To (Most) Single LDS Men

I recently tried out eHarmony for the first time and would now like to share with you what happened and what I learned.  For those of you surprised to hear the news it is due to the fact that I did not want to tell people I joined an online dating website.  In the past I've had a number of friends tell me that I should try it out, my response had always been, 'That's not for me, but maybe I'll consider it when I get kicked out of the singles ward.'  And here I am. I've been attending the family ward for almost a year so when a good friend of mine mentioned she had just signed up I agreed to do it with her.  I decided a 3 month membership would be enough time to get a feel for how things worked and would then make a choice to continue my membership or not.

After answering what seemed like endless questions about myself and my personality I was then asked to rate how strong I felt regarding certain characteristics of potential matches.  Feeling passionate about my faith I indicated that all of my matches should be Latter-Day Saint (Mormon) men.  The website recommends starting out slow.  For example I would start communicating by sending 5 preset questions to matches I am interested in getting to know a little better.

As matches began to roll in I found myself a little shy as I was still learning how eHarmony works.  I did not send questions to matches right away.  My first communication was about 5 days into my membership and with a guy named Jonathan from CA who sent me his 5 questions.  Once I had this first communication on the website I realized just how casual and easy it is to make that first step.  At this point I decided I was going to get my money's worth so I sent my 5 questions to every match I received.  Every one.

For 2 and a half months I did this and never once received a response back from any of those guys.  Not one.  Jonathan remained the only guy who ever communicated with me on the site.  By this time I decided it had been a waste of my money and I would not be renewing my membership with them.

Then a thought occurred to me and I acted on it.  I went into my settings and changed one thing: I indicated a potential match could be of any religious belief.

The next morning came and I received my matches.  As usual I glanced through the profile and sent my 5 questions on to each of them.  On the second day I was already communicating with a couple guys.  Wow.  By the end of the week I had to go back into my settings and change it again because I was overwhelmed with the number of guys communicating with me that I did not have time to respond to all of them.  Again, wow.

How would you react if this happened to you?  My initial response: severe irritation at all LDS men.  I was ready to find the closest one and give him a piece of my mind.

I've had a few weeks to think it over and quite frankly I'm still irritated.

I've never been a girl that dates a lot, although I've had a few boyfriends here and there.  At times in my life there has been as much as 2 years between men asking me on a date.  Being an LDS single woman in my 30's I've had many opportunities to talk with and get to know other amazing single women in the church.  As I've done so I've been comforted and annoyed to find many other women in the same dating boat as me.  "Why don't guys notice me?" and "why do I never get asked out?" have been common questions asked by friends and myself.  Sometimes the questions are asked with frustration, sometimes it's barely audible between sobs.

In the world we live in it is all too easy to fall prey to Satan's lies.  He constantly tells daughters of God they aren't good enough, they aren't pretty enough, they aren't worth a man's notice.  Women, these are lies.  I know these are lies and yet even I have had times when I believed them.  Why shouldn't I believe it when Satan tells me I'm not worth a guys notice?  I have the evidence right in front of me: the last man to ask me out was a year and a half ago and he is now happily married to someone else.

EHarmony taught me this is not true, I am worth a man's notice.  There are men who do want to get to know me.  And there are men in the world who do actually ask girls out on a date.

This leaves the questions: what is wrong with LDS men?  Why don't they ask girls out?  I do not have an answer, although I am sure I've heard every possible theory on this from women who want to know.

In reality there is not a lot wrong with LDS men.  Most of the single guys I know are quality men, ones I look up to, respect and confide in.  It's just this one little thing.  Perhaps each of them has their own special little excuse for not asking girls out.  But that's just it--it's an excuse.

To (most) single LDS men I say it is time to start acting like a proper man.  No more excuses.  Just do it.

Birthday Dinner Party

This week I hosted a small dinner party in celebration of my birthday.  I am officially 32 years old and up until this week I had never thrown a proper dinner party.  I like to use the excuse of my birthday to do pretty much anything I want to.  Sometimes it's skydiving, sometimes it's a trip to Hawaii, sometimes it's a formal black and white dinner party in my back yard.

There is a lot of planning involved in a dinner party.  There was the guest list.  I'm sorry I could not invite everyone I care about and wanted to invite.  Then there was the menu, I needed an experts opinion on this one so I called my sister Merry, the dragon tamer and mother extraordinaire, she helped me find exactly what I wanted.

The Menu
Provençal Lamb, baked with fresh tomatoes, rosemary, thyme, drizzled with honey
New Potatoes with Lemon and Saffron
Fresh Steamed Asparagus with Butter and Sea Salt
Artisan Bread
Italian Cream Sodas, available flavors Raspberry, Irish Cream, Pomegranate, French Vanilla
Dessert: Blueberry-Peach Upside-Down Cake

I am proud to say I made everything completely from scratch.  I even chopped up the fresh rosemary sprigs (no bottled spices here!).

the lamb just before it went into the oven

Then there was the decorations. My friend Shannon gave me the idea of doing a Black and White theme, which I loved.  My friend Tasha ran wild with this theme and started sending me ideas of things we could do.  Both of them helped to make the decorations ahead of time.  

we made tissue paper puff balls

we made string balls by dipping it in glue and starch and wrapping it around a balloon to dry

these string balls were attached together for a hanging chandelier above the table

we made smaller tissue paper puff balls for the napkin holders

Several other decorations were donated by my sisters Melanie and Sandie, both of which made excellent suggestions for things I could do with this B&W theme.

And then there was the mishap.  No proper party will happen exactly according to plan, right?  We have, or rather I should say had, an old wooden table in our backyard.  We use it for food when we eat outside but mostly it sits there covered by a tarp to protect it from mother nature.  I made an attempt to move the table and it seemed a little weird, so I decided it best to wait for my brothers help.  Once Tommy arrived we agreed it would be best to lift the table by its legs to move it.  The very moment we picked up the table the entire thing fell to pieces.  I mean it shattered.  It was actually rather laughable and I wish I would have thought to snap a picture of the pile of table parts before we hauled it away.  Luckily Tommy had enough foresight to make a tabletop for his Senior project about 5 years ago.  He pulled the legs off the broken table and nailed them into the new tabletop and voilà, a table was made.  Thanks for saving my party Tommy!

To fancy things up a bit my handsome brother Tommy and his beautiful and clever wife Carly came to be our servers for the evening.  They helped with the set up, ran errands for me, served the food, ran the Italian soda bar, and generally looked really good in their black and white outfits.

I pulled out and polished the silver for this special occasion.  I happen to love silver and have inherited a few beautiful pieces from both of my grandmothers that were in use for this night.

the silver water pitcher

With the small table incident we were running a little behind schedule and were not quite ready when my guests arrived.  It didn't matter as I have fabulous friends who all jumped right in and helped out.  We quickly had things pulled together and finally sat down to eat.  

Shannon pouring the water

As the dinner progressed the sun slowly vanished letting the twinkle lights and tea lights shine brighter to create a beautiful ambiance.  This was enhanced with the handsome voice of Josh Groban singing soft music in the background. 

*almost every photo by Tasha.

I learned a lot about throwing a party.  I learned that it's terribly fun to do, but in doing everything that needs to be done I wore myself out and was pretty tired by the time I finally got to sit down and eat.  Still I'm glad I did it and enjoyed how it turned out.  Thanks to my friends who were able to make it and celebrate with me.