Of missed opportunities and determined disposition

Have you ever wondered how your life would have gone if you’d hooked up with someone in whom you were once interested? Don’t. What if heaven allowed you to follow such a path and only extricate yourself most painfully later, if at all? “All things have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things” (2 Ne. 2:24; see Eph. 1:11). I just read where President Packer stated that those who wait for marriage may depend upon God’s just judgments, “mercy without limit, . . . power to compensate” (Mine Errand from the Lord, 265) in a situation that, even if lasting a lifetime, is nonetheless temporary (Ibid., 266). What he doesn’t say is that sometimes our temporarily prolonged singleness may even be a form of protection and an as-yet-unexplained manifestation of such mercy.

I, therefore, try to never have regrets. All of us might have acted/reacted differently over the course of our lives. If, however, we were keeping the commandments and situated where we did the best we knew how, I’m still confident that the Lord would have arranged companionship where He saw fit. Indeed, I’m inclined to believe that two very well suited individuals would almost find it impossible to stay away from each other if both were similarly devoted to the Lord. Hence, as one whose life has been largely bereft of the man’s prerogative to advance, I tend not to press the issue.

A recent plea of my heart came entirely unbidden, and I startled myself with the wisdom and honesty in it: “I need someone who’s making the same choices I am.” As I’ve stated many times in many forms, most of who I am today is the result of what I chose to do (even if not always entirely voluntarily) while others were doing something else. Never mind how peculiarly I turned out; this has proven a blessing in the ways that matter, even if it is all the more disadvantageous in seeking a partner.

I’m reminded of the last dance I ever attended, about which I blogged on April 6, 2008. Among my other reasons for explaining how I can’t help but be alienated, I pointed to one piece of Church guidance (Ensign, Dec. 2002, 51, at the end) that is, to me, sufficient cause—even if it stood alone—for questioning the majority of our cultural leanings. I confessed to my tendency to not join in the main activity, but in that blog I didn’t quote another portion of my journal entry: “So it is that out of several stakes, not a single lady had so much as passing interest in entering MY world, which admittedly stuck out like a sore thumb. . . . I’m left to ponder that my type must not be enduring such spectacles. . . . The final goal was met when a group of ward members walked up and realized where I had been. Whether for good or ill, in their opinion, they know that it’s being like others—and not altogether being WITH others—to which I am indifferent. They proved for the second occasion in these three weeks that they’re content to turn their backs on me and let me go off alone into a cold night.”

Also at that dance inside a church building: “I wandered around, only to find one cluster of youth playing cards. I suppressed saying, ‘Face cards in the church? I never thought I’d see the day.’ I talked briefly with a man who was wrapping up clerk affairs in an office.” In an April 28, 2008 blog, I also touched on my reasons for feeling as I do about face cards. (Again, a stance summarized in, yet anything but confined to, President Kimball’s expression in the October 1974 General Conference: “We hope faithful Latter-day Saints will not use the playing cards which are used for gambling, either with or without the gambling.”)

In all my years of young single adult involvement, virtually no one remotely in my age group has ever thought to ask me why I behave the way I do with regard to issues such as this. It concerns me that they may be overly reliant on the first second-hand source to which they could refer the question, rather than benefitting from years of study in the gospel. Certainly attunement to the Spirit is more likely to open one's heart. By and large, they don’t seem so concerned about learning every possible truth.

Rather than deciding it's fear of the correctness of my position, or blatant wicked assumption about my motives, I’ve preferred to think they’re simply uncaring about my viewpoint. Whether or not someone agrees with how I approach life, I think all would agree that I ought to be with a like-minded companion. I should add that there are plenty of negotiable categories and millions of things on which I have no opinion, and would likely submit to her opinion. This says nothing about the principle I've confided to others, that I wish I could find someone who understands well enough both where I'm coming from and where she's coming from, that I could actually trust her disagreement. I readily admit the possibility of my being wrong, but telling me that I'm weird or that "nobody does that" is no kind of rebuttal at all. It often speaks poorly for the populace.

I imparted counsel to one roommate that one shouldn't disclose too fully what they seek in a companion, for then a relationship may succumb to the temptation to pretend to be exactly that, or force a rushed "conversion" to a personality type that is not really them. Nobody decent wants a robot or a fake. Furthermore, not all of my differences from society are ethically grounded. To understand that would also require more vulnerable exposition than anyone has time for; just imagine a kid who got a C+ in 6th grade P.E. because he couldn't serve the volleyball over the net, or spent Junior Prom very sorrowfully at home in a body cast, and that's the smallest possible glimpse. All the same, it's useful additional training in seeking only the things of a better world. I like the idea of a companion who shares my bewilderment at desires to accommodate oneself to the world, but might amaze me with her abilities to administer to the world's spiritual needs. (Make me sweat to keep up, and strive to the utmost to feel like I come close to deserving her.)

One of the saddest feelings in all the world is that there's no one within sight whom you'd like to get to know better, yet it is almost invariable that acquaintance brings disappointment, for dating purposes, at any rate. I’m not giving up hope on those entirely uncontrolled incidents whereby people cross into one’s life. At the same time, I have to let go of any what-ifs pertaining to those that transpired in the past. I think of the other week, when I attempted to leave a ward date. On my way out of the Wilkinson Center ballroom area, I passed a table at which a dark-haired girl sat reading, with a striking mannerism about her. She looked up with the most pleasant smile; I would have loved to talk to her, but I thought that I had no idea how to strike up a conversation and I owed my roommate a ride home anyway. It also somehow didn’t seem appropriate right after leaving another “date” behind.

The Marriott Center offers good opportunity for an assemblage of choice people from all over the world. Shortly after I moved back into a Provo ward, I attended a regional conference there. I went amply early with a couple of church books and studied for something like an hour. After the conference had ended, a girl came up and introduced herself to me. She wanted to inform me how “impressed” she was by my demeanor. Perhaps it was my only recently escaping socially injurious circumstances, or her getting ready for a mission (to include that age factor), or inexperience generally, but I failed to request her number during that respectful conversation. This too I forced myself to shrug off, except for writing in my journal, “Sorry, Joanna from Arkansas.”

Omitting a number of similar encounters, I jump back many years to a time when I was paying the price for knowledge. As I’ve described it, it was clearly not a season for dating success. I felt that the Lord did not intend it at that time, and so I heeded the next call, spending marathon hours in the BYU library, studying Church publications. At times—like during the major dance events—I mentally, or sometimes literally, dropped to my knees with loneliness (knowing nothing at the time of how futile that was), only to rise again in quest of eternal things which are not only stored away for the resurrection, but have already served me (and others) in this life. Once I ignored my bleary-eyed late-night fatigue to push toward library closing time. A girl plopped down in the chair beside me to engage in very friendly conversation. She said, “I have this theory that redheads were more valiant in the pre-existence.” See what President Monson says about them. ;-) I don’t know exactly how to explain this, but I think I had difficulty shifting gears to allow for the fact that someone was deliberately talking to me. I pulled off a sociable nature, but I certainly didn’t extend myself and acquire the necessary gumption to investigate a potential relationship.

It’s not my intention to recount every such instance. I’ve also restricted it to those most applicable and within a dating audience. Older people approach me everywhere I go, with some of the oddest statements. It’s enough to know opportunities have arisen in the past and may well occur in the future. I’ll try to overcome my inherent weaknesses so that I’ll be ready and willing to do whatever it takes. I have no regrets!!!