Date Night at the BYUs
The church’s newsroom reports that date nights were sponsored in the last couple weeks at the church’s colleges and 15 of the larger institutes. (link) One obstacle to addressing a problem is that recognizing the problem can be embarrassing, and that was my first reaction: Is our current crop of 20-year-olds so undeveloped that they need their college presidents to coax them into pairing off for an evening? Well, yes, they are, so let’s face up to it instead of pretending all is fine or just grousing that those young people aren’t doing what they ought to on their own. The world they live in isn’t all of their own making, their cluelessness in pursuing romance is not just a personal problem, and improving the climate within our communities to one more conducive to their success is a job for all.
“While Elder Gilbert [church commissioner of education] said he realizes a one-night event won’t be ‘a silver bullet,’ the hope is that it will be a catalyst to help re-instill a culture of dating.”
Filed under: We transcend your bourgeois categories | No Tag
G.
February 7, 2024
Great news!
Eric
February 7, 2024
The youth in my ward (including my older children) went to a big socializing event at the Institute nearby, which I suspect was one of those events–though my children’s reports of the purpose for the event are more vague than I’d like. Still, I hope it moves the needle for at least a few of the participants over 20 with regards to marriage.
At our stake conference last month, our visiting Area Authority Seventy talked during the adult session about how he has a returned missionary son, and how he had been encouraging his son to go about dating and marriage. His advice involved a lot of assertiveness and following up–just like he had done with his wife when they first met. His son protested that he couldn’t be that pushy with girls these days without scaring them off.
I haven’t actively tried to charm a girl since I got married, more than 20 years ago, so I can’t claim much expertise in how much courtship attitudes have changed with the latest generation. But people say dating culture has changed, so what do I know?
seriouslypleasedropit
February 7, 2024
I’m convinced that a lot of the dating troubles come from losing sight of the endgame. A focus on “process” (dating) is going to get meh results; the focus should be on “task” (marriage).
That doesn’t mean anyone needs to act out the (once) stereotypical RM who is ultra-serious and proposes on the first date. Actually it’s *more* demanding—those who want to get married should orient more of their lives around being a good marriage candidate. This will be counterintuitive, even if it sounds obvious from the outside, b/c the couples they see “dating” will often *not* be good marriage candidates. It takes faith.
Similar to El Salvador, I suspect that ~1% cause ~50% of the problems.
Handle
February 8, 2024
It’s hard to face up to a cringe problem. But even if one does, most attempts to address cringe directly and explicitly are even more cringe, because the context is event to help and to encourage women to settle for less naturally able and desirable men. Seems the perpetually reinvented wheel is to fine some kind of socially acceptable excuse of plausible deniability for the “real, primary reason” we are all here, to make sure there is a critical mass of representation from top desirable males and females so it doesn’t seem the group left is all losers, and by multiple occasions of forced proximity in small groups adding up to the magic number of hours of direct interpersonal engagement with some physical exertion to get the blood pumping, to let romantic energies do their job. The joke about the first missionaries that went to Hawaii is that they went to to good and ended up doing well. Mingling events need the same cover story, and indeed romantic escalation relies on preserving face-saving alibis at various off-ramps. You went to get closer to Jesus and ended up getting closer to Jessica.
E.C.
February 8, 2024
I think that the comments here are mostly correct, and I think it’s an everyone problem.
I don’t have a smartphone, because I live next to a college campus, and in the last 10 years, I see hardly anyone look up from their phones as they walk to class or go about their days. Then they complain that they ‘can’t find anyone’, and all I can think is, well, maybe if you actually looked up, you’d find ’em.
So I do think this kind of event is probably important. I also think that the Church is pushing FSY so hard not just for the youth – they’re hiring counselors from the YSA, which puts them all in close proximity with one another and allows them time to get acquainted while holding down a summer job, which is actually genius, and if I wasn’t such a raging introvert, I might try to get in. However, for me it would be a really bad idea and would probably wreck my health again, and also they made it pretty clear last week at a devotional that they’re oversaturated with women and need more young men.
G.
February 8, 2024
Amen to Handle. Probably a big part of the FSY logic for sure
G.
February 8, 2024
Amen to Handle. Probably a big part of the FSY logic for sure, EC
Pirate Captain
February 8, 2024
I’m just glad I dated before the era of #MeToo.
I was a clueless male who did a lot of stupid things that likely offended some women I tried to date (my High Functioning Autism making it so that I had a hard time with social skills also didn’t help).
I still, somehow, against all odds, managed to get married and have 10 kids.
But if I were trying to date now, I might never try. I might have gotten cancelled with some of the dumb stunts I pulled (or was accused of pulling, even if I was innocent).