On Friendship, Dating, and The Perils of Living in Provo

[a brief note: after writing this, I realized that it might not make a ton of sense to people who aren't members of the LDS church, or even those who are that don't live in Provo.  Suffice it to say, there's a lot of pressure to get married, so this might not apply, or it might just seem obvious to most people.  For me though this was sort of a big realization.  So bear with me]

As promised (forgive me if it rambles) :

I've been talking a bit about this with a few of my friends; I think the whole thing really originated last December as I pondered about last year, and I realized that I hadn't dated any girls all year.  I had gone on dates (boy had I), but none of them had really led to anything.  So that was sort of disappointing. I've also had several friends in my life that have impressed me very much with their ability to really talk to people and care about them rather than have shallow and superficial conversation.  Anyway, to get to the point:

I'm bad at dating.

I'm not saying I'm terrible at relationships (although that may or may not be true, as mentioned, it's been a while), or even going on dates.  Maybe people who have been on the receiving end can vouch for that (or correct me), but I feel like I can plan activities, pay for them, and pair off with the best of them, and two years of inviting myself over to people's houses has given me this no fear setting that I can turn on when I need it.  What I mean by that is that I am basically useless when it comes to turning a date into a relationship.  I have a very hard time being at my best on a date, and there's so much pressure to figure out if you're interested in a person and want to keep spending very precious time and less precious money doing things with this person.  

In a lot of ways, 2012 was the year of going on dates.  I didn't really keep track, but it certainly felt like i went on a ton of dates, some of them with people who I was really quite interested in, and many in whom I wasn't.  On one of these dates I somehow got on the topic of the friendzone, and my date explained that guys fear the friendzone at their own expense, and that every relationship she had ever had was with a guy she was friends with first.  This was an ironic and somewhat unfortunate conversation to have with a girl who I had barely known before asking on a date.  This seemed strange at first, and then I realized that was true for me as well.

In fact, in 2011, when I was fresh off the mission and not yet acclimated to this whole Provo thing, I naturally wound up in a few very nice relationships, one with a girl I'd had a crush on for almost a decade.  Each of these were people with whom I was friends and got to know and ended up dating.  And then I thought of all the dates I had gone on (including the date in which I had this conversation) and how they didn't go anywhere.

So to return to the point, dates are pointless.

Now, before you go quoting Elder Oaks to me (because that's the thing to do around here), I think there is an important place for quartship courtship in relationships.  But I think Provo (myself included) has missed the mark in a big way.  Relationships are meant to be built on trust, friendship, and that sort of thing, and dating just isn't a good forum to develop trust and friendship.

A caveat: There are people who are good at dating.  They are completely able to develop relationships, and get to know people, and be themselves, and fall in love through dating, and that's great, I'm happy for them.  I don't know very many of them, probably because most of them are now married and don't hang out with me anymore. In any case, I'm not those people.

Sometime ago, I was talking with one of my friends (who I had taken a stab at dating, but it didn't quite stick) about whether or not it was a good idea to date friends.  I made the point that you will essentially lose all of your opposite gendered friends to marriage.  Sure you might stay in touch, but it's not going to be the same, and it shouldn't be.  So you might as well go for it, since all that you have to lose it what you'll lose eventually anyway, sooner or later.  A bit later she proposed the question:

Are guy-girl friendships worth it?

After thinking and talking about this for some time, I can definitively say, "Yes." And I will tell you why:
First of all, there is value in being a friend.  From a christian point of view, being a friend is really the highest calling we have.  From a more sociological perspective, friendship makes us happy, it defines us, it keeps us sane, it extends our life.  There's a lot of value in friendship for it's own sake.  If there were no other reasons, I think that we be enough.  I don't think I can express this as well as I'd like to, but I think being a good friend is about the best thing we can do. But there's more!

I've decided, limited experience that I have notwithstanding, that being a friend is much better preparation for successful, longterm relationships than dating.  Dating is all about judging the other person, presenting your best self, and being what they want for a couple hours so that you can get what you want.  [Some people might object to this analysis of dating, but that's what it is in my experience, at least in Provo.] Friendship is about caring about people all the time, helping them, and supporting them, not because you're looking for something but because you want them to be happy.  [Again, some people might not view friendship so positively, but oh well]  I suspect marriage will be a lot more like friendship with romance than long term dating.

And lastly, as discussed, friendship really is the best way to find people to date.  Over the past semester I've gone on almost 0 dates (I went on one, which definitely didn't go anywhere), mostly because of time and some lack of interest. I have spent a lot more time becoming a better friend and developing better relationships with people.  I didn't set out to do this to start dating, but I've realized it's been much more successful in meeting and getting to know people who I'd want to date and has been a lot more enjoyable.

I think Provo has developed this very harmful dating climate which encourages dating for it's own sake and this objective view of friendship--that there's no reason to spend time with a girl unless you're going to marry them--which ironically has resulted in a lot of very good, attractive, and successful people who remain single a lot longer than they would prefer to.

All of this to say, for me at least: there is value in hanging out, and very little value in going on blind, or nearly blind dates with people I don't really know.  If I want to get to know someone, there are much better ways to do that (I'm a fan of making bread and inviting people over). I suspect I've ruined many a relationship by asking them on a date before I really knew them at all. Also, importantly, there is value in friendship.  Because it's Sunday, I'll even throw in some scripture on this one:

"And the hour and the day [of leaving] is not given unto them, wherefore let them act upon this land as for years, and this shall turn unto them for their good." (D&C 51:16-17)

So if you've made it this far, and you're single, I think it's wise to live as though you'll be single for years.  Make friendships, do good things, be who you want to be, and I suspect things will work out, probably faster than they would otherwise.  That's the theory anyway, I am, as it happens, still extremely single.  So maybe check back with me on this one, I could be completely wrong.

Almost a blog

I just got very close to making a good blog post, i even opened the window, but then I got tired.  Ironically, my monthly challenge is getting 8 hours of sleep.  Suffice it to say, it's going poorly.  Anyway, I'll try to do it tomorrow or sunday, it's going to be good.  Get excited.

On Friendship, Dating, and the Perils of Living in Provo.

Like I said, get excited.

You came all this way, here's something for your trouble:

And that's what happened today.

March Madness (bread style)

So in the way of challenges, for march I successfully refrained from buying any bread, and made all my own, here's a quick, chronological photo account of how that went:

After one batch, I decided that making my own bread for a month by hand just wasn't a good idea.    Enter Kitchen Aid

First Loaf was white bread, from the cook's Illustrated Best Cookbook.  The second batch turned out  even better

Banana bread counts as bread right?

Honey Wheat bread, I didn't love the recipe, but it was still delicious.  

 So now I'm trying to figure out what will be my challenge for april.  I have a Dirty Dash coming up in two months, but I think I'll put serious training off till May.  So if you have any suggestions, let me know.

In other news life is stupid busy, but otherwise quite good I guess.  Another semester is almost done, which is odd, but life seems to go that way.  Anyhow, it's past midnight, and at some point 3 months ago I foolishly signed up for an 8am class.  So I'm going to work my way that direction.

Challenges and things

For the last month I (more or less) successfully wrote in my journal everyday.  I missed one or two days, because once or twice I had to stay up into the early morning finishing homework, but other than that it went really well.  I'm trying to figure out what my monthly challenge will be for march.  More on that in a bit.

Here's a brief overview of what went down in February:
I turned 24!  My birthday came and went with out any extreme fanfare, it was fun though, played some games, ate some cake, felt loved.  It was good.  24 seems a lot older than 23 for some reason.  But this looks to be a pretty good year, including the last semesters of college, and hopefully other exciting things.

I went through yesterday and figured out every class I need to take to graduate, it's sort of terrifying, but also I realized that I only have 22 or so credits to take, but I'm planning on doing 2 semesters (I looked into graduating in december, and the courses don't quite line up).  This means I'm going to have to take somewhere between 2 and 6 credit hours of fun classes.  So far I'm looking at scuba diving, swimming, soccer, bowling, and cell bio. We'll see.

Hm, this post it boring, which is odd because I feel like my life is pretty exciting.  The past few months I've been trying to slow down just a little, take time to relax, to reflect, to read, to study, those sorts of infinitives, and, as it happens, to take an epic road trip to vegas:

Because you're a Perkes,
and Perkes can stack hard things

There are tons of pictures on my facebook, you can check them there, but a friend of mine who is from  vegas got a bunch of people together to road trip down.  It was a blast, and it was warm.  I was in a t-shirt most of the weekend.  We went up to red rock and climbed around, I spotted a friend while he almost slipped and fell to his death (or more likely moderate injury, it was only about 20 feet).  This was scary, mostly because I'm no good at spotting, and I didn't want his blood on my hands.

They used to let people sample the chocolate,
 but then a large German boy was injured
in a tragic but comically instructive incident.

I have to say vegas itself was a little underwhelming.  It was cool, but it mostly felt like a sketchy amusement park/mall with a lot of people I wouldn't usually spend time with (for a lot of reasons; some were sketchy guys in spartan costumes, others were middle aged white people who go to vegas for their vacation to spend money and take pictures with show girls and sketchy guys in spartan costumes).  Maybe I'm just bitter because our buffet was not even a little worth it.  Red rock was $7 a car and it was my favorite part.  Go Nature.

In some other news, I went up to Logan twice.  The first time was for a research conference.  I gave an oral presentation on the research we've been doing  (on the effects of CETP polymorphisms on cognitive decline and Alzheimer's.  Ask me about it sometime if you want details).  That was cool, it made me feel like almost a scientist.

Yesterday, we went up for my cousin Adam's funeral.  That was less cool and more sad, but it was nice.  That was only the second or third funeral I've been to in my life, and the first one for someone I knew (the last funeral I went to was in Portugal). It was cool to hang out with the cousins and see all the family.  Funerals are weird, and so is death.  It never quite seems real;  but that's a post for another day.

It looks like I didn't get accepted to the two internships I signed up for in Cambridge and California, so now I'm deciding what to do.  I never found any other internships I was really that excited about, and it's getting a bit late, so I might just stay in Provo and work harder in the lab.

As far as this month's challenge, I was considering making all my own bread for a month.  I eat a lot of bread (something like two loaves a week) so that would be kind of fun.  I'll probably figure out today if I want to commit to that much time.  Stay tuned.

So that's my life as it stands.  It's crazy that it's March, the long, snowy winter is coming to a close.  I got to play soccer outside on friday, which was great, and I'm biking again.  Life is good.


OH!  PS - I got to meet the ambassador of Portugal.  He came to our classroom and visited my missionaries in the MTC and talked about Portugal and such.  That was pretty cool.  I got a picture with him, my district, and Richard Hinckley.  So that was exciting.  That's all.

Here they sang about tomorrow.

Today I found out the I know five girls who hadn't watched Groundhog Day.  Luckily we sorted that out, more on Groundhog Day in a bit.

My monthly challenge went ok.  It turns out that January was a bad month to try to exercise everyday, somedays I didn't have time, and all days it was cold outside.  I think I managed about every three days.  This next month I'm going to shoot for a more climate-appropriate challenge: writing in my journal every day.  I think it's going to be a lot more manageable.

Regarding Groundhog Day, Sometime it's easy to feel like life is just the same thing over and over.  The last two semesters have been really busy: waking up early, going to class, eating lunch, going to work, eating dinner, doing homework, staying up late, repeat. Mixed in are a lot of first dates, movies, game nights, and the like.  Suffice it to say, it's getting really existential in here; prepare yourself.

Someone commented how great it would be if we could relive the same day so that we would have that time to progress and learn and everything, but that's truly what life is.  It's just one more day, over and over.  Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.  We just fill our days with so many things that there's no time to do any of things that we wish we could.

And indeed there will be time.

I just feel like it's easy to get so busy in all the things that we don't have time to really do anything, to  learn skills and get to know people and play in the snow and save lives and read and think. Because I think that's what makes life worthwhile, and I feel like I can't be this busy for much longer, not because I can't handle it, but because it's defeating the point of life.

Let us not waste our time in idle discourse. I really should just do something, so that I can do less, so that I can do more.  But what could I cut from my life?  Facebook might be a good place to start.

Am I right or am I right?

Challenges are challenging

Day 2 also turned out difficult. I'm not sure what to do now, but I'll work something out...

Day 1

Are you asking for a challenge??

Day1 turned out to be a challenge.  The original plan was to swim, bike, or run every day, but then it was cold.  And it turns out the pool is closed today for new years (how are you supposed to keep your new years resolution when they close the gym on the first day of the year?)

It's inadvisable to leave your bike out in the snow for a week.  

I couldn't fail on my first day though, so I worked out a bit in my apartment, I even borrowed some weights from my roommate.  So day one was a unqualified success, despite having to call an audible there for a bit.  

I'm considering doing a separate blog for this, that I update daily, but I think hearing about me working out every day won't be that excited anyway, so I'll probably just post incrementally (fibonacci-ly perhaps?)  and as exciting things happen.