The Power of an Icebreaker

In the years since my debacle of a first date at Viewmont High School's annual Christmas Dance, I have been on hundreds of dates with hundreds of girls, but every time I feel like I have something figured out (always open your date's door, never use the word "groin" in mixed company), my next excursion nullifies it. Sometimes dating feels like flunking the same college class year after year, only your professor never actually tells you why you haven't passed.

And yet, there are a few dating tips I feel assured of. One is that you should always cheat when you play pool.

Years ago, before he was married, The Cheetahman and I went on a double date. My date was a Hungarian girl named Alex, who I'd met at my singles ward. Cheetahman's date was a girl named Wanda*, also from our singles ward, who was an avid beach volleyball player. Wanda** also liked ribs. She demonstrated this early in the evening at Tony Roma's by finishing an entire rack of baby backs less than five minutes after they hit our table.

I'm sure there are hordes of men who'd go weak at the knees when confronted by such an awesome display of rib-conquering appetite, but The Cheetahman wasn't one of them...especially when he was footing the bill. Truth is, his presence that evening was more an exercise in accommodation than romantic courtship.

At any rate, by the time the rest of us finished our meal and drove up to the University of Utah campus to shoot a few games of pool at the student union, an odd tone had been established.

Vulgar Display of Rib-Consuming Power + First Date Awkwardness = Odd Tone.

I think that's why about halfway through our second game of two-on-two, I got bored and started cheating. Whenever the girls weren't paying attention, I started pulling out the balls they'd already knocked in and placing them back on the table. Since Cheetahman and I were shooting like crap anyway, our new advantage didn't become immediately obvious. In fact, once he caught on to my plan, we both carried on the exercise for a full ten minutes before our dates realized what we were doing.

When they did finally catch us, something incredible happened. We laughed, our dates pretended to be offended, then they laughed too. The awkward date tension was broken. Everyone relaxed, and the rest of the evening was a lot of fun. On the way home, Wanda*** confessed her love to Cheetahman, and he rejected it and married Alex instead. (About six months later...not that same night).

Vulgar Display of Rib-Consuming Power + First Date Awkwardness + Cheating at Pool = Marriage.

As easy as it is to apply the value of a tension-breaker to dating, I'm going to suggest that the lesson applies elsewhere in life. And I'm not just thinking about board meetings or sports teams, either.

(prepare for profound philosophical/spiritual transition...)

One of the toughest challenges in life, particularly as a Mormon, is understanding the balance of responsibility between yourself and the Lord. We're all required to take initiative, whether it has to do with dating, career, buying leather pants, or most any major life decision, but all the initiative in the world still takes a backseat to the Lord's Timing. This frequently results in an uncomfortable tension and anxiety that leaves a person wondering whether their failure to find a job/spouse/etc. is the result of them doing something wrong, or merely The Lord's Will.

At times like those, I really appreciate those little icebreakers.

---

*Not her real name.
**Again, not her real name. But a name you could associate with a woman who was really into ribs.
***Jamie Lee Curtis once played a woman named Wanda.****
****Jamie Lee Curtis was not Cheetahman's date.

Dating and Driving, No. III

When asked to share my most embarrassing moment, I have a variety of options to choose from. There was the time I stalled a brand-new Mazda Miata five times in front of a half-dozen used car salesmen, and there was another time when John Stockton asked me if I was a girl.

But the winner took place inside a maroon 1983 Honda Accord back when I was still in high school. I was on a date with a girl I had known for a little over a year. We'd been out a handful of times, including a couple of school dances, and I'd decided it was time to "make a move." This decision stemmed from the fact that one of my best friends had just taken her to Prom, and another best friend had just spent a week kissing her on stage in the school play.

We were parked at the Redwood Drive-In out in West Valley, because if seventeen years of pop culture had taught me anything at that point, it was that drive-ins were built for romance. I had pre-determined that at the most romantic point of the film, I would put my arm around my date, thus communicating my "hey baby, I'm yo man" intentions. This seemed like an airtight plan, save for two problems:

1. We were watching "Grumpy Old Men."
2. My car had headrests.

I was able to overcome problem #1 by waiting until the fish and tackle shop owner played by Ozzie Smith died. It was as sensitive a moment as I was going to get, so I took it. I casually stretched out my right arm and tried to drop it behind my date's head. But she was leaning back against the headrest, so instead my arm wound up jammed in the gap between the top of her head and the top of the headrest. It was like my arm was one of those striped tollbooth arms and she was a car that tried to pull out of the parking lot without paying.

Slowly, with my arm still propped up on top of her golden-haired head, she turned and stared at me with a look of confusion that justified any fear I ever had about making a move on someone of the opposite sex.

I tried to address the situation with a non-verbal gesture, meaning I started pushing down with my right arm to try to force it behind her head. Another half-second of confused awkwardness followed, then when my date finally realized what on earth I was trying to do and leaned forward a bit, my arm fell over her shoulders. Then we sat there silently for another forty minutes while Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau worked out their differences--I can't remember which of them wound up with Ann-Margaret--and I took her home. Or maybe we stopped at Village Inn. The other details are a little hazy.

While we remained friends, we never went on another date. After I returned from Chicago a few years later, a mutual friend told me she married a guy she'd met on a blind date*. I don't know if she ever told anyone about my mishap at the drive-in. My guess is no, since compared to the horror stories I usually hear from my female friends whenever we get around to comparing dating notes**, my little mishap comes across as utterly harmless.

I do remember seeing her at our 10-year-reunion, but I can't remember if I talked to her or just kept an awkward distance. Once a girl I've dated gets married, even if we are on good terms, I don't go out of my way to stay in touch. I'm pretty much content to fade into their personal history as one of those "other" guys they met along the way.

The day after that date I took the headrests off my car, and they stayed off for eighteen months until I left on my mission. Never let it be said that I don't learn from my mistakes.

----

*Reason #34 I hate blind dates.

**Reason #18 I am grateful to be a man.

Dating and Driving, No. II

The other day I was online trying to find out how long it takes a speeding ticket to get dropped from a Utah driving record. I'm about three years removed from an incident that took place on the 400 South overpass by I-15, and was wondering if it was about to expire.

Of course, any traffic incident inevitably takes me back to my first ticket experience, which took place the night of my Senior Prom. It was a surreal event to cap off a surreal time in my life. Aside from the usual craziness that surrounds high school graduation, my comic supporting role in the school play had been getting big laughs, and for some reason Cheetahman--the junior class president at the time--decided that it would be a good time to nominate me for prom royalty. In a rare fit of social confidence, I called up the captain of the drill team--a girl I'd exchanged maybe a dozen words with in three years--and asked her to go to the dance with me. Inexplicably, she said yes.

And that's how we wound up sitting in my parents' Honda on a gravel parking lot at the west end of Smoot Park round about 11:30pm the night of the dance. The early stages of the evening were pretty standard: our group had gathered in downtown Salt Lake at Benihana for dinner, then migrated over to the State Fairgrounds for the dance itself. After getting pictures and doing a few obligatory dances, we drove back up north to a home in Centerville we'd designated as a way-station to get out of our formal clothes before meeting at the park to hang out for a couple of hours.

But even though we were the last couple to leave the changing house, when we got to the park no one was there. What I didn't understand was that Smoot Park was an elongated strip of property that stretched from west to east, and I was only familiar with the west end, where I'd meet friends to play football. The east end had a traditional paved parking lot and a jungle gym for little kids, and that's where everyone else went.

If we had cell phones back then, it would have been easy to address the problem. But we didn't, and in my teenage zeal, I came to the conclusion that everyone else must have driven their cars into the park to form some kind of automotive drum circle. No really, I actually thought this.

"Maybe they all pulled up on the grass," I said.

My date didn't have any better ideas, so I flipped on my brights, stepped on the gas pedal, and began driving through Smoot Park, searching for my friends. I was very careful to go slow over the foot bridge that crossed the creek that ran through the park--after all, I was in my parents' car--and after a while, I saw some lights up ahead.

The drum circle, obviously.

But when I got a little closer, my lights illuminated the words "Centerville City Police Department" on the side of a large white squad car. The police had already arrived to break up the party, which was taking place in the normal parking lot next to the jungle gym, about five minutes before I pulled up on the grass.

After a brief awkward exchange with the officer, I handed over my license and my parents' registration before he walked back to his squad car, leaving my date and I to wonder if I was going to be arrested. My friend Dustin came over to check on us and see if I wanted to give him my last will and testament, or just give my date a ride home. But then the cop came back and stopped at my window.

I didn't feel like scanning in  my Prom photos, so instead
 I'll let this image act as a metaphor for my evening.

"Would you step out of the car, please?" he asked.

Quietly I got out and followed the officer over to his squad vehicle.

"Get in," he said, pointing to the passenger seat.

I opened the door and got in next to the officer, who ignored me for ten full minutes while running my name through the system and filling out some paperwork. The distorted robotic voice of the dispatcher--which mentioned my name a time or two--was the only sound in the car amid all the blinking lights and the flashes of static. I kept waiting for the officer to start reading me my rights, but eventually he just got my signature and gave me a court date before kicking me out of his car and driving off into the night, presumably to break up another of Viewmont's wild prom parties.

A couple weeks later I found myself in the Centerville City Courthouse with my dad, waiting to visit with Judge Jensen about my citation. The room was more of an office than a courtroom, smallish and packed to the hilt with offenders, all of us waiting on the judge who sat against the wall in front of a window behind a massive wooden table in his vast black robe. For an hour or so we sat quietly while the city's finest felons filed up to the table to address their various DUIs and other violations. At one point a county inmate in an orange jumpsuit and shackles was led into the room to discuss some kind of heinous crime I've since blocked out, though I think it had something to do with armed robbery or murdering seventeen people or maybe just using an Arby's for illicit purposes, and I got the feeling that I was just a little bit out of my element.

But then Judge Jensen called me up to his table. He sat there for a moment looking over my citation, looming in the tall frame that had fathered some of the area's most successful basketball prospects, then sighed and asked me this question:

"Josh, are you familiar with city statute 347Z-211B?"

I squinted my eyes and concentrated for a second, as if there was a chance I actually had encountered that statue in my travels.

"No," I replied.

"It pretty much says you can't drive through public parks."

Five minutes later, the verdict was official: $40 fine and nothing on my permanent record, since it wasn't a moving violation.

It wasn't a moving violation because I wasn't driving on a paved surface.

And so I walked out of the courthouse a free man, my father by my side, tasting the pure spring air. Now it was time to dial back in and finish up my high school career, maybe work a couple of extra hours at the grocery store to make up for the citation money, and look forward to a bright, criminal record-free future. To be honest, my biggest surprise during the whole ordeal was how easily my parents had taken the news of their son's socially deviant activity.

They let me borrow the car again, but I never did get another date with the drill team captain.

"Warm Bodies" Keeps the Zombie Genre's Heart Beating...For Now

It's been six and a half years since a small group of my like-minded friends gathered in an unfinished basement in Woods Cross for the first official Zombie Fest. As much fun as the yearly tradition has been, over the years I've started to wonder how long it would be before our zombie passion would burn out. Every once in a while a fresh face like "Evil Dead II" would breathe some life into our routine of old standards like "28 Days Later" or "Night of the Living Dead," but in spite of our efforts, the Zombie Fest Apocalypse may still be at hand.

2012's event felt like the last bullet to the undead-brain: after the first feature, a screening of the so-so "Quarantine," most of the fest attendees decided to call it a night. Only my friend and fellow head-shaver Spencer and I stuck around to watch "Dead Snow," a Norwegian film about a group of skiers who encounter a raging band of Nazi Zombies on the frozen tundra.

"Dead Snow" was either the greatest camp zombie movie I have ever seen, or a desperate effort to squeeze original blood from the zombie stone. It had all the craziness and creativeness that make zombie movies fun (plus a POV shot that might cure you of zombie flicks on its own), but while watching it, I couldn't help but think to myself, "where do we go from here?"

Now I know: zombie romantic comedies. This weekend I took a spin over to the Centerville Megaplex with some friends to see "Warm Bodies," which boasts one of the most unique zombie breakthroughs since Danny Boyle asked, "what if zombies could run fast?" For the first time, we see the film from the zombie's point of view.

Specifically, we see it through "R's" point of view. Played by Nicholas Hoult (the kid from "About a Boy," if you can believe it), R spends his days wandering around an abandoned airport, scavenging for brains and having periodic grunt conversations with his only friend (played by Rob Corddry). It's been about eight years since the outbreak, but he can't remember what caused it, being undead and all.

R is a special kind of zombie. He's dead, but there's still a personality flickering around in his own brain, enough to give us some voice-over narration throughout the film. He's more or less staked out an abandoned passenger jet as his new home, filled with odds and ends he's picked up in his slow, lethargic travels. He's even got a working record player and an impressive vinyl collection. Rrr is basically an EMO zombie hipster.

One day, on a search for brains with some of his undead friends, Rrr stumbles onto a band of humans in search of medical supplies, led by Julie (Teresa Palmer) and her PTSD-suffering boyfriend Perry. The angelic vision of Julie brandishing a shotgun while her blond locks flow in slow-motion triggers something in R, so after beating her boyfriend to death and eating his brains, he whisks her off to the safety of his passenger jet, and the romance begins.

Now, I don't mean to discard the whole "beating and brain eating" thing too casually. One of the more interesting aspects of "Warm Bodies" is how it tries to negotiate its lighthearted zombie-in-love premise with its more macabre realities. "Shaun of the Dead" was able to keep its entire satiric narrative on an even tone, but "Warm Bodies" tries to offer a philosophical metaphor to the idea of eating a person's brains. I guess you have to do that when you're trying to make a sympathetic protagonist out of a corpse that sustains himself on the living, but it's a stretch, if nothing else.

Still, when you get right down to it, "Warm Bodies" is more a metaphor for the awkwardness of love than it is a zombie movie, and that's what makes it so relatable, and so fun. I doubt there is a guy out there who hasn't felt like a staggering, creepy, tongue-tied oaf when trying to have a conversation with a girl he was attracted to. And I'm guessing the film is pretty relatable from the female side of the equation as well. Though I can't say for sure, being undead and all.

The film has its faults, but if you have felt a little burned out by the zombie genre and were debating whether to say goodbye (or if you just need something to tide you over until "Walking Dead" starts up again), this one would be worth checking out before you go.

Dating and Driving, No. I

I recently discovered a curious flaw in my driving habits. When I want to change lanes in moderate traffic, I don't flip on my turn signal and wait for my fellow drivers to create an opening for me. Instead, I wait for the natural ebb and flow of traffic to create an opening, then I flip on my turn signal and move over.

As you can imagine, this leads to a lot of agitation when my fellow drivers fail to ebb and flow the way I want them to. At this point, I have to speed up, slow down, utter a few choice words, and finally flip on my signal and force my way over, all the time cursing the oblivious driver who was happy to pass the day away sitting comfortably in my blind spot.

It occurs to me that I behave the same way socially. If I see a girl at a party that I want to meet, I don't "flip on my turn signal" and go meet her. Instead I wait for the ebb and flow of the party to create a natural opening, which rarely if ever happens. Usually the girl leaves the party, or I wind up forcing some kind of hasty introduction which goes badly.

Clearly the lesson has something to do with being assertive in life, and one of these days I'll get around to learning it. In the meantime I can take solace in the fact that I'm not the first person to connect my driving life to my dating life.

Several years ago when I was in grad school, I came back to Salt Lake one weekend to pick up a pair of glasses I had ordered. Since I was in town for a couple of days, I decided to attend church at my old university ward on the University of Utah campus. As I made my way up 400 south Sunday morning, I seemed to hit every possible red light, often at the last second, and it became clear that without a break or two I would be late for sacrament meeting.

I really hate walking in late for sacrament meeting. So whenever the light would change to green, I would stomp on the gas and try to squeeze past the next light. This never happened, and after an extremely agitating run, I finally made it to the Institute building and just barely slipped into the meeting on time. It was a fast and testimony meeting, so surrounded by a number of familiar faces, I settled back into my bench to enjoy what my old friend Nathan used to refer to as, "Open Mic at the U32."

About two or three testimonies in, a girl I had never seen before got up at the pulpit and began to weave a tale of frustration and fury worthy of the most scorned of women. Apparently on her way up to campus that morning she had encountered the most prideful and arrogant driver she could possibly imagine. This pompous fool was so determined to show off for his fellow commuters that he insisted on peeling out at every green light, just to show everyone how great he was.

Imagine the nerve.

Try as she might, after a couple of intersections this poor victim couldn't resist temptation any longer, and she began trying to race this highway menace and put him in his place. But her gallant effort failed as her bitter adversary continued to beat her to each red light.

"I didn't get a good look at him," she said with a weak laugh, "for all I know he's sitting in the chapel right now."

But here is where the story got good. To the bemusement of the congregation, this girl's testimony made the impressive leap from driving angst to dating angst, and she described in vivid, near-hysteric detail how her road rage triggered a host of pent-up emotions that had been boiling under the surface. Near tears, the girl poured her heart out into the microphone about how the whole experience stirred up her frustrations of being single, and ultimately served as a reminder that God still loved her in spite of all her imperfections.

Finally at the end of all this she blurted out, "I'm really not a man hater...I promise."

Good to know. For once in my life, I guess I was the oblivious driver.

I was tempted to get up next and tell the innocent story of how my desire to get to church on time served as a heartwarming reminder of why God still loved me. But I didn't. I may come up with mean ideas, but I rarely if ever follow through on them.

Besides, even back then I understood how dumb things like a morning commute could make me stress out about my dating life.

I agree. I'm also pretty sure He and the apostles would use the HOV lane instead of blocking the fast lane.

Important New Dating Terminology

I've been dating for a long time. If my first date were a child, he would be dating. And he wouldn't be having a good time, because he was kind of a disaster.

In spite of my vast experience, I still learn new things about dating all the time. Like new words. Here are some new dating-related terms I've encountered in recent weeks:

Underdated (Adj.)

My friend Melanie coined this term at a group excursion to the Red Iguana 2 a couple months back. Derived from the word underrated, "underdated" refers to a man or woman who is comparatively inactive on the dating scene in spite of obvious qualifications, such as looks, personality, or the ability to read minds.

Here's how you would use the term underdated...

...in describing a man:

"Darryl has a great sense of humor and owns his own home, yet he hasn't had a steady girlfriend since the beginning of the Obama Administration. He is totally underdated."

...in describing a woman:

"Bernice graduated from law school with a 3.9 GPA and has a smile that lights up the room, yet she only goes on dates every month or two because she reminds people of Jodie Foster. She is underdated."

The second example offers a clue as to the reason for the underdated condition, but in most cases this reason is not readily obvious. It is a condition that is frequently unexplained, like being a libertarian.

Bro'd Out (Adj.)

This expression came up about a month ago while hanging with some of the guys (probably because we are all underdated). The expression "Bro'd Out" refers to a girl who has officially crossed over into "one of the guys" territory to such a degree that would make it impossible to view her in a dating context. After some discussion, we ultimately concluded that to become "Bro'd Out" is an involuntary, subconscious act that would be bad news to the subject in question. Indeed, it is especially tragic because it often results from an effort that was intended to have the opposite effect.

Here's how you would use "Bro'd Out" in a sentence:

"Wanda always greets me with a fist bump and calls me by my last name. She can also bench press me, and proves it uncomfortably often. She is officially Bro'd Out.''

Dating Coach (Noun)

Recently my former singles ward organized an activity that featured a "Dating Coach" When I asked about the event, I was told that the Dating Coach was something of a modern equivalent to an etiquette coach, who would teach boys and girls how to treat each other on dates and stuff.

Here is how you would use the term "Dating Coach" in a sentence:

"Last weekend my ward hosted a fireside with a Dating Coach, and I didn't learn anything."

While that's nice and all, I would be more excited to employ the services of someone a little truer to the title. To me, a real Dating Coach would actually go on your dates with you, watching from the sidelines, calling in plays, and screaming at me when I dropped passes. Someone who would be along for the ride and give me in-the-moment advice. Kind of like if Jerry Sloan and Will Smith's character from "Hitch" mated.

This is how my version of a "Dating Coach" would be used in a sentence:

"I went into my third date with Teela sitting on a comfortable 2-0 record, and though I was able to  maintain a lively conversation at dinner and build a comfortable lead, I misread her signal during the movie and blew a chance to hold her hand. Luckily my Dating Coach was there to chew me out before the start of the fourth quarter, and as I dropped Teela off I noticed my coach hiding in the bushes nearby, tapping his shoulder with three extended fingers (the signal for "doorstep kiss"). So I executed a perfect crossover dribble and drove hard to the hoop for a clear-path layup plus the foul, scoring a three-point play and preserving my undefeated season."

Odoriferous Emanations

The time has come for another major life decision. After over twelve years of use, my one bottle of cologne has finally run out, and the time has come to find a new one.

Back in the summer of 1998, I went out with a girl from Sandy and wound up wandering around the Southtowne Mall.  I have no idea how this happened, but I do remember passing through the perfume/cologne section of some department store, at which point my date mentioned that she liked Polo Sport. You can pretty much fill in the rest from here.

Anyhow, that bottle of Polo lasted me a long time (Too long? Do these things even expire?), but now I need to find another option. This is a tricky challenge, because most perfumes and colognes smell exactly the same to me. I don't know if it's because I'm a guy or because I have an underdeveloped sense of smell, but unless something smells really, really good (tacos, the ocean, victory), or really, really bad (tuna fish), I won't notice it.

So help me out. What should I buy next? Make your suggestion count; if I pick it up, it's gotta last me at least a decade.

The Wounded Mosquito Productions Internship!

This week, across the country, hundreds of millions of bright-eyed youngsters are starting a brand-new semester of college, in many cases, for the first time.  But in these days of intense competition and uncertain economic climate changes, a degree will only take you so far, and many employers are looking for something extra in prospective employees.  That is why, in the proud tradition of Dunder Mifflin and Kramerica Industries, Wounded Mosquito Productions has decided to offer its first-ever official internship* for the Fall 2010 semester.

Description

The Wounded Mosquito Internship will give one successful candidate a variety of genuine, real-world professional experiences, including (but not limited to) the vast world of modern media, the behind-the-curtain world of modern academia, and the ever-changing tasty world of local culinary establishments.  The intern will function side-by-side with the company President and CEO to execute and maintain the high quality standards of Wounded Mosquito Productions.  (Specific high quality standards of Wounded Mosquito Productions subject to change).

Specific responsibilities include:

• Waking President/CEO up in morning
• Preparing breakfast for President/CEO (or lunch, depending on circumstance)
• Texting friends/associates of President/CEO to make social plans for weekend
• Surfing Internet to look for ideas/clients for President/CEO
• Grading English papers for the President/CEO while he does other stuff
• Running the iPod while driving to shoots with President/CEO
• Attending functions with President/CEO, such as Jazz games and afternoon matinees
• Driving company vehicle if President/CEO is way pooped after a long day
• Assisting the President/CEO with important scientific experiments, like testing new salsa or smoothie recipes
• Remembering stuff that President/CEO often forgets, like turning off the stove before leaving the house

Minimum Qualifications

The selected candidate must:

• Speak/write/recognize English
• Be high school graduate, or thereabouts
• Be able to cook pretty well
• Be able to write stuff fast in case President/CEO starts getting lots of ideas really quick
• Be able to drive a manual transmission
• Have a clean driving record, or at least a cleaner one than President/CEO
• Be able to understand satire

Preferred Qualifications

The ideal candidate will be:

• Female
• Single
• Into cool stuff, like music and food
• Smart with a cool personality...and hot, too
• A former athletic trainer (President/CEO needs to lose about 15-20 pounds)
• Not way taller than President/CEO
• Willing to put up with President/CEO's eccentric-genius habits

Additional Details 

This is an unpaid internship, and Wounded Mosquito Productions does not offer college credit, at least any that would be accepted by an accredited institution.  (At the same time, candidate does not need to be enrolled at an accredited institution to qualify for internship.  Candidate can be in massage therapy school, for example).  Company will provide successful candidate with her own parking space. At the conclusion of the internship, candidate will receive autographed certificate of completion and photo with President/CEO.  They may go out to dinner or something, too.

Instructions

If you are interested in applying for this position, please send a resume and head shot to intern_thing@woundedmosquito.com.  A representative of Wounded Mosquito Productions will contact you if the President/CEO wants to bring you in for an interview, or just meet you downtown to grab a burger or something.  President/CEO may decide to bring on multiple candidates depending on professional and social needs.

---

*Satire.

A Few Thoughts on Lawn Care

I hear a lot of the same questions over and over again...

Where do you get your ideas?
Are you on drugs?
Do you want me to call the police?

Another one came up recently at the Yogurt Stop in Bountiful.  A dozen of us were innocently enjoying our custom made pay-by-the-ounce desserts when a girl in the group sent the conversation onto a random tangent:

"Is it OK for girls to ask guys out on dates?"

About half the guys in the group grumbled slightly, and the other half shook our heads.  Then came an empty awkward silence that said far more than anything we could have verbalized.

When it comes to dating, I often feel like a third-world dictator.  I only have a fleeting grasp on a small corner of a very big world, but I will cling desperately to that corner until I am assassinated.  I can't choose which girls will respond to my interest, but at least I can choose who to invite.

This may sound sexist in our modern world, and maybe it is, but the simple truth is that if I am interested in someone, I will ask them out.  If I'm not, I won't.

Now, there are alternatives, especially if like most girls you are convinced that the only reason the man in your sights hasn't asked you out is because he is too shy to pull the trigger.  If you want to encourage interest, speak to him in public situations.  Laugh at his lame jokes.  Follow his blog.  Better yet, invite him to a party or some kind of group activity.  Just don't cut his grass.  If you ask him out, he'll think, "hey, isn't that my job?  I feel like I am being metaphorically kicked in my man parts."  And an empty awkward silence will follow.

We don't want to get kicked in our man parts.  We just want to rule Cuba in peace.

The Streak

On the night of June 27th, 1998, I sat in a fifth-wheel trailer in Island Park, Idaho, scribbling in a black ten-dollar hard-bound journal from Deseret Book.  I'd finished my first year of school at the University of Utah after returning from Chicago, and had just arrived at the family place outside Yellowstone for the first time since before I'd left.

Twelve years later, I still haven't missed a daily entry.

As much money as I've spent on camera lenses, computer equipment, and retro Air Jordan's, there is nothing as valuable to me as the ten journals I've filled in the last dozen years.  It's cool to think that I could go back to any day from that period and tell you exactly what I was doing.  All too often in life we worry about the things we haven't done, but journals are a nice way to remember what we have enjoyed.

Here are a dozen examples from the last twelve years:

• Met George Lucas, Ray Bradbury, and Luke Skywalker.
• Taught English composition to firefighters in South Jordan.
• Got paid fifty bucks to be a bouncer at a Saltair young adult dance.
• Been a Best Man twice.
• Totaled a 1964 Mustang.
• Saw James Brown in concert.
• Saw Sammy Sosa hit a home run at Wrigley Field.
• Ate a raw Habanero pepper.
• Finally scored a goal in an official rec league soccer game (that wasn't for the other team).
• Won a fresh salsa competition and a chili cook-off.
• Sang lead for a real Chicago blues band at The Blue Chicago.
• Got mugged in The French Quarter.

Here are twelve things I'd like to accomplish in the next dozen years (assuming civilization is not wiped out by a zombie/robot apocalypse first):

• Watch a movie at either The Spud Drive-In outside Driggs, Idaho or The Sky-Vu Drive-In south of Monroe, Wisconsin.
• Become an uncle.
• Get a book published.
• Buy another Mustang.
• Visit the old Tatooine set from the original "Star Wars" shoot in Tunisia.
• Lose enough weight to fit the medium sized "Elvis meets Nixon" t-shirt gathering dust in my dresser.
• Sit courtside for a Jazz game...in the Finals! (Brother's gotta dream, right?)
• Have someone throw their underwear at me while playing drums onstage.
• Reach 100 "followers" on this dumb blog (this is a hint).
• Get Natalie Portman's phone number.
• Convince people to finally start referring to my friend Bill as "Dr. Thunder."
• Bench press 300 lbs.

The Blind Date Paradox

I don't know how many blind dates I've been on over the years.  More than some, a lot less than others.  But one thing remains constant: I have never been on a repeat with any of them.

That being said, I can say with gratitude that I have been on only a few BAD blind dates.  I do not have the nightmare stories so many of my female friends can recite chapter and verse as if Freddy Kreuger just dropped them off at the doorstep.  The majority of my blind date experiences have been of the mid-range, "nice girl but no spark" variety, not the "this person is a psychopath; why is he/she licking the glove compartment?" variety.

Maybe that's why in spite of my track record, I still have to keep considering these opportunities.  At the age of thirteen I saw the Utah Jazz overcome an 8-point deficit to the Chicago Bulls with 40 seconds left in regulation, so I don't have a history of giving up on hopeless causes.

Plus my parents met on one.

One reason so many blind dates don't work is that the people arranging them don't do a lot of homework on the people they're setting up.  They tend to minimize things, thinking "Guy X has a sense of humor.  So does this single girl I know.  Bingo!"  Or in my case, age becomes the magical ingredient.  "Josh is in his 30's.  So is this single girl I know.  Bingo!"  As if I won't have anything in common with a 25-year-old.

To be honest, the biggest problem with blind dates is a little axiom that everyone knows but tries to ignore: if there is no physical attraction, the game is over.  It can take a dozen dates to figure out if someone matches my personality (recovering night owl) or shares my values (road trips and homemade salsa), but I can tell within 2.17 seconds whether I want to kiss her.

I've tried to lay down the law with blind dates.  I've tried to persuade my would-be matchmaker to invite us both to the same party, and see if we hit it off naturally.  I've tried to get them to ask themselves honestly, "would Josh ask this girl out on his own?" I've tried to mandate that the dates are kept to one-hour quick-release power lunches at sniper-proof public locations that don't require tips, or that the person propositioning me provide a photograph beforehand.  But none of those strategies ever really work.  How do you in good conscience look at a photograph of a real live human being, then look at your well-meaning friend (who may be related to this person), and say "no thanks?"  You can't.  Instead you mumble some excuse, crack a joke to get them off-topic, or tell them you'll let them know if you're interested (knowing you'll never get back to them).  Or you just suck it up, go on the date, and try to be as much of a gentleman as humanly possible, because you know that even if you aren't interested in the girl in the least, you would never forgive yourself if you knew you had hurt her feelings.

...and the cycle continues.

On the way home from almost every one of my blind dates, I think the same thing: "Josh, you just need to man up and ask out the girls you're interested in."  If that's what comes out of it, then maybe blind dates aren't such a bad thing.

Big Brother and the Social Media Company

A week or so back I got a call from The Cheetahman.

"Brian committed Facebook Suicide," he said solemnly.

I had already discussed that possibility with our mutual friend as we took down a pre-playoff game meal at the Gateway Food Court Taco Time a week previous, so his decision to cancel his Facebook account didn't take me by surprise.  But I was intrigued by The Cheetahman's new term for the act.  As prevalent as our online dependence has become in recent years, pulling the plug on a social media network has become tantamount to throwing yourself under a virtual bus.

Brian's not my first friend to say "no mas" to Facebook.  Several members of my virtual network have gone off the grid over the last year or two, some multiple times.  The reasons are varied.  Some just never use the sites and cancel their accounts as a matter of spring cleaning.  Others use them far too much, and cancel in an effort to reclaim a healthy lifestyle.  A few cite moral reasons, pointing to instances where hooking up with an old flame virtually led to a hookup in the real world, which would be fine if the parties involved didn't already have their own spouses and families.

I tend to see Facebook, and most technology, as an enabler.  It gives you a convenient way to follow through on an impulse you already have.  For me, Facebook is a way to stay connected, to maintain my real-world relationships, and even to promote some of my creative efforts like photography and this blog.  It's my online Rolodex.  But I think it enables my social anxieties, too.  Nowadays when I meet a girl at a party, I'm a lot more inclined to just add her on Facebook than to man up and get her phone number.  Like text messaging, social media is often just another virtual wall we use to avoid the fear of actual face-to-face human interaction.

While I'm still single, I'll probably stick with Facebook, at least until the next big thing makes it obsolete.  Because whether I like it or not, the only way to get invited to real-life parties is to stay connected to that virtual singles scene.  But I still wonder if I wouldn't be better off jumping into the Great Beyond without my digital parachute.

The Glue

A few years ago, one of my former student ward bishops asked me to put together a ward reunion.  I was more than happy to oblige; those had been good times.  So I put together a crack squad of U32 veterans, gathered a few hundred e-mail addresses, and made it happen.

The night of the event, I found myself sitting on one of those trademark folding cultural hall chairs at one of those trademark folding cultural hall tables, catching up with one of several friends who had long ago left the singles ward scene to get married and start having kids.

At one point in the conversation, my good friend, in all seriousness, asked if I didn't just weep openly because I was still single after all these years.  I told him I didn't, and the conversation shifted to the fact that I had spearheaded the effort to coordinate the evening's event (an effort I was second-guessing at the time).  At that precise moment, my friend labeled me with one of the most adept nicknames I've ever been given, and probably the one I resent the most:

"Man," he said, "You're THE GLUE."

I'm sure he meant it as a compliment, and I tried to take it that way.  Over time, however, it hasn't been a label I have truly embraced.  One of the sad realities about marriage is that the people who pull it off don't put much of a high priority on staying in touch with old friends.  If you want to stay connected with certain people, most of the time you have to be the one to take the initiative.  You have to be The Glue.

Most of the time.

Not all the time, though.  Sometimes you have friends who make an effort to keep ties, and sometimes, those friends get married to wives who foster that effort.  Today, the day after Mother's Day, I'd like to thank those wives.

Sometimes being The Glue is a pain in The Gluteus Maximus.  It's nice to get some help from time to time.

Friday Morning

This morning as I lay sprawled in bed, trying to summon the strength to overcome last night's 3AM bedtime due to a rare midnight movie event (the premier of "Iron Man 2," AKA, "Ex-80's Heartthrob's Shoot CGI Lasers at Each Other Inside Illogically Lightweight Iron Suits"), my new wake-up radio station demonstrated our culture's increasingly conflicted understanding of what constitutes Classic Rock by airing the Def Leppard classic "Love Bites," which far and away held the record for the song most frequently cited in on the dedication page of the Charger Chapter by 8th Grade students of Centerville Junior High back in 1989 (in spite of the soft-rock juggernaut that was Richard "Right Here Waiting" Marx), and I was once again reminded of A. How old I am; B. How far we have come as a culture (IE, dedicating songs to each other in the school newspaper vs. text messaging pictures of our naughty bits); and C... well, I think C was supposed to be the crack about Def Leppard not being a Classic Rock band, but I already mentioned that, and I can't think of anything else to plug in here that will round out a suitable trio of options, let alone a traditional third-item zinger, because my mind is a tad loaded down from the final English 1010 papers I still need to grade, the wedding video I need to finish, the date/companion I still need to get for tomorrow's Jazz-Laker playoff game, the challenge of getting my surround system to Kaysville tonight for a birthday party in spite of the fact that I don't have a truck, the run to Guitar Center I need to make to buy some new tom-tom heads and maybe brushes before tomorrow morning's practice with my brand-new (and still unnamed) blues band (which will be preceded by me dropping off my Honda to get some brake work done so the wheel stops shaking whenever I decelerate from 80mph), and whatever else I've pushed back into my subconscious while I sit here trying to pump out a convoluted blog entry that has no real focus other than to keep up a consistent post rate and maybe offer the novelty of an entire post that consists of a single sentence.

Living the Portable Life

A few years ago I helped a girl move out of her apartment.  I figured that as a one-bedroom, it would be a quick job.  Many hours and many boxes later, it wasn't.  Aside from the numerous boxes of shoes--not shoe boxes, mind you; boxes full of shoes--the item that stood out in my mind was the 36 x 12 x 8 inch box exclusively devoted to smelly candles.  That morning I added another item to my dating "red flag" list.

Last week I helped my old home teaching companion move out of his central Bountiful rambler.  He's married with three kids, and a pretty down-to-earth guy.  Yet I was amazed to watch as his belongings were carted out into the front yard.  Here was a humble family, completely non-materialistic by modern Davis County standards, and yet the sheer volume of their belongings felt overwhelming.  I was reminded of how portable my life really is.

I've moved seven times since I finished grad school six years ago, and none of those moves needed a U-Haul.  Mostly that's because I hardly have any furniture (see: $500 bean bag), and partially because I still suffer from that special single person's disease that leads you to store a lot of stuff at your parents' house.

Maybe it's just my transient Mormon heritage, or it could be this romantic notion I have of living on the open road, but I kind of like the idea of being able to pick up and move with a minimum of effort.  Don't get me wrong; I have plenty of "stuff." I just don't like the idea of having to make multiple U-Haul trips to get it from place to place.

The ultimate manifestation of this lifestyle came in Chicago, when at any given time I had to be ready to move all my earthly belongings--including a rather awkward and cumbersome mountain bike--with a single Ford Escort Wagon.  But even that situation had loopholes.  If I really wanted to keep something that wasn't going to make it to my next area, I just shipped it home before transfers.

As I watched my old ward friend move last week, his belongings looked like the physical manifestation of the metaphorical anchor of his life.  He was rooted.  Domesticated.  I've always assumed that I've wanted those roots, but after years of pop-culture driven idealism when it comes to things like marriage and family, I think I'm becoming more aware of the magnitude of such commitments.  And yet while I'm wary of these roots, I think some of them may be taking hold without my knowing.

It's sobering, man...even I own a couple of those stinky candles.

11 Reasons I am NOT a Pimp-o-Matic Mega-Stud

After my previous post, one of my faithful readers suggested I might consider the flip-side of my Marryability argument.  I don't know, in the interest of humility or honesty or something.  Well, never let it be said I don't value the input of my readers.  Last time I gave you the reasons I am a catch.  Here are the reasons you might have to release:

1. I am not a homeowner.  When the zombie apocalypse hits, we will not be holed up in the basement with all of our food storage.  Chances are we will hit the highway Mad Max style, gunning down Z's at 80mph and fighting road battles for precious, precious gasoline.  Besides, after you've participated in enough Saturday morning Elder's Quorum moves, you realize the best kind of life is the kind that is portable.

2. I never eat at the table.  For some reason, I have to be watching something or reading something while I'm eating.  I'm not sure this explains why you can often find me eating shrimp cocktails on the couch downstairs at 1AM while watching downloaded episodes of "Fringe," but it's a start.

3. I refuse to use emoticons.  This one goes for dumb acronyms, too.  Six months ago a girl rejected me via text, and the last line of her message was seriously "Best of luck 2 U."  I felt like I was getting dumped by MC Hammer.  Yes, emoticons and hip acronyms may help the interpretation of your tone (IE, sarcasm), but honestly, if you're a decent writer, that shouldn't be a problem.

4. I hate country music.  Let me rephrase that: I hate hate hate hate hate hate hate country music.  This will not change.

5. I hate minivans and SUV's. I love to drive, and I'm hard pressed to think of two vehicles that negate that passion more, whether you're behind their wheels or just stuck behind them on a long road.  Yet these are the vehicles you need once your family passes a certain threshold.  I honestly think I'd rather drive a school bus.

6. I own a $500 Bean Bag. It sounds better if you know that it has a retail value of $1,100.  But not much.  And if you think that's bad, you should hear how much my camera lenses cost.

7. I am a nerd. Maybe the video game thing isn't a problem for me, but my inner geek was branded the minute I jumped in my car and set out for Comic-Con 2007.  Or the minute I approached George Lucas in a Chicago mall.  Or...well, pretty much since this happened.

8. I have a diminished vertical leap. All great athletes have to adapt their games late in their careers.  Karl Malone developed a jump shot.  Michael Jordan did underwear commercials with Kevin Bacon.  I used to be a short speedy guy who could catch you from behind on fast breaks.  Now I'm a short slightly more built guy who just pushes you out of the way.

9. I am physically incapable of tanning. This has made certain recreational pursuits like boating problematic.  I'm kind of like that assassin guy in DaVinci Code, only without the quiet moments of naked self-flagellation. 


10. I like who I am.  There's a prevalent idea out there that suggests every girl gets married with the intention of molding her husband into the man she wants him to be.  I have caught glimpses of this on different dates over the years, and it did not go over well.  I like who I am.  I like my Velvet Elvis paintings.  I know I have weaknesses, and I am working on them.  But let me repeat: I like who I am.


11. I am a stubborn, defiant, competitive SOB who follows his gut and doesn't like to be nagged.  In other words, I am a man.

11 Reasons I am a Pimp-o-Matic Mega-Stud

Last week Roommate #51 posted an essay on the concept of what he calls "Marryability," or a measure of how marriage-worthy a guy or girl is.  It has caused me some deep introspection.  Over the years, I have been described as "a tough match," "intimidating," and "having a perfectly shaped head," so in this age of shameless self-promotion, I thought it might be worth my time to assemble a brief hit list of my own marriage resume highlights:

1. I own my own blender.  I even use it, too.  Just to make virgin margaritas, but that's got to count for something.

2. I've got that "opening doors" thing nailed.  This one has already been well-documented.  I can handle doorknobs, push/pull setups, automatic doors, and most types of windows.

3. I shave my head.  Sure, you could say that male-pattern baldness is a negative, but I say it's a much bigger negative to the guys who live in comb-over denial.  Besides, as we discussed earlier, I have a perfectly shaped head.

4. I have season tickets to the Utah Jazz.  That's right, baby: 41 pre-paid date nights a year!  Just make sure to bring your own oxygen mask and an extra layer; the air gets a little thin in the upper bowl.  On the flip side, the odds of seeing a fistfight are way higher.

5. I have a weakness for certain RomCom's.  Keep in mind, there's a big difference between Romantic Comedies and Chick Flicks (which are still a no-no), but thanks to a Big Brother Complex* I developed for John Cusack many years ago, I can usually be talked into a periodic RomCom, especially if it stars some super-fly hot mama like Meg Ryan or Kate Beckinsale.

6. I have cool scars.  Chicks don't dig sissy-boys, they dig scars.  Because nothing says "sexy" like evidence of past lacerations.

7. I own my own business.  Sure, I may have only created it for tax reasons, and yeah, maybe I named it after a Monty Python sketch, but seriously, I own my own business.  That's cool, right?

8. I am not into video games.  I have plenty of free time to talk to you and make out and stuff.

9. I have a reasonable bench-press.  I won't be impressing anyone at the NFL combine, but I hear the basic threshold is the ability to bench your own body weight, and I've got that kicked by a long shot.  Especially if you believe that I weigh 115 pounds.

10. I am handy with a shotgun, and know all the best ways to deal with zombies.  Of course, it helps if they are the size of clay pigeons and operate at a distance of 25-50 yards.

11. I play the drums.  Playing the drums is a lot of fun, but as the foundational element of the band, you often feel left out of the creative loop.  On the other hand, once I heard that drummers make good lovers, so there you go.

...so, why are there 11 highlights instead of a clean 10?  Because guys with marryability don't conform to the cultural conventions of a shallow society (or the rules of grammar).  Ladies, if you really want to score a Pimp-o-Matic Mega-Stud, you have to be ready to dial the volume up to 11.

----

*Meaning "John Cusack is the big brother I never had," not, "I think John Cusack is watching my every move."

Pet Peeves and the Philosophy of Car Door Chivalry

Sunday night I found myself in Layton shooting the bull with a dozen girls and my friend Collin.  The discussion seemed to center around two topics:

1. The proper use of apostrophes with regard to possessives.
2. Dating gripes.

The first topic spun from the subject of text messaging, which was surprising since I didn't think anyone bothered with grammar when it came to text messaging.  The second came up, I think, because the twelve girls thought it would be fun to put the two guys on the spot.  Everyone started bringing up their biggest dating pet peeves, and within no time, we were knee deep in an analysis of that old dating stand-by: door etiquette.

I'm not talking about doorstep etiquette.  I'm talking about opening car doors etiquette.  Maybe it's because I've been dating since the Clinton Administration, but I still find it astounding that when the opportunity presents itself to dig deep into the innate conflicts between the genders, people can't get past this dumb little hitch.  Personally, I'd be much more interested in discerning the answers to more pressing issues, such as:

1. How do you ask a girl out in her place of business?
2. How do you tell the difference between "Playing hard to get" and "She's waiting for you to just go away?"
3. What is Evangeline Lilly's phone number?

But no.  We're still stuck on, "should you open the door for her to get out of the car, or just to get in?"

Here, let me solve the mystery: If you get out of the car and she's still sitting there, go open that door, too.

End of story.

Eventually the discussion wrapped back into a more general conversation about dating pet peeves, which I failed to enter officially, partly because I don't harbor a lot of "on the date" pet peeves.  Most of my gripes are based in the before and after stage of the date, and that's a topic for another, more bitter post.

The other reason I didn't pipe up is because last night's discussion involved a lot of talking back and forth across the room and yelling and mini-conversations and random tangents, and in those situations, I'm a lot more likely to sit back and enjoy the ride...then write about it the next day.  But for those who were curious...

Josh's Top Three "On the Date" Pet Peeves:

1. Introductions

When you go on a date in Salt Lake City, you stand a better-than-average chance of running into someone you know over the course of the evening.  When you do, the courteous thing is to introduce your date to your friend.  The non-courteous thing to do is stand there and talk to your friend for a really, really long time while your nameless date stands there twiddling his/her thumbs. (Just for the record, even if you do introduce your date, you still shouldn't carry on the conversation for longer than, say, 30 seconds.)

2. Conversation Blinders

As a guy, I enjoy the luxury of being the one to initiate the majority of my dates.  This means I usually go into an evening assured that I'll be able to hold a decent conversation and have a good time, and most of the time, I do.  However, two of my most disappointing dates happened because in spite of a wealth of common interests, the girl I took out was only interested in talking about herself the whole night.  Whenever I tried to chime in with any parallel experience I'd had that might augment her monologue, you'd have thought I'd just suggested she get a gym membership or stop eating chocolate.  Seriously, the vibe was tangible.  On the more recent of those two dates, I physically had a headache by the end of the night.

3. The Side Hug

Most of the time I'm not the kind of guy to push the physical side of the relationship.  I know that sometimes it happens quicker than others.  But I also understand that giving someone a hug with both arms does not constitute an amorous relationship of any legally binding degree.  Now, if you're holding a purse and some leftovers in one hand when the inevitable Doorstep Scene occurs, that's one thing.  But if after a month of dating you're still acting like you have nerve damage in half your body, the message you're sending is that I'm a walking meal ticket, and not much more.

*    *    * 

The funny thing about those dating vent sessions is I never know how to take them.  As we sat there and listened to all the other girls share their horror stories the other night, Collin and I couldn't decide whether we should feel satisfied or depressed.  On the one hand, we knew that there were guys out there who were screwing up a lot worse than we were.  But at the same time, we were still single.  I mean, if we were showing up on doorsteps an hour late with bad BO, frothing at the mouth and expecting our dates to pay for a quick run to Arby's, at least we'd have a reason for the resulting rejections.

We knew one thing though: We had the door thing down.  And that has to count for something.

Brick-Wall Theory, or "Looking for SSMUB in all the wrong places."

Some people are happy to go through life ignoring the things they don't understand.  Other people analyze the crap out of them...and still don't understand them.

I am one of the latter.

Seventeen years after entering the enigma of the Dating World, I feel about as much in the dark as I did when I started.  I've learned that bringing red roses on the first date is a bad idea, and I've figured out that girls aren't all that impressed when you destroy them at bowling, but that's really about it.  Often I find that the questions turning over in my mind late into the night are the same ones that left me befuddled and clueless at the height of the Grunge Era.

(Hold on...give me a second while I finish filling out my AARP application and stabbing it through my chest repeatedly.)

OK...in that time I've often tried to make sense of my circumstances, to try to figure out the great mystery that was standing in the way of Ultimate Success.  Of course, the definition of "Ultimate Success" has always been a bit of a moving target.  In 1992, "Ultimate Success" was Meg Ryan.  In 2009, it's more like getting a text response within 24 hours.  The game has changed a lot over the years, and in that time, my analytical efforts have tested a lot of theories, and I've harbored a lot of philosophies...

...and none of them really hold water.

One might.  I call it "Brick-Wall Theory." Actually, it's more of an observation than a theory.  The basic idea is that we all operate on some kind of vast Dating Spectrum, trying to progress though a series of check points ("First Date," "Marriage," "Non-Contractual Making Out," etc.) to advance from one end to the other.  But along the way, we keep getting stopped at our own custom brick wall.

For example: over the years, some of my friends have consistently moved from serious relationship to serious relationship.  Getting a girlfriend or boyfriend was a matter of routine, but there was always a wall between that serious relationship and the next check point: "Engagment."  Others struggled to turn off SportsCenter and actually ask a member of the opposite sex out on a date.  Their brick walls lay between "Fundamental Awareness of the Opposite Sex" and "Verbal Contact."  Still others have made it past the "Engagement" threshold on multiple occasions, yet have never crossed the "Marriage" barrier.  (Keep in mind, "Marriage" is not necessarily the definitive end point of the spectrum.  Just ask Tiger Woods.)

For whatever cosmically comic reason, my brick wall lies somewhere between "First Date" and "Consistent Dating."  There have been several times I have gone on multiple dates with the same girl, and I've endured my fair share of DTR's*, but the majority of my efforts hit the fan well before anything serious gets going, at least in any official capacity.  Sometimes I give the abort code--which gets me accused of being a Serial Dater--and sometimes she does--which gets me accused of chasing "The Wrong Type of Girl." Either way, sometime after the first date with Girl X, one of the following scenarios usually plays out:

1. Josh gets bored and loses interest.
2. Girl X becomes unresponsive to texts, e-mails, voice mails, and/or smoke signals.
3. A national crisis intervenes...then Josh gets bored and loses interest.
4. Josh forces himself to take Girl X out one more time even though deep down he knows he is not interested, subsequently has a miserable time in spite of a fine batch of chile verde from Red Iguana** and an impressive display of European Mormon Folk Art down at the Church Art Museum, and only realizes years later that he should have gone after Girl X's roommate Girl Y instead.

It would be a lot easier to paint myself as a victim if all my efforts over the years had met with universal rejection.  Then I could tell myself I was like Thomas Edison, just puttering away at different combinations until he managed to invent the light bulb.  The trouble is that Thomas Edison never passed on viable filament options because even though the filament had a really great personality, he just didn't want to make out with it.  If marriage was just about finding someone who liked you, we'd all be locked up by 25.  But the real goal is to get married to someone that you like who likes you back, and that makes things a little more complicated.

Like I said, I've seen a number of my friends encounter similar obstacles in their efforts, and even though each of them has eventually overcome their own brick walls, few if any can tell you why or how (though most will feign some sense of enlightened perspective).  Eventually things just work out, and the spaghetti of love sticks to the wall of commitment where it never did before.   Sometimes after years of futility, two people meet at the Halloween Dance and get married before Christmas, and sometimes people just wake up and realize that they've basically been married to their best friend for the last decade, so they officially start dating and happy-happy, joy-joy ensues.

This suggests that success in matters of dating and marriage is largely dependent on the Lord's Timing, and I think that's probably true.  The trouble is that misunderstanding this idea can lead to a certain feeling of futility, that no matter how charming you are or how many sketchy blind dates you accept, nothing is going to work until the timing is right.  This is especially problematic for Mormon males who are responsible for taking the initiative in the whole process, yet always have people telling them asinine things like, "I found what I was looking for once I stopped looking."

As such a Mormon male I've determined that the whole thing comes down to one central question:

"Am I doing what I am supposed to, only waiting for the inevitable intervention of The Lord's Timing to deliver me from Single Person Purgatory, or am I actively doing something to inhibit the delivery of Spiritually Sanctioned Marital Uber-Bliss?"

Until we get over that wall, I'm not sure any of us will really know the answer.

---

*DTR = Define The Relationship talk.  AKA, "The State of the Union Address," AKA, "What Michael Corleone had with Carlo before he had Clemenza strangle him in the car outside."

**Now available in two fine downtown locations!

CDIII: Revenge of the White Elephant

In spite of massive traffic and parking headaches, Christmas Date III came off last weekend with nary a hitch. The third episode in the series (spun off a similar concept my ex-roomies up in Logan used to hold) followed a traditional pattern:

1. See the lights at Temple Square.
2. Consume festive dinner at Red Iguana.
3. Drink Hot Chocolate/open White Elephant gifts at my sister and brother-in-law's place.

The cast varies a bit from year to year, but has retained a core membership of the two guys I roomed with in December of '07 during Christmas Date I, plus myself. Since that event, my sister married one of my roommates, and the other one just got engaged two weeks ago, so the whole proceeding is evolving from a single guy group date into a married couple group date.

...not that the metamorphosis is having a staling effect on the photo evidence:

 

 

 

It's going to break my heart if somebody doesn't use at least one of these shots for their Christmas Card.

BONUS RANT: During the Hot Chocolate/White Elephant after party, we were all sitting around listening to a Christmas iPod mix--featuring selections from the Phil Spector Christmas album, of course--when my ex-editor/roommate Mark's girlfriend-turned-fiancee Holly remarked that "Happy Xmas (War is Over)" is the worst Christmas song of all time. I concur that inclusion of the Lennon-penned/Ono-enhanced carol on my Christmas mix comes more out of kitsch than genuine admiration, but my vote for "Worst Christmas Song of All Time" goes to Paul McCartney:



I don't know, maybe Christmas songs are just the Beatles' Achilles Heel. Anyway, "Simply Having a Wonderful Time on My Radio Shack Keyboard" just narrowly beat out Wham's "Last Christmas" for the title.

Feliz Navidad, people.