On 30
This blog post originally appeared on Medium, which is an excellent site for content creators, writers and free-thinkers to publish their long-form ideas without the hassle of maintaining a private Web domain or property. You can read it there by clicking the link above.
This isn’t like any of my usual posts on this blog. But bear with me as I get something off my chest — and ask a favor of you, my friends and readers.
I recently turned 30 years old, and the landmark event has caused some serious internal reflection and a little bit of external struggle in my life. I’m not where I once thought I would be by the time my 20s ended. Indeed, I thought my “decade of decision” would yield a few more decisions, and offer more for being arguably the most influential 10 years of my life.
But here I am.
I try not to get too personal on the Internet; after all, it is the Internet, meaning things written within these walls don’t every really go away, and that can have real damages on the life and career of one who makes his or her living writing professionally — someone like me, in other words. But if you won’t hold it against me, I’d like to get a little bit personal for a short spell.
I am a devout member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also called the Mormons, having grown up in the faith since I was a small child and even serving a two-year mission in South America proclaiming the doctrines and gospel of the church. I try not to be too overt with proclaiming my faith online. It’s not that I don’t believe — it’s just that faith is something I hold sacred, and I know that many of my professional friends, followers and acquaintances might not appreciate the repetition of my spiritual conversion and testimony on a regular basis.
To those friends who were unaware of my faith: I am sorry. I should be more open about it. But if you ever have questions about the LDS church or Mormons in general, feel free to ask me. I am an open book and would love to have a conversation about the subjects.
In the church, we put a large premium on families — including the promulgation of the human species that we call “raising children,” and finding the perhaps one-in-a-million stroke of luck that many refer to as their “spouse.” It’s a concept so familiar to members of the LDS church that we often categorize the religion into two realms: families and singles. You can see it in the way many of our congregations are organized, especially in the Intermountain Western states of Utah, Idaho, Nevada and Arizona. Every Sunday, thousands of Latter-day Saints will go to church with their families, with hundreds to thousands more will meet together in various wards and branches composed entirely of young adults who remain actively (or not so actively) single — we call them “young single adults,” for what I feel are fairly obvious reasons.
Family is such an important concept in our religion that we are taught at a very early age that “marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God,” and that “the family is central the Creator’s plan” in our church meetings and Sunday School classes. Single adults often make fun of those lines in jest, but that doesn’t make them less true — or less important — to our rare brand of Mormondom.
Which brings me to … well, me. I am 30 years old, and I am not — nor ever have been — married. While in the past this would have made me a “menace to society” as an otherwise fully functioning male member of the church, in today’s climate of delayed families and the rising age of first marriages I am merely in the minority for this faith.
That doesn’t make my position in life any easier. It’s hard, at times, to continue to go to church — even in meetings designated for the unmarried folk — with teachings, doctrines and theology aimed specifically at married couples and families, while sitting on the sidelines and occasionally waiting for “real life” to start*.
I know I am not alone in my occasional feelings of loneliness and inadequacy within the church. And that’s why I am posting this blog post right now: at this time in my life, I want to do something I’ve never attempted before.
I want to write a book, specifically one about the trend of singlehood within the LDS church, and how we can “fit in” as well as find faith in a family-centric religion — even without the added measure of marriage and family.
But my experiences are only one in a church that measures nearly 16 million. And rather than produce a work that is purely anecdotal and rarely used in social situations, I want to ask for your help.
You. Yes, you.
I am calling for submissions from you, the readership, friends and social media family that I have grown to love over the past several years. Some of you I know in offline life, while others of you I know only through a computer screen, a mobile device and a floating avatar. Regardless, if you have experience in the world of singlehood in the LDS church (as many of you do, owing to the nature of my social circles), I want to hear how you navigated the world — and especially how you continue to do so in today’s world of dating, pre-marriage and marriage.
Get in touch with me by using the contact form on my website to send me an email and let me know a few things about yourself. I’d love to publish as many experiences as I can in this forthcoming book, and I may be contacting a select number of your for further, follow-up inquiries.
I’ll compile the book in a series of doctrinal treatises on marriage and family, embarrassing first dates and attempted interactions (for those who don’t mind sharing such accounts in public), and dating advice for the … ahem … mature portion of the readership. Whatever your experience is as a single or married person in the LDS church, I want to know it.
And so do many other residents of this cross-cultural land we call The Internet.
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