouse be on the same spiritual level and you both encourage each other to be a better person. In the world, in the gospel, at all times. You can't start this the day you get married. You have to start this NOW. This is actually what personal progress is about in young women's. They emphasize it a lot, but most people don't put two an two together until after they leave young women's.
Also, you're *barely* getting started on life! "but I'm getting close to twenty!" Say you live to 100. You're only 20% of the way there. You've barely started. You have Plenty Of Time to find someone.
Also, I have a mini-rant on labeling.
We are ALL children of God. Some people have similar habits, personalities, interests, etc. That does NOT make every person with a similarity the SAME person with the same flaws, same positives, same intentions, etc. We are all unique, and when you start putting young men into groups like that, you are eliminating a LOT of possibilities. Get to know people OUTSIDE of the group. You might be surprised to see what you find.
Ew. Give me a break. There are so many awesome guys out there.
Wow.
President Packer once said highly-trained musicians have a tendency to be temper-mental, more temper and less mental. Well, let's slightly alter that, and say that your letter was judgmental, more judge and less mental.
Laura mentioned being the type of person you want to marry. If you want to find a "perfect" guy you'll never find one; however, a righteous Elder should do just fine; and as such, a worthy priesthood holder would ever find someone this judgmental attractive. Some humble pie would do you some good, or even a visit to the factory.
There are way too many guys who would be wonder husbands who don't get a chance because they don't meet some predetermined list of qualifications. I knew a guy from my old singles ward who never got a chance because he was just bad at talking to girls. He was EQ president, very spiritual, served a mission, lived his life the best he could, had a career and owned his own house; regardless, he was never given a chance; as far as I know he is still single. It's quite sad.
I take my older sister Cherryl as an example of looking for what really matters. She is very athletic, works out all the time, served a mission (which lasted 28 months, BTW), and she was very energetic. She was looking for someone a lot like that. Her husband is 14 years older than she is, he is a very large man, is a convert, divorced, and very laid-back; however, he is very spiritually in-tuned, a hard worker, and he does absolutely everything he can to be the best husband and father he can be. My sister couldn't be happier. (One lady actually had the gall to ask my sister if she could be sealed to Greg in the next life, to which my sister replied she would
"push [the other lady] off that cloud.")
Long story short, get over yourself. Ask yourself why in the world you "perfect" man would want to marry you (as Elder Bednar put it). Once you develop Christ-like humility, you will see men for who they really are, and feel a lot less pessimistic about us.
P.S. If i seem harsh, it's because I am one of those guys who often gets over-looked because I don't fit into the typical "Mormon Boy" mold, and I find it extremely infuriating.
"Overlooking" is something that both sexes do.
I've been thinking that YSA Wards should hold Sacrament meeting sitting in the choir seats of a Family Ward (or, perhaps even better, a "Nearly Dead" Ward) - something may click if you spend an hour looking out at older married couples, people that haven't looked like a magazine cover in 45 years (if they ever did).
Look at the Grandmas and Grandpas . . . (and their parents). The superficiality is gone. They sit there, holding hands, totally cute and in love with each other, and the things they find most attractive about each other . . . well that's the stuff that's really important.
- Bro Jo
This is so far my favorite post! I especially #1 and the P.S. and P.S.S.
Awesome!
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