Thursday, October 1, 2015

Singles Wards

All the single ladies (All the single ladies) 
All the single ladies (All the single ladies)
All the single ladies (All the single ladies)
  All the single ladies
Now put your hands up
~Beyoncé 

Let me first say thanks to the consultants and to those of you who allowed me to come and see your weird hair dye jobs. #PumpkinOrange.

Over the past several months, I have visited a plethora of singles wards. It certainly added a level of adventure to going to church. I have been to singles wards in several states and cities. I even saw a television star. I also saw some people that could probably star in a remake of "My Life as a Sasquatch." Okay, I saw a lot of people like that.


The next three or four posts will focus on singles wards. I am sure that all of you are absolutely thrilled. However, I feel that since I have had the "privilege" to be a member of a number of singles wards over time I should share what I have found. Furthermore, as alluded to above, I have made it a matter of research to visit singles wards and record data. Over the next several weeks I will present my findings. After these posts on singles ward I will most likely talk about what the future holds for certain readers of the blog and also for myself. 

Also, while I am thinking of it, see the disclaimer at the bottom of the page.*

The main goal of this first post is to address the question "Why do singles wards exist?"
Today I am mostly going to be talking about the history of singles wards (Yes, I have actually read about this in official historical sources. It has reached that degree of sick infatuation) as well as give a smattering of observations that I picked up while visiting all of these different singles wards.

So we ask "Why do singles wards exist?"

Of course, there is the aspect of getting people married. This is never really listed as an "official purpose," but.....yeah. That's the main purpose from every unofficial standpoint. And the social aspect of a singles ward is even alluded to in official Church statements.

After having first started going to a singles ward nine years ago, I have found that some people are highly successful in singles wards from a social standpoint. They love the associated social church and are accepted therein. Many times, this leads to a fruitful picking and pairing in the field of marriage.

However, the whole "date and mate" theme of singles wards is not really what I want to address today. Maybe I will beat that drum next week. In fact, you can count on it.

For now, I am going to more focus on the pragmatic "why" of singles wards.

The Origins of Singles Wards
Unless otherwise noted, the information and dates that I use here come from chapters 42 and 43 of Church History in the Fullness of Times, the official manual for CES classes in Church history.

Following World War II, as Brigham Young University (BYU) began to expand under the leadership of Ernest L Wilkinson, there was of course a large influx of students. As surprising as this may sound, there were actually a few BYU students who were not married. Yes! Not everyone in the 1950s was married at age 18, as some would have you believe. (I digress).  With this marked growth in student enrollment at BYU, the surrounding Provo wards were inundated with single adults--single adults who would stick around for maybe eight months and then move on. This obviously caused issues with stability in the wards and created a large logistical problem. Hence in 1947, BYU began experimenting with student branches. As far as I can tell, these branches consisted of both married and single people. (Yes! They actually had the audacity to mix them. And the married people seemingly allowed it).



In 1956, the first student stake of the Church was created in Provo. Again, this stake was seemingly "mixed," marrieds and singles. This general set up continued until 1973 when the first (assuming that none of the aforementioned units in Provo were not in fact singles wards) singles branch of the Church was organized in Salt Lake City. The concept of singles wards blossomed from there.  

In my personal study of singles wards, I visited a total of eight different wards. I myself have also been a member of six singles wards. Due to my personal situations, most of the wards I visited were in some way associated with universities in the state of Utah.  I did, however, visit a few wards that fall outside this category.

Here are some general observations from my visits.
  • The ward I went to outside of Utah was ultra focused on marriage. One speaker (a married leader) told around six jokes about marriage. And he spoke for 5 minutes. If I had to guess, the topic of his testimony was "I am married and hence happier in life than you because I have many children and grandchildren." The other two speakers (also married adults) focused heavily on marriage. These two speakers were at least able to give positive input and focus on the doctrine of marriage. But the first speaker seemed to think he was on The Tonight Show.
  • I have heard the claim that women significantly outnumber men in the YSA scene. However, in the wards I went to, the men usually outnumbered the women. I was unable to take a count in every ward, but in the ones I did take a count in, the men always outnumbered the women, sometimes rather significantly (One ward had twice as many men as women by my count). However, the further from a Utah based university that I went, the more the numbers evened out. But even then, there were more men than women. As I have no head count data from a non-university based YSA ward outside of Utah, it is impossible for me to know how valid the claims are that women significantly out number men in the YSA scene. 
  • I saw a good number of full Moses beards. I also saw a nice sampling of the oft maligned "man bun."


  • Twitter @FigDrewton

  • I saw lots of backs being worked, especially in my old place of residence (P****). For clarity, a back is being worked when someone is giving another person a back massage. I saw people doing double dutch (one guy in the center working a back on each side). I saw man on man. I saw woman on woman. I saw man on woman. I saw woman on man. I saw woman going over man to work another woman. I saw a "chain gang," where several backs were being worked in a row. (Everyone worked a back to their right.)
  • I saw a boy with a head high walking staff at one meeting. Mix that with a long beard and you pretty much are set to go. Picture Gandalf from Lord of the Rings. And that probably was not the weirdest thing I saw. 
  • In congregations near BYU, the genders were pretty well mixed in with one another. However, in other cities I went to, it was rather segregated. Men sat with men. Women sat with women. They did not mix. 
  • In several of the wards I visited, I noticed a large portion of the congregation had their electronic devices out. I saw the following apps/technology: Tinder, SnapChat (Times a billion), ESPN Newsfeed, Instagram, Facebook, Game of War (or something like that), someone doing "jumbo word searches," someone watching a football game, someone having a DTR via text message (It was not going well. Yes, I read over her shoulder. But that is why you don't text in church).
  • One girl who was giving a talk told us that she was born on the day Mt. Saint Helens erupted. That was in May of 1980. Now you might wonder how this girl was still in a young single adult ward. This introduces a logistical problem unique to that area: There are so many single adults 31 and older in that area that they cannot force them into "family" wards, lest the same problems addressed above from post-WWII BYU be again introduced. I guess that the Church could force them into singles wards (31-45 years of age), but honestly the underlying problem is that no one wants to have the dirty job of having to enforce age limits. And besides, singles are a protected group in the Church, so sometimes we are afraid to tell a 35 year-old that they need to move on in life.
  • If I had to sum up in one word my overall impression of "singles wards" as a whole, based upon what I saw, I would have to choose the word "drudgery." That is honestly the first word that comes to mind. That or "the maimed and bleeding." I did not sense very many people who were truly excited to be at church. There seemed to be a lot of people who wanted to be excited, but who had just been a circus freak for too long for it to be exciting anymore. And the ones that were excited to be there had that deranged sort of "I enjoy drinking Tabasco sauce and 10W-40" types of looks.
  • Many of the singles ward stereotypes were actually seen to be true. (Be warned, some of these are judgmental). Overweight people. General "frump." Immature menfolk. Sad people bearing their testimonies one after another ("This has been the hardest week of my life.") Underemployed people. 18 year olds and 30 year olds without a lot in between. Incessant chatter about marriage. Every speaker telling a dating joke or comparing being a missionary to being married (Um. No). General meat/mate marketry. The frighteningly high amount of activities in a week. (One ward had so many activities they had to give an 8-minute PowerPoint presentation to the congregation just to list them all. This is not a joke). Men with abnormally large pectoral muscles and biceps (AKA, the pest control salesman). I saw them all.
  • As part of my research, I also visited a "family" ward. They were probably the friendliest and most genuine of all the wards I visited, but I was a clear outsider. And people assumed I was married, which made it rather awkward at times. 
  • Truth be told, I was scoping out how feasible it would be to attend this normal ward on a regular basis. This ward met in the morning and is a two minute walk from my house. My current singles ward meets at 2:10 in the afternoon and would be a 40 minute walk from my house. This is of course a #UtahProblem, but I am a bit disgruntled about having to drive 10 minutes to go to church in a ward I supposedly fit in to but really don't. 
  • I honestly concluded that I do not fit into any unit. I am sure I am not unique in this. Who knows what it means. There was a short moment where I wondered what would happen if I just ward hopped for the next foreseeable future. But there will come a point next April or so where I will need to get a temple recommend, so that idea is a no go. I guess until next May I am stuck going to church at 2:10 in the afternoon. 
I will pick up talking about singles wards next week, so be sure to tune in. I know that a lot of you really enjoy reading these whine and complain posts. Okay, maybe not. But still feel free to join us next week.


*Let me now put a disclaimer here. I also might place some further than disclaimers as the posts go on.
Disclaimer:  I am not sharing what I have learned from being in singles wards as a way of criticizing and demeaning local leaders. Do not see anything I say here as a pointed attack on a specific leader that I had. They are 99 times out of 100 good people trying to do what they can. Furthermore, I am going to try to do what I can to make sure that this post does not read like a list of grievances I have with former ward members. Some of you were in my wards. You might even think you know these stories. Maybe you do in fact know these stories. I don't know. Such stories are ultimately being shared to give you a view into the why behind many of the posts on this blog. It is important to me that you read these stories in the exact manner that I depict them in my own head. This is done so that you can see the same pictures I see. You do not need to agree with my stories or the manner in which I tell them. But I hope to at the least show you how I see these stories. 
Some readers are kin of former bishops that I have had. None of these stories are about them. You know who you are. If necessary, please convey the message that I have no qualms with what happened during that time period.
Please also remember that I employ a degree of hyperbole in these posts in order to emphasize my point. Moreover, if you have made it this far on the blog, I am going to assume that you can tell when I am being snarky and facetious. (Although, let me also say that I still have my doubts about a few people in this regard).

No comments:

Post a Comment