Three Strikes?

Dear Bro Jo,

Brother Johnston I am a sophomore here at BYU-Idaho and have had my fair share of dating.

However, my dating is not all I want it to be.

I am not saying I am desperate for marriage.

In fact, since the last relationship I was in I don't even care for marriage.

It's not a part of my plan.

We all know however BYU-Idaho's reputation and because of that I am a 'stick in the mud'.

I grew up in Southern California and spent a little time in Oregon before coming out here to BYU-I.

My first relationship was to a guy who got sent home early from his mission because he had gotten physical when him and his companion got in a fight.

My next relationship was with a guy who had gotten kicked out of school his first semester because he wasn't living by honor code.

My most detrimental relationship I was in was just this past winter.

He seemed like everything I had been looking for and we were quite serious. However he always had these snide remarks. From taking me to the gym and having me weigh in in front of him and him telling me I needed to loose more weight to him making me wash his car because it wasn't clean enough for him to drive around to me catering to his Superbowl party and being uninvited to him kissing me and saying my lips were chapped and then handed me Chapstick.

Needless to say this poor excuse of a man has made me not even want to date let alone consider marriage.

As you can tell from my track record I tend to date the bad boys and attract them faster than I can run away.

I don't know what to do and how to change my dating techniques to where I can find the right guy that I deserve to be in a relationship with.

HELP!

 - Cynical at BYU-I-Do




Dear Cynical,

Well . . . you sure have a collection of losers there, don't you?

But they're not emailing me, so there's nothing I can do about them.

(Someday you'll have to hear about all the losers Sister Jo went out with before yours truly - worked out great for me!)

Instead we'll have to focus on you.

Let's start with your take on marriage.

Don't you think you're being a little too melodramatic, and perhaps focusing your energy on the wrong thing?

I mean, three horrible relationships (with guys you picked, by the way) hardly means that the entire institution is flawed.

To answer your question about how you change your dating techniques, I need to ask you:

- What ARE your dating techniques?

-  And how do you define "relationship"?

-  Do you go from 1st date right into commitment? 

-  How did these relationships become formalized?

-  You were in three relationships, but how many different guys (other than these jerks) did you date during this time?

And, perhaps most importantly, with all of the Great Guys available at BYU-Idaho (I know several personally) why did you choose these horrible people???

It sounds to me like you need to be surrounding yourself with some of the many Good Guys at your school.

- Bro Jo