Dating is Dead: Part II

And if she asks you why you can tell her that I told you,

That I'm tired of Castles in the Air.

I've got a dream I want the world to share in castle walls,

Just leave me to despair.

~Don McLean

The following is the second installment of a post started last week. You will need to read the first post to understand this one.

The true tale I will now share is a rather extreme example; however I think the story establishes a certain principle.

I remember a time that I met a professor in his office to get him to sign a sort of permission slip (I am trying to be vague here to protect the innocent). He did not know me from a hole in the head, as I came from a rather large general ed class with multiple sections. The first inquiry was my name. He then signed the paper I needed signed. He then asked me if I was going on lots of dates. As I had literally been home for a mission about two months, I had not reached the quota of dating rates he was looking for. He then laid into me about "hanging out" and how it was such a pernicious evil and I needed to "repent and stop hanging out." He literally used the word "repent." And he was serious. He cared more about if I was "going on lots of dates" or not than he did about my work in his class, my major, or who I was as a person. Why is our society like that? This is not how to lead. This is not how to mentor.

To this man it was black and white. You either are dating someone, or you need to pray for forgiveness in sack cloth and ashes. There is no in between. You either kill whales, or you work for Greenpeace. You either watch Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood or you are a guest on Jerry Springer.

For just a moment, let's assume that hanging out is prodigiously endemic among singles. One  reason that some have suggested for the rise in "hanging out" is that young people do not know how to date. A romantic discourse of Jane Austen-like proportions  usually follows. These persons on the date-and-mate soap box fawn and foam over "how it used to be:" The froo-froo and hand-kissing, the carriage rides and courtship. Marriage in view, oh the joy! (All we can hope is that these people don't also want the accompanying corsets and layered petticoats). Yet where is the sense and sensibility in these frivolous tales and rules of courtship? It is much more appealing to meet someone of the opposite gender in a setting where you do not need to continuously be referring to a booklet of rules on how to act. The endless confusions on when (and if) to open all doors, where to stand, how to stand, when to bow, how to bow, how to dress, what to text, when to text, how to text, how to approach the door, how to leave the door.....yadda yadda yadda, becomes rather hard to keep track of. Honestly, some of this has become a damned if you do, damned if you don't type of thing.  And that is why people hang out.* It is an opportunity to meet on equal terms and strip away the facade of frivolities.

The last date hang out "meeting" (But not a 미팅) that I had with a girl was rather nice in this regard. We were just two people doing something together. There was no need to put a sociological title on it. Neither of us cared about what it was to be called. We did not need to go and write down in our little quota book what good people we were. Because we came from different cultures, we were forced to just "be." Neither of us felt the need to carry on some sort of ritualistic song and dance from yesteryear. I know that some of you may enjoy these dating rituals and rules. I do not. I find it petty and annoying. Perhaps my lack of reticence in this regard will be indeed damnable and all the girls in my area will black list me. In fact, some already have begun the paper work.

I have no pretensions whatever to that kind of elegance which consists in tormenting a respectable man.

Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, 1811

There are many well intentioned people in this dating versus hanging out debate who exacerbate the problem of the dating facade with qualifying criterion, checklists, and catch phrases. While such practices may at times lead to better quantification of dates, they unintentionally also often lead to poorer qualitative results. Or, at the very least, they add yet another layer to the game of social charlatanism. 

Now take a big huge breath. Much blasphemy was spoken above. The progeny and the issue have been disgraced. Yet shall we not say that "nothing is more deceitful than the appearance of humility[?] It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast."

Actual footage of a true story.

I will hasten to point out that there are indeed men that hang out in inappropriate proportions and ways. Absolutely. But as I have said before, I very very rarely hang out. Maybe I am an outlier. I also hasten to point out that the type of hanging out that Elder Oaks is addressing in the 2005 talk requires the participation of women. Sometimes they are even the instigators. There have been a couple of instances where girls have actually rejected going on a date with me so they could hang out.** (Facebook is a marvelous reconnaissance tool. Yes, I can see your photos of you on your "spontaneous" movie night). Overall I feel that the role of women in hanging out has been incorrectly portrayed in the past. At times, hanging out is made to sound like it is a bunch of villainous hungry men with bazookas chasing the women and the poor widdle picked-on girls need to lock their doors and bunker down (Perhaps to watch a wonderful documentary like Twilight?). Not so. This is a bit of an iconoclastic view of course, but here are a few of my thoughts.

I am a member of group on Facebook that different people can post about activities they are doing and invite others to join them. I sifted through the last 50 posts advertising an opportunity to hang out. I ignored posts that were advertisements for an official activity relative to the group (aka "Sanctioned hanging out") and or posts pertaining to someone's job. There were 30 solicitations from men. There were 20 solicitations from women. So hang out solicitations were 60% to 40% in favor of men. In all but three of the posts where food was part of the hanging out, men were either equal providers or sole providers of such. One other interesting thing I noticed was that three men in the group contributed to 83.333% of the hang out solicitations from men. The women on the other hand were much more distributed in their hang out invitations, with no girl posting to hang out more than three times. 

So what does all of this mean? Who knows. I think it did demonstrate that girls also instigate hanging out to a statistically (and practically) significant degree. I also believe it shows that, in general, men in this group are not just free loading off of the women for food. It was interesting as well to note that a set of only three men comprised a far majority of the invitations to hang out. I will refrain from attempting to further interpret these findings. Who knows what it actually means. But I think it shows that the accusations of men forcing the ladies into hanging out and providing the food are not as well founded as some want to have us believe. Insinuation that I freeload off of the single women in my area is insulting and ridiculous.

A few of you know El Toque. Remember El Toque (This is like the Alamo, but with El Toque). No girl ever gave him one crumb from beneath the cushions of her precious little sofa. El Toque fed people again and again without reciprocation and it disappoints me when he is labeled as a freeloading "single man."

This rant will be continued next week.

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*There is scarcely room to speak on such topics here, but there are maybe about 30,078,103 levels of hanging out. Some types of hanging out can be way more productive than others. But I think that too often we get this image of hanging out as some overweight man in a wife beater, yelling at his woman to bring him another beverage in a can, and to make it snappy because the Celtics only called a 20-second timeout instead of a full. Oh, and after the game he is going to play Halo for a couple hours, so bring him a bag of Cheetos. Although, I really do not hang out anyway, so maybe that actually is what it is like. 

**A girl of course has every right to say no to a date. But then it would obviously be inappropriate to tell the bishop that the boys in your ward refuse to ask you on dates. Because that would be lying.

Dating is Dead.

Like the oyster cracker on the stew,
The honey in the tea
The sugar cubes, one lump or two?
No thank you none for me.
We're the golden crust on an apple pie,
That shines in the sun at noon,
Like the wheel of cheese high in the sky
Well ... we're gonna be sinkin' soon. 

~Norah Jones.

She looks like someone.

First off, I am pretty hesitant to even get into this topic because it is one big pit of tar. This blog has three distinct audiences. I am not going to detail them as to avoid categorizing anyone publicly. But this post might appeal to only a certain audience.

As a preface, please do not think I a trying to attack married people (Basic theorem: Dating does not equal marriage). I am not trying to attack marriage. Some of this needs to be said I think and my brother is tired of having to listen to me talk about it, so I am presenting it to a new audience. Thank you to the consultants for your contributions.

This post is a bit longer. It is sort of dense perhaps, but I wanted to say it all in writing. Please give feedback if you desire. Tell me if you think I am wrong. Maybe I am completely out of touch on this topic. Tell me where you want to see improvement.

Because it is impossible to entirely avoid talking about religion when talking about dating, I have been forced to occasionally mention religion here. I wish this is not how it was, but it is. And might I suggest that dating is not a doctrine of the gospel, nor is it connected to the four fold mission of the Church? (At least the last I checked). Sure, principles of the gospel can therein be applied. But cultural traditions are never doctrines. You cannot have a testimony about cultural traditions. Yes, yes, yes, "Dating leads to marriage." I'll let you keep believing that. And marriage is indeed a doctrine of the gospel (This is actually true!) But see the theorem I stated above. Am I saying dating is wicked? No. Am I saying that I do not seek consistent chances to charge like a champion into the coliseum of this cultural tradition? No. This is actually why I am addressing this topic: I am actually in the pit. I do not enjoy a soft seat next to the copious pageantry of the procurator.

Be warned: Esto no es un post feliz. However, for the millionth time, please do not think I am trying to attack married people. I'm not trying to belittle your testimony.* I'm not trying to advocate for any current political causes. And I'm certainly not trying to get you to purchase insurance against roosters eating your turnips.

Again, comment below if you desire. Or you can email me or write me a Facebook message. Do not try to come to my house, as the Witness Protection Program does not allow me to have visitors. This has hampered my ability to find a wife, but has admittedly increased my ability to eat cold cereal for lunch.

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"Dating is dead." Sometimes I hear that phrase uttered. I have no idea whether this is true or not, as I have not checked the morgue lately.  In what preliminary research I could do, there seems to be no formal (meaning they actually use academic methodologies) study on the matter, especially as it relates to the demographic (i.e. non-pagan white male) that I am part of. There are a few blog posts (all by women) on the matter and they usually take one of two sides: "Dating is dead and I blame men," or "Dating is dead and I am darn glad it is." Maybe some of you are on one of those two sides.

One thing that commonly comes up in my locale when speaking on this subject is the term "Hanging out." There was a "study" done around 2002 at my university by a man named Bruce A. Chadwick. I use the term "study" rather loosely, as he cites no sources and never actually seems to give much hard data on what he found. He references a prior study "of young women attending colleges and universities across the United States" that purported dating had disappeared, but he never actually manages to say who did the study or how they reached their conclusions. Chadwick's "study" is informally introduced in a devotional talk entitled  "Hanging Out, Hooking Up, and Celestial Marriage." 

Chadwick does make the rather baseless (IMHO) comment "It appears almost all of you have the appropriate goal [to get married]; it seems that it is the implementation that falls a little short," a claim which he fails to ever back up with any sort of data. Even a 100-level statistics student should be able to tell you that such a claim could only be made if there was a study done showing that marriage (not dating) trends have declined because of hanging out. Yes, yes, yes, I know "the average marriage is rising." And has been since the Neolithic era. Let's be thankful that people have stopped marrying their 15-year old cousins.** But he fails to establish that fewer LDS people are getting married because of hanging out. But he stacks his straw rather well I guess.

The rest of Chadwick's speech is actually decently good, so I will commend him on that. But overall, the premise of his speech, and the comment "the implementation falls a little short," somehow seemed unsubstantiated. But maybe I just care too much about actual statistical evidence when such claims are used to affront my current situation.

Chadwick's aforementioned speech and "research" were cited as a source in the now famous "Dating versus Hanging Out" talk by Dallin H. Oaks, given May 1, 2005. Maybe such citation means that in fact Chadwick was preaching pure doctrine. Although, keep in mind that Elder Oaks also equally quotes from Time magazine, whose current issue (at the time I am writing this) has the headline "Strangers crashed my car, ate my food, and wore my pants." You be the judge.

I have mentioned before that this talk has become the dating doctrine for a lot of people. Elder Oaks explains social trends pretty well in his talk and he is absolutely on target with much of what he has to say. For my generation, this talk is sort of where "the dating (quasi)-doctrine" began its momentous ascent into the discourse of the social church. "Hanging out" became the vogue impropriety to blame and attack. Interpret this picture:

Those of you from the UK might name these anthropomorphic stacks of grass Aunt Sally, a phrase which here means "throwing wood chips at a pile of straw." I am going to be careful in wondering this, but sometimes I have to ask if hanging out is really the barn we need to burn. 

To be continued next week.

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* As I postulated above, one cannot actually have a testimony of dating. It's like claiming to have a testimony about carrots. Carrots are not bad--they just cannot be assigned a truth value. And it would sound rather nuts to get up and claim that a group of concerned ladies wants you to feed them more carrots. Especially if they want those carrots from only a few gardens.

**Let's not even get into what the average marriage age rising means. More men and women are going to college. More men and women are going on missions. Averages are some of the weakest and least informative types of social statistics. Draw your own conclusions. Also keep in mind that there are multiple presidents of the Church who got married for the first time in their thirties. And several others got married in their later twenties. Furthermore, we still have yet to have a president of the Church who has followed the "approved/suggested" order of mission, marriage, college. If you play the "times have changed" card here, please don't pull it off the table in later installments of this post. If times have changed, then get your "back in my day" arguments out of the dating debate. You cannot have both eras. More on that later.

Graduate School Post 2

This is Ground Control
to Major Tom.
You've really made the grade.
And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear.
Now it's time to leave the capsule
if you dare.

~David Bowie

I had originally intended to post something else this week, but was unable to obtain the pictures necessary. The photographer was watching Granite Flats instead. As a side note, I fear that Granite Flats will end much like ALF. There will be a cliff hanger ending to the third season, with good intentions to make another season. But then there will be contractual problems and the show will never culminate. We shall see.

After realizing that I would not have the necessary photos for the originally intended post this week, I decided to post a different post. But the timing for that set of posts did not feel right, so I have now decided to also defer that post for a week or two and present the current post you are reading. Most of the posts that you see on the blog have actually been back stage for some time (Sometimes even several months), including the pictureless one and the posts that I will be putting out next week or so. The post for today is different in that I wrote it this week. This is meant to be an update on where I plan to go for a PhD in Statistics.

Here are the basic facts:

• I will be going to a school in my current state.
• It is not my current school, but it is a school with similar colors.  There is a huge debate over this I believe. I am not sure why we do not go back to the original colors, a move which I have long advocated.
• This school is actually the only school in my state with a PhD program in statistics.
• This school was pretty much a backup to a backup when I was applying to schools. I will explain below why I chose this school over the others. 
• When I went to visit this school, the graduate chair had me meet all the single ladies in the department. I met a secretary, a (young) professor, and several of the unmarried female students. I do not know if this was on purpose. But I did meet one of these single ladies for a total of 1 hour and 12 minutes. She hails from Abraham Lincoln's birthplace. This meeting was planned, paid for, and paired. You be the judge. But if I need to show my religious conviction within the next week, I am totally going to use this as a quota reacher.
• I am going to refer in this post to the aforementioned school as Vester Valley University (VVU). This is not to be confused with VVP (Vester Valley Penitentiary). Although, VVP does have a very good prison ball team (Currently 2nd in the Western Division behind San Quentin Cellblock C).     

In the previous post on graduate schools, VVU only got a cursory consideration. And honestly, I probably would have gone to another school if it had not been for the fact that VVU gave me a pretty good financial offer. One aspect that was especially good about VVU is that I can go there on a fellowship, which means that I will only need to be a student. Usually math/stats PhD students are supported through teaching assistantships or tutoring jobs of some sort. That is what I do right now. It can be a little hard to balance taking the graduate classes, passing level exams,* and also tending to the every need of students stuck on a ridiculously ineffective online homework system. (Why do we insist on using online homework?)

Being able to go back to doing full time work as just a student is what I would say is the leading reason why I chose VVU. Overall, national ranking did not play a large role. I actually declined what is the "best" program in terms of ranking some time ago. If you read the last post on this topic, there was another school (The Paw) I was leaning towards at that time. There were a couple of red flags that started to spring up after I made that post. The Paw took forever to make any sort of decision on funding (Nothing was finalized until April, which is hard when April 15 is the deadline to commit to a program). There were also a lot of technical aspects of the program structure at The Paw that I did not especially like in the end (Such as having no central department offices and a rigid level exam syllabus). They also seemed to be massively disorganized, which was admittedly a bit off putting.

Overall, I am not really sure I found a place that I 100% liked. This would have likely been the case no matter where I ended up. I do not even 100% like the place I am currently at. Sitting on the bus bench between the All-Stars and the freshmen is a strange spot to be. I am of the age where my office mates dates one of my teachers. Weird.

Ultimately I had to make a decision based on what would be the best school situation, taking into account outside factors. There were a few places that I like better in terms of outside factors. But VVU was the best overall combination, so that is what I went with. Comment below if you desire.

Next week will be the start of a three week series.

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*In order to go on with the PhD program, most schools require passing qualifying or level exams. Level exams is a term I prefer, since "qualifying exam" makes it sound like you are trying to qualify for admission into the program or something. If you do not pass the exams after 2 years, you usually  have to leave the program (Oft times with a master's degree as a consolation prize). VVU has a level exam structure that is better than others I felt, so this was one reason I liked it. 

How to Set Someone Up

I just met you,

And this is craaaazy,

But here's [her] number,

So call [her] maybe.

-Carly Rae Jepsen (Derived)

This is another top ten list. It is about how to set people up for marriage. Or at least how to attempt to. Please do not take too much of this seriously. I am not trying to pick anyone out or respond to any specific situation. It is extremely rare that someone actually tries to set me up on dates. They realized I was a lost cause several years ago. But here is the list nonetheless.

1. If you are going to try to set someone up, make sure that you know both people well. It sounds fundamental, but you would be surprised at how many people overlook this fact.  How often do you talk to the parties you are attempting to set up? Unless you have meaningful contact with both people at least once or twice a month, chances are you do not know them well enough to be suggesting people they should date. Note that knowing someone's parent is not the same as knowing the person themselves. Do not try to set me up with some girl because you are Facebook friends with her mother.

2. Ask if you are trying to set up people that are your peers. If you are trying to set up two people that are not your peers, chances are you will fail. This is actually a really prevalent theme I find. If you are not peers to both parties, you will usually struggle to be in touch with the undercurrents of any relationship you are trying to cultivate. There naturally are exceptions to this, but in general being 40 years older than the couple you are trying to set up is not going to lead to positive results.

3. You should know the relationship status of both people. This does not mean guessing their status. You need to know straight up if they are in any sort of relationship or not. I have had people suggest women for me to pursue and all it took was a 30 second glance at Facebook to figure out that they already had milk for their Honey Bunches of Oats (Or is that a Honey Bunch Cluster for their milk?).  Six albums of pictures with them holding the same bronzed and blonde lover usually indicate a relationship.  Don't make me figure out that the "really nice" girl in your ward is actually almost engaged.

4. "Just try it for one date." Setting up and planning a date takes time, especially when it is with a person I do not know. I need to figure out where the person lives, where to park when I get to her house (I actually have had to figure this out with a few girls due to the awful parking situations by where they live), how to get to the place we are going, what to do when we get there, etc. There is no such thing as a casual blind date. It is extremely rare that I would call going on a first date with someone "fun." Just my thought.

5. Ask the question "Am I already married?" No offense, but married people can badly botch the set up game. There is just something about being married that makes one unable to be objective about setting people up. Whether we want to admit it or not, married people sometimes don't "get it." I know that many of you are married, so this is a sensitive subject. But understand that you can lose perspective very quickly once you are married. Yes, you were once single. But you are not now. I went to preschool. But I don't think any of you are going to call me for advice about your preschooler. I've even forgotten what it is like to be in high school.

One of my colleagues got married a bit ago. I distinctly remember him saying before he was married that he never wanted to be set up on a date. Obviously he had forgotten about this statement, because it was not 6 months after he was married that he was trying to become my matchmaker. He failed. Although I also was crotchety about it, so that may have had some effect.

6. It takes a heck of a lot more than her being a "nice girl" for things to work out. Just because we are the same race and religion does not mean that we have anything in common or that we desire to speak with one another. Besides, I am not a nice boy, so most "nice girls" find me repulsive. Well, I guess that there are mean girls who also find me repulsive, so maybe my bridge is falling from both ends.

7. Dates with visibly pregnant women can be awkward. I am just going to leave it at that.

8. I have spoken on this topic before, but I do not want to go on a date with someone born in 1997. I also do not want to go on a date with someone born in 1977. I might relax some of these standards if the girl is super rich, super cute, or super good at Settlers of Catan. I actually have no clue how to play Settlers of Catan, so that last one is probably off of the table as well. Maybe we should replace it with "A woman cultured in opera." Or not. 

9. This more falls under the advice giving category, but the following phrases are off limits: "There are plenty of fish in the sea," "I know the perfect girl for you," "When Gretta and I got married...." (That was 40 years and 40 pounds ago). And please don't tell me I need to stop looking for someone that is perfect. If I had a penny for every person that has told me that, I literally could fund a trip to Europe. Why in the world do people think that most single people are just stuck in a rut of looking for someone that is perfect? [Scoff]. Personally, I would be embarrassed to admit in public that I am that out of touch with the majority paradigm. Also avoid the words "special someone"  and "Ostertag for three." (That also was 40 years and 40 pounds ago).

10. Do not try and honey pot me. Few things are as awkward as being invited to someone's house for a meal only to show up and find out that they wanted me to meet some girl that just "happens to be there." This is especially egregious when the girl seems to think I want to flamenco dance with her. I would not recognize a flamenco dance if she came up and slapped me in the face (Which may or may not have actually happened....)