Now taking requests

Oh sweet Sara. Thank you for the shout-out and request for commentary on a recent LDS Midsingle Activity that we both attended. Since I have quite a few non-LDS friends and readers, I’ll have to do a little back story, and then, in my usual long-winded nature, I will probably spend far too many words on far too little substance or laughs, but here goes:

Ahem.

Times are tough for the LDS Midsingle. If you do not know what this phrase means, then you are either not LDS or not single or neither, in which case your life is eons better than mine because, as every Midsingle knows, nothing is worse than being a Midsingle, not even an abusive spouse or a terminal illness or addiction or living in third-world poverty. As you may have guessed, we Midsingles are more than a little self-absorbed and often self-pitying. But it’s not our fault, you see, as we have spent our entire lives being the most important person in our entire lives. Isn’t that sad? Do you need a Kleenex yet? No? Then you are a soulless monster, probably with children.

To better explain, Midsingles are those members of the LDS Church who are unmarried and generally between the ages of 31 and 45. Singles under 31 are called “Young Single Adults” or “YSAs” and, in larger metropolitan areas, the Church has organized entire congregations of YSAs to encourage them to socialize with one another, get married and thereby avoid—you guessed it—the pitfalls of Midsingledom. Singles over the 45-ish range are just called “Single Adults” or “Old People.” Ironically, my research has shown that Midsingles are more likely than YSAs to refer to Single Adults by the more derogatory phrase.

Generally, if you turn 31 and are still single, you are expected to leave your YSA group and attend and participate in a regular congregation (referred to by almost everyone in the Church as just a “Ward” except for Midsingles who, caving to their incessant need to point out their self-perceived outsider status, call it a “Family Ward”). This transition is rougher on some than others, but I am not going to get into that as it is a personal thing and I only know my own experience. Except that I do want to point out that it was not rough on me. I braved it like the champion transitioner that I am. I expect my Bishop is going to call me to the stand any Sunday now and publicly bestow upon me some sort of new and colorful medallion the Church has made and named in my honor, namely the “La Dolce Vespa in Action Personal Progress and Accountability with Integrity for Choosing the Right Ward Award.”

So I haven’t been a Midsingle long enough to know how long this has been in the making, but Midsingles around the world are beginning to unite and revolt and demand YSA-like activities and meetings for themselves. And they’re having conferences. Lots of them. Where they talk about being Midsingle. And play silly games. And dance to Depeche Mode. Some more enthusiastically than others or, more accurately, most more enthusiastically than me. Let’s just say the new Church medallion for “Duty to Praiseworthy Two-Stepping and Just Can’t Get Enough Weasel Scout Award” will have to be named after someone else.

I have tried my best to support this new Midsingles movement—really I have. But there is something holding me back from getting super excited about it. Maybe it’s because I don’t like to practice self-pity. It’s certainly not for the lack of good company. Lest I have made us sound too pathetic, I must state that most of the Midsingles I personally know are awesome individuals with stories, travels, accomplishments, professions, and viewpoints that are downright inspiring. Take Sara for example. Although she’s still a YSA, she was trying out Midsingledom for the night, so she counts. She’s a fancy CPA working for a fancy accounting firm that sends her on fancy business trips to places like India where she spends months at a time. But despite awesome people like Sara in the crowd, the minute someone gathers us all into a meetinghouse and starts spinning Depeche Mode and screaming “Let’s play kissing rugby,” the group dynamic takes a nasty, self-pitying nosedive which causes me to watch every second tick by on the clock and do deep-breathing exercises in order to restrain myself from banging my head against the cinderblock wall until I pass out.

I know I am not alone in my reluctant approach to Midsingles activities, but I have yet to come across anyone who has a real answer to the problem. Perhaps, given the aforementioned stories, travels, accomplishments, professions and viewpoints our demographic has to offer, our time together would be better spent on things other than 90s music and 80s games. What such an activity would involve, I’m not quite sure. Group therapy is just one suggestion.

So back to Sara and our recent activity. I had the inside scoop on this one and happen to know there was a lot of time, effort and thought put into it. Still, it is what it is--a Midsingles activity. The group dynamic was not perfect but it was far improved and for that I am grateful. We did play a number of “getting to know you” games, including one where we were required to “sew” ourselves to an entire team of people by threading a long string up and down all of our clothes. Nothing says “getting to know you” like tying yourself to a total stranger and then helping him partially undress so you can get to the knot under his shirt and free yourself from the tether thereto. Next time someone should probably bring scissors.

And so I must conclude that the activity was a success in that I ate some good food and met a few new people and generally refrained from entertaining too many self-pitying thoughts. But I guess it was a failure in that I didn’t get engaged by the end of the night. No really, I double-checked my ring figure a couple of times afterward and, wouldn’t you know it, nothing there.

Oh well, back to doing whatever I want whenever I want and spending my money however I want and riding my Vespa if I want and taking spur-of-the-moment trips to NYC for President’s Day Weekend without having to book a babysitter and sleeping through the night every night and generally being the center of my own universe. Not much cause for self-pity in there now that I think about it, but what do I know? I’m just a Midsingle.

(oh, and we are in the process of deciding on a new look for this blog, so please ignore the mess in the interim. apologies for taking the links down, but they need serious updating.)