Online? Or, Single in Salt Lake.

During General Conference I optimistically vowed to start going to all my Young Single Adult (YSA) activities. Normally, I am the type of person who only goes to the events when I like the activity, so even back home where I knew people this would prove to be a difficult resolution for me.  As if to challenge my resolve, the first activity that I could attend was a “Country Swing” dance activity. In Victoria or Montreal alike, there is not a living chance in hell I would go to this activity; I hate country and I am a horrible dancer. The idea of travelling by myself in Central America, which I did before I got here, is somehow less frightening to me than being in a gymnasium full of go-getting Mormon singles who I do not know.

I dragged myself to the activity and reluctantly joined the ranks of line dancers. A leader from the sidelines called to me and gestured for me to “turn that frown upside down.” I lasted just under a half hour until I had to leave.

One thing that does feel very familiar to me about my congregation of Mormon singles is the man to woman ratio. A few weeks ago, the men got up during sacrament to sing a song. The girl next to me leaned over and whispered to me that there were thirty-five men singing and just over a hundred girls in the congregation. The notion of having a 30:70 ratio is like a little slice of home, but I am not sure if I should feel comforted or disturbed by it.

Because I am only living in Salt Lake for a short time, I thought that I should take advantage of being Mormonland. One date a month, I told myself! With one month already gone without promise of a date, my friend and I decided to look at the online selection. After all, just the other day one of my cousins was complaining to me that she never sees one of her friends anymore because her friend is constantly going on dates with guys she meets online. Encouraged but still skeptical, I created a fake online profile (my name is Clara Templemon – like what I did with the last name?) so I could lurk other people and get a feel for the choices before I made any real monetary or date commitments. Because I am in Salt Lake, I felt that it would be reasonable for me to arrange my profile so that my match had to be a Mormon. Match.com then matched me with Mormons, all of whom professed to love “social drinking.” Social drinking? If I wanted someone who drank I would date a nonMormon. Frustrated I went to an LDS only dating site and plugged in my fake profile but did not get any better results. I am sure that if I gave it sometime that I could find a date on this site but what I saw on the site, from contrived pictures to self descriptions, made me feel incredibly depressed. So much for that dating option.

By the way, I guess the danger of having available pictures online is that people can steal them and make them their fake online dating profile…