This is (hopefully) not going to be another cliche post by some newlywed who tells you that "someday you'll find your prince and live happily ever after" and blah blah blah (gag). Cuz let's face it, no single person wants to hear that. Cuz I remember when I was single, and starting to get fed up with the whole dating thing, and hearing that was enough to make me wanna punch someone. I wanted to hear that eventually things would get easier, dating would be a breeze, you'd find that perfect someone SUPER fast and ta-da! Mission: Marriage accomplished! But sadly, that's not how it works. So I'm gonna tell y'all a little story of how MY dating life was before Husband came along.
I had my first "mutual crush" when I was 14. I call it that cuz we both liked each other, but we never made anything official. He was 17 and a member, but not a great one. And I don't mean that to sound judgemental, but it's the truth. He wasn't a very good influence on me. This led to me sneaking out of the house at midnight or 1 am on a weekly basis for a few months to hang out with him, because my parents wouldn't let me spend time with him during the day. Eventually we got caught when his mom read his text messages, and proceeded to tell my mom all about it at church. So needless to say, that ended quickly.
I had my first boyfriend when I was 15 (gasp! Not even old enough to be group dating yet, and you had a boyfriend?! For SHAME!) But when I say boyfriend, I use the term pretty loosely. We were never alone together because whenever we hung out it was at my house in our living room, playing cards or board games or watching a movie or something. We dated for about 6 months and he broke up with me the week after I turned 16, for reasons I still do not understand since he broke things off through a TEXT MESSAGE. So we only ever went on one actual date. I remember being pissed off about that for months. Stupid boys.
Shortly after dating that guy, I dated a guy friend for about a week before he said "I love you" and yeah...I ended that pretty quickly. He was making it clear that he was ready to settle down with me and I wanted none of that. First off we were freaking 16, and secondly he was a nonmember and I knew I wanted to go to the temple.
I then did not date anyone for two whole freaking years. Yeah I went on group dates and with a guy friend to both my junior year and senior year of high school prom, but that was it. No boyfriends. And I remember feeling really depressed about that for a long time, because to me self worth was tied directly to having a boyfriend. The fact that no one thought I was fun enough or pretty enough to date made me feel like that meant I wasn't fun or pretty at all. Like I was only worth something if someone wanted to be with me. I dated a guy for a few weeks my first year of junior college and he broke up with me because he said I was too fat. No, I'm not kidding. Just straight up, flat out told me that I wasn't in shape and was nowhere near it, so we couldn't date anymore. It broke my heart at the time, but now I just sit and laugh about how big of a douchewad that guy was.
I dated another nonmember for about 6 months before he broke up with me because he just didn't "feel right about us" and I remember that break up took a long time to get over, and I'm still somewhat frustrated with myself because of that. The entire time we dated I knew it wasn't going anywhere; that it was pointless because I wanted a temple marriage and he was most definitely atheist so obviously that wasn't going to happen. And I look back on those months and kind of want to kick myself because of how much time I wasted on that guy.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you shouldn't date nonmembers. Because I know several couples who have worked out; they've gotten married and ended up converting the other spouse and been sealed in the temple.
But if you date a nonmember, remember that there's a 50/50 chance that what you have won't be eternal.
Every relationship is different and sometimes God tells us that we need to do something that's "against the norm." BUT to receive that kind of inspiration, you need a strong relationship with God. That requires daily prayer and scripture study, and a lot of time spent thinking about your priorities and what you want in this life as well as the next one.
After dating the nonmember came a period of time in my life I refer to as The Bad Years.
The week after getting dumped I went to a YSA activity and apparently a guy saw me there and thought I was pretty, so he messaged me on Facebook. Long story short this guy stalked me for two years before I went to the police. No restraining order was filed even though the officer I spoke with strongly recommended it, but they did give him a not so pleasant phone call and the stalking stopped.
I then dated a guy who was an inactive member that I was trying to reactivate. After bringing him to church and a few activities, my bishop asked to meet with me one night. I was informed that this guy was a registered sex offender because he was found in possession of an entire hard drive full of child porn...so I should probably stay away from him.
Yeah, exciting times.
When I found Jake, I wasn't really looking for him. I was getting ready for my first semester up at BYU-Idaho and on a Facebook group for LDS Tumblr users, and saw that a guy had posted about just coming home from his mission in Arcadia, California. That's pretty close to my hometown, so I commented on his post, and we ended up messaging back and forth for hours. This quickly turned into something more, as we talked on Skype, through texts and phone calls, and even some handwritten letters before I left for school. I'll talk more about the concept of online dating in another post, so stay tuned.
What I'm getting at is this: you really do have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find a prince.
Or a princess, if you're Collin (shout out to the only guy that'll probably ever read this blog haha). Some of you may luck out and marry your high school sweetheart, or wait for your guy to come home from his mission, or heck the first guy you meet in college might be The One. But if your dating life starts to look a bit like mine...don't lose hope. I waited for 21 years to find my guy, and I promise it is worth the wait. It's worth every night spent crying in your room alone, every slow song at a dance leaning against the wall and trying to look like you don't care that no one wants to dance with you. Eventually you'll be with someone who makes those memories just that: memories. Nothing more than an unpleasant thing to look back on.
No comments:
Post a Comment