Vitamin Beef- It Does A Body Good

Having gone to EFY these last two weeks as a counselor (even though I'm sure I could sneak in there and pass as a participant), I came to some important realizations about relationships.  It mostly has to do with the "Utah Effect"- you know, how everyone is so marriage crazy that every conversation ends up on the topic of relationships, and how everyone seems to be in a hurry to get hitched. There was a previous post that talked about wedding receptions and how annoying those can be, but me blogging about this comes as a surprise, because I was under the impression that being at EFY would keep me busy and not worrying about such things.
The boys in my group brought up the Point System on Wednesday being used by a lot of the girls, and one of them mentioned what every guy's score was (for example, you get 50 points for playing guitar, another 50 for being ripped, another 50 for being funny, etc).  When we think about it, we all know about this system, but it was funny because one of the girls in our group thought that I was an automatic 500 (which is the magic number for a "dream guy").  The main reason was since I was an EFY counselor, so apparently that's some kind of statement about me and my personality.  And that got me thinking- I may be a 500 to some teenager because I'm a counselor, but when I interact with people of my same age then who knows what my "score" is, since the counselor thing doesn't really count.

As I thought about it more and more on Friday, I thought "being an EFY counselor is a great privilege and opportunity, but it also kinda means that I suck at life, since I'm not married yet".  That's a pretty fatalistic way of seeing it, I know, but I don't mean to make a statement about all the other fantastic counselors that worked with me these past two weeks.  This is strictly me talking about myself.
Another thing that got my mental hamster wheel turning

was how so many people working at EFY with me kept referring to a statistic that says between 10-14% of counselors found their future spouses while working EFY (as in, they were other counselors).  I know it's said as more of a gag, but I really don't think it wouldn't get mentioned if people didn't at least have it in the back of their minds.  After all, most everyone working EFY is single, and there's the whole C.O.W. (Crush Of the Week) thing where everyone is expected to have someone they flirt with throughout the week.

Matter of fact, two weeks ago at the end of my first session, one of the other counselors just straight-up asked me who my COW was.  I replied that I didn't have one, and she kept insisting that she was sure I had one.  I explained to her that the way I think about girls in my head is strange- I acknowledge that someone's attractive, but I never really think about a girl past that (which explains why I seldom ask girls out on dates, since they have to really wow me before I even consider doing anything about it).  No, I'm not saying I don't have hormones or a sex drive or anything like that, but rather that I am just ultra-cautious.  I don't bother with a girl unless I know the attraction is mutual on some level.

Between these experiences at EFY and getting five wedding invitations this past week, I can say I do feel the pressure.  In spite of being stuck in a relationship Crock-Pot,

that's not my motivation for looking for Mrs. Right- far too many people treat getting a girlfriend and getting married like an item on a checklist, or to gain social approval.  For me it's because the mission taught me the value of being with someone who will constantly build you up, and my last relationship taught me how that plays out with the opposite sex.  Feeling loved by someone is so empowering, there's just no other way to describe it- you feel like you are Superman, and that you can do anything.  Plus, as I explained in an earlier post, relationships are all that matter in life.  Going into a career, graduating from college, and everything else that follows is pretty meaningless if you're just alone and by yourself the whole time.  When someone else you love is the focus for all that you do, life carries meaning and the Gospel becomes the bridge between mortality and what you hope to be in eternity.  Everything just...comes together.

At the end of the day, I've decided that the whole COW thing, and worrying about actually finding someone is pretty overrated.  The rewards are huge, but Utah culture and the social expectation to "get on the ball" and tie the knot just multiplies the frustration and pushes you away from relationships instead of toward them.  More than anything, I think I'm just exhausted and drained when people ask me if I'm dating anyone, and once I do tell them I'm single, they pretty much sit me down and give me the whole "she's out there" or "you haven't found her yet" talk.  And then they add I should be dating people.  Good encouragement, sure, but these people sometimes act and talk to you as if you're totally clueless and didn't know you were even supposed to be liking girls, much less courting them.  They forget that for some people, things just don't work out.


In conclusion, the only kind of COW I like are the kind that graze in fields and end up on my dinner plate.

I do feel bad, however, because I was talking to a dear friend about this very topic on Friday night. I was unusually frustrated when I spoke with her about all this, since everything seemed to be piling on all in one day, but regardless of how I had been feeling that day, it wasn't cool at all how negative and rude I was acting towards her during that conversation.

My tone in addressing her was, in large part, due to the fact that I had feelings for her.  Hearing the whole "she's out there" thing from her made me realize there wasn't a mutual attraction there, so I had to quickly backpedal and get rid of any attraction I had towards her in the course of just a few minutes (during the conversation).  The part that sucks the most isn't the whole "oh man, that sucks, I really liked that girl, but it turned out to be a dead end", but rather that we haven't talked since then so I know I offended her.  Mad apologies are in order, but figuring out how and when to do it is the trick.  This is what happens when you try to be friends with someone and then you end up developing feelings for them.  Blah.