Musings

Yeah, so sometimes all the time, I think about things to write on my blog and then never get around to actually writing them down. I guess I'm just lazy. Or maybe just way too easily distracted by other things. Like friends. Or boys. Wait, scratch the boys. I'd love to be distracted by boys. Too bad none of them are actually distracting.

Maybe I've just gotten picky, but it has been really hard to find any guy who can hold my interest for more than a few days (on a romantic level---I've got a bunch of really awesome guy friends already). I think I've been spoiled by a couple of absolutely wonderful ex-boyfriends who did a great job of teaching me what it feels like not to settle.

Forgive the indulgence, but I'm going to simmer on some dating thoughts that have been circulating through my head recently. It's been awhile since I've dug into the romance-vault in my heart, so this will probably be simultaneously liberating and terrifying.

First of all, in meeting and talking to a lot of guys in the last few months, I often run up against "The List." You all know what "The List" is. Every girl has one. (So do guys, but they don't want us to know that.) Ironically, I keep running up against my guy-friends' lists. And their favorite list item keeps being "No drama." Well, gentlemen, it's hardly a wonder that you're still single, if that's your biggest requirement for a girl. Here's a secret: drama comes with the territory. Even if you meet a remarkably balanced and mellow woman, she will be pregnant someday, and she will have children (and possibly a husband) who drive her crazy.

But I digress. I've been thinking a lot about my list. Yes, I have one. Even when I was in denial about having a list, I had one. It's a pretty simple one.

Item one: Does [the man in question] put the Lord first?

Item two: Can I be myself with him/is there chemistry?

That's it. After knowing some pretty great guys who were all very different from each other, those were the two things that rose to the top as being the most important to get a "yes" answer to. Everything else either falls into place underneath those two items, or drops off onto the "It'd Be Nice if He Had This" List. (And yes, that list is probably WAY too long and includes some ridiculous or slightly contradictory qualifications like, "Irish accent," and "Latin dancer.")

But I've been coming to grips with just how difficult it can be to meet both items at the same time. The first one is pretty straightforward and can be measured by a simple look at the facts: temple recommend, church attendance, attitude about the Atonement, respect for sacred subjects no matter the situation, etc. But the second one is a lot harder, especially since it's highly dependent on an extended amount of exposure to the other person in a variety of situations. However, I can usually tell how much (or little) chemistry there is when a conversation has more in common with shoving a seated donkey around a baseball field than it does with participating in a lively game of tennis, where both sides engage the subject fairly evenly.

That alone is a major reason that my attention hasn't been grabbed by anyone. It's not that he has to be able to talk to me about books, or editing, or even English. He can hate his English classes for all I care. But can we talk? I don't care what the subject is. When you find someone you can really talk to, the conversation wanders all over the board. But whenever I try to strike up a conversation, most of the time it just kind of stalls, no matter how interesting I find him.

Which leads to my next thought: Timing is everything.

And apparently, now is so not the time. Or at least, it hasn't been. Nothing goes anywhere with any guy because I've had other things that I need to be doing. That could change in a month, or next week, or tonight, so I never stop trying, but it does mean that I get why things have been the way that they've been.

It also may offer some insight into why (for now, at least) I'm surprisingly unworried about dating. I like it. I enjoy flirting. I still feel stung when a guy flirts with me and then starts dating someone else. But I haven't been thrown off my balance for a long while, and knowing about timing probably has a lot to do with it. 

Third thought: I still believe in Happily Ever After. And I'm constantly surprised by how rarely other people do.

Notice that I never said I believed that Happily Ever After was easy. I know it takes a lot of grueling work. But I'm glad that it exists. Don't believe me? Have a little sit-down with President Uchtdorf's talks sometime. ;)

That being said, I wish more people believed in it. It doesn't matter how many times it doesn't work out. That's not a strike against the quality of your Happily Ever After. It just means you're that much more likely to recognize it when you find it.

And yes, I know, I hate hearing that, too. I hate hearing people say, "You have to experience the bad to appreciate the good." Especially when I'm in the middle of the bad. But you know what? There's a reason they say it. The trick is to accept it until you believe it. Then go out and chase it.