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....)

When I got Married...

All I can say is that my life is pretty plain,
I like watching the puddles gather rain.
And all I can do is just pour some tea for two,
and speak my point of view.
But it's not sane, It's not sane.

~Blind Melon

First off, I am not married, so obviously this is not about when I got married. Today I am going to look a little bit at the statistics behind the claim that the average marriage age is rising. In doing this, I am going to fill in the blank "When I got married _______." In order to get this to a point where I felt it was factual and summarized my claims accurately I had to make this post a bit longer. This is not an attempt at a justification for my current status, but rather an examination of the perceptions of a situation.

I sometimes joke that the average marriage age is rising....and has been since the neolithic era.

Thurg at his wedding.

But that actually is not true. Let me explain.

Here is a link to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. This gives median marriage age data. Those of you who understand basic probability distributions will understand why the median age is perhaps more useful than the mean (The median helps us understand the distribution in terms of percentiles instead of averages, hence we know the value in the distribution below which half the population lies). I will reference the following graph several times (This is a smaller version of the graph found under the link. This way if you are on a phone you can possibly view the graph a bit more easily):

Are marriage rates declining? Yes. But how severely? Note that there was a major dip in the census data post WWII (1950, 1960, 1970s). People getting married in that era currently control a significant proportion of the public pulpit on marriage. Keep that in mind. 

According to the work of the well know (in the field) economics professor Nicholas F.R Crafts of the University of Warwick (link here), all but two of the 43 English counties had higher median marriage ages for women in 1861 than the median marriage age for women in the U.S. in 1910. Starting in 1890 (Which is as far back as my data goes), median marriage age for women in the U.S. trended overall downward for the next 60 years. It took until 1970 (That is in the 20th century) for the median marriage age of women in the U.S. to surpass the lowest recorded median age (by county) in England in 1861. What does this mean? It means that women in 1950, 1960 and 1970s were seemingly getting married at ages unprecedented for over a century. 

Remember that the 1860s were a time were it was not at all unusual to see a girl get married at ages that are not even legal without parental consent these days. Yet the median marriage age of women was higher in every county of England in 1861 than it was in the United States 100 years later. 

I am going to be sloppy and go out on a limb: We would also see a similar phenomenon with men. I am going to ignore the fact that married couples in the 19th century usually had a larger age difference than we are used to these days. If we factor that in, the results for men would be even more pronounced. Conclusion, the post WWII generation got married at ages so low we had not seen them for nearly 100 years prior. 

By the way, average life expectancy rose by 30 years over that same century time span. Rather curious, is it not? (Yes, married men live longer. But the effect is minimal at best. This rise in life expectancy cannot be attributed to getting married at a younger age. As noble as that is of course.) 

Let me raise my hand here and admit that in 1860, marriage ages for women in the U.S. were lower than in England. Professor J. David Hacker of the University of Minnesota estimates in this paper that it was roughly 2 to 3 years lower in the U.S. However, as the U.S. modernized to the level of England, marriage ages also quickly rose to those of England.* This is reflected in the U.S. Census data. As with many questions in social science, we have to pick between two less than ideal alternatives. We can either use statistics from a more modernized country and extrapolate to the U.S., or we can use 19th century statistics from a country based on rustic agrarianism. We can pair data sets from countries modern among their contemporaries, or we can pair data sets from the same country, albeit a country which saw a rather rapid modernization movement at the end of the 19th century. In all, this shows that attempts to use social statistics from bygone eras to create policy platforms for the modern era will always require leaving some hole unfilled.   

So, to fill in the blank, "traditional America" (Meaning those born in the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s) can say "When I got married, I was more likely than not married at a younger age than someone 100 years older than me." Probabilistically, that is what the median marriage age tells us. Not until 1980 (120 years later) did the median marriage age in the U.S. surpass that of the 1860s in England. So in other words, my grandparents' generation got married younger than any other generation that has ever been alive at the same time they were.

Sit up and read this carefully, because even well respected sources such as twentysomethingmarriage.org** sometimes overlook this. Marriage did not start in 1950. In this article twentysomethingmarriage.org makes a sloppy (or sly) mistake by cutting off their graph at 1947. This allows them to "show" that marriage ages are on the rise, but lead the uninformed reader to assume that marriage ages have always been on the rise. But go back and look at the U.S. Census data. Surprise! Marriage was a thing before 1947. And the 1950 census had the lowest median marriage age on record, a record which started 60 years prior with a median marriage age that was 3 years higher. Again, just because you read it in the ultra conservative "Family" section of your ward newsletter/local paper does not make it true.

Now let me end by fully acknowledging that currently the average (and presumably the median) marriage age is as high as probably it has been for a very long time (Ignore some of those people in the Bible that got married at age 439 or whatever). The percentage of men in the U.S. never married at age 35 is about 1.8% higher than it was 100 years ago. Yes, fewer men are getting married. But the rates are not nearly as severe as some would have you believe.  

Furthermore, I just have not seen good evidence that it actually matters what age someone gets married at (within reason). Some people refute this by talking about their early struggles in marriage at age T minus 20 years old and how it really brought them closer together as a couple. Great! I agree that working through difficulty can be positive for your marriage. But how in the world does that mean I will have an unsuccessful marriage if I get married at a later age?*** Note that having to work at your marriage is a fact of life. That is true whether you are 20, 30, or 100.  I am not trying to belittle those of you who did get married young. But my story has never been your story.  And that is true even when I was a small child.

Sadly, just because it is true does not mean people will believe it. And the microphone does not shut off when someone misinformed gets up to speak. 

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*To quote from the paper: "Indirect evidence suggests that the age of first marriage in the United States began to rise sometime in the eighteenth century and continued to increase slowly in the nineteenth century, peaking around the turn of the twentieth century." Hence people who got married from the 1940s to 1960s in the U.S. were actually a low point in the rise and fall of marriage age. This paints a slightly different picture than many would have you believe. If you are feeling really gumptious, read the whole paper. It is very eye opening and is amazingly accurate in establishing that rising marriage age is systemic to a rapidly devolving society. (That is to say, the claim that a rising median marriage age is caused by unmarried people refusing to take extant marital opportunities is not well founded).

**Let me say though that this site is a must read if you want to speak in an educated way about marriage and singleism. If you seek to preach about singles of my demographic, this site is pretty much the canon. It does an excellent job of bringing in legitimate and respected sources from both sides of the debate. This "bipartisanship" results in one of the very few moderate commentaries on marriage. The writers actually get social science and do not resort to "back in my day" finger pointing, nor do they fancy themselves qualified to speak for "The Brethren." A well regarded member of the Church actually writes for these people by the way.


**There is some evidence that getting married in one's thirties can be correlated with lower marital quality. However, this same research makes explicit note of the fact that such claims differ "significantly" when blocking by those who "were religious and those who weren't." And as with many studies in social science, there always are two sides to the story. The article from twentysomethingmarriage.org that I cited ends by saying "In general, couples who wait till their midtwenties or later enjoy more maturity and financial security, both factors that make it easier to sustain a lifelong marriage." If you fall outside of this category of course you can still have a quality marriage. But the point is that even moderately conservative social scientists (i.e. people who do actual research instead of just polling their freshman marriage prep class) indicate that as long as you get married at a reasonable age, you can have a successful marriage.

My Grad School Options.

To dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free,
Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands,
With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves.

~Bob Dylan.

In the past two weeks, I have been in four different states touring universities. As many of you know, I am going to be starting a PhD program in the fall. I have eliminated my choices down to three options. I am accepted to each of these programs, so now I just need to decide where to go. This will be a post on what I saw as I toured these different universities. Add your comments as to where you think I should end up. If you just want to read about the schools, skip the next few paragraphs.

First off, there are some straight up freaks out there in the world. I will not describe all the body parts I have seen pierced. Dennis Rodman is not the oddest person to ever set foot in Seattle. To each his or her own I guess. Neck tattoos are just an odd practice. And it is sad to see otherwise pretty young ladies smoking at age 23. (Tattoos and pierced noses are one thing, and indeed a culture, but how in the world can you grow up in the modern era and become a smoker?)

I also saw a few fringe people. "Outliers." "Freakonomics." These people were what you could call "odd," but ultimately were pretty nice I feel. They just were from a different era. The pictures below resemble actual footage I took.

 

Let me add that I of course come from one of the weirdest universities in the US. And I have met a lot of freaks right here where I go to school. Freakery can be very subtle. In fact, subtle freakery is perhaps more disturbing. It is by nature secretive. 

Right after casting judgment on the neck tattoo people of the world, let me also add that I had it reaffirmed to me that sometimes "we," the "peculiar people" like to think we have a corner on all things good: modesty, abstaining from drugs and alcohol, blah blah blah. Yes, I met a lot of people who live very differently than I do. Yes, I met beer chuggers. But I also met people who had the poise to carry themselves in a dignified way without needing to build fences around the law. I met a lot of non "card carriers" who were more modest than many of the face-painted people whose feet mince by me everyday. And Surprise! A man can have a beard and not be a drug addict. And a man can be clean shaven and chug beer like a lumberjack.

Now, we all know well these things I have said above. Nothing new to see. And these statements are not the point of this post. They are merely observations relevant to my travels looking at graduate schools. Ultimately I learned that I have freaks living in my own backyard (No, not the Sterns and their monkeys) and there are perfectly normal people living outside my state. Again, not a revelation, just an observation of known fact.

Here are the three schools I am considering as my final options. I list facts about each. Perhaps give feedback as to what you think, because as of right now I have no idea which one is the best. As far as I know, none of the readers of the blog go to any of these schools. I use code names for the schools to allow me to be more open about what I saw without publicly bad mouthing these places. Don't work too hard trying to match these code names with mascots. You will not succeed. In reviewing these places, I might make qualitative judgements without defining terms. What is "bad weather?" What are "a lot of drinkers?" So on and so forth. Yet I feel that leaving these terms in an ambiguous state actually allows us to get a better feel for what the school really is. 

The Claw.

• The weather here is okay. Not great winters, but survivable. It does rain a lot though. I was here for three days and it rained non stop for two of them.
• This is a beer and drugs school. I am not going to say "illegal drugs," since we do not always have the same laws everywhere. So let's just say "drugs." And beer. It seemed like every place we went, the lead professor was offering to share his booze. He also doubled as our van driver, so that was comforting.
• The cost of living here is very low. Especially compared to what I would make in terms of stipend. 
• This school is pretty isolated, but that could be a good thing. It means low pollution and access to nature.
• They have a professor named Bob Dylan. Okay, he spells it Dillon, but still.
• There is not a huge job market locally for my field, but within a 150 mile radius or so, there is a lot of opportunity. Maybe even a top 3 city for my profession.
• The amount of LDS people living in this area is pretty low, but they do have a singles branch for those of us still going to the "specialty units" (As opposed to the general "mutt of all trades" wards). 
• I also am pretty sure that about 2/3 of this school is Asian. Yet, alas, there are no specialty Church units for them. Not that it matters to me anyway, since I am not the right race. But neither is Jimmy--and it's his home state.

The Paw. 

• The weather here is amazing in the winter and survivable in the summer. This could clue you in as to where it is located. 
• This is a coffee school. I am sure people here drink beer, but no one offered to buy me any and the lead professor himself entirely abstained. The lead guy also had more head on his head and face than some grizzly bears have on their entire body. Yes, back hair can be combed up and over your bald spot.
• Everyone was wearing swimming suits when I arrived on campus. This seems to be common attire. Sort of strange for a place with so little water.
• This school has the strongest program and is situated in the best job market of the three schools.
• There are a decent amount of LDS people in this area. They have multiple singles wards. No word on other specialty wards.

The Thaw.

• The weather here is bad for pretty much the entire school year. And the air quality is awful. I hate to say it, but my vision of this city is that of a coal mining town from the 50s. This is not what the town is actually like, but that is how I picture it.
• This school has offered me the most money. It comes with a few technical caveats however, so I am not totally sold on this offer. Sometimes more pay also means more work. And $1800 more a year may not be enough to make up for other concerns.
• This is a.....beer school? Maybe? All I know is it is not a coffee school and it is not a drug school. So beer school it is. I actually have no idea what people do in this city.
• The local job market for my field is not necessarily very strong here. Especially if I do not want to research ballistics or bovines. But it is at least on the right side of the continent to find work in my field.
• There are a number of LDS people here I think. There also are a lot of anti-Mormons. And a lot of people that dislike my current school. Sometimes those sets are distinct. 

Conclusion.

There are of course a few factors that are impossible to predict. What if I go to The Thaw and the whole city is hit with a flu epidemic? What if I go to The Claw and it turns out that their entire program goes under water? What if I go to The Paw and get entangled in a professor's back hair and beard? (So that's why beards are so bad!) 

Then there is the whole issue of not being married. I have a few associates who found their spouse after moving cities. What if they had gone to a different city? We have no way of knowing what would have happened. We could argue that no matter where they had gone they would have gotten married. Yet obviously not everywhere had the magic touch else they would have received admission to the marriage club sooner. Who knows. As they say, "There are plenty of fish in the sea." This guy caught one.

Good fishing, right? Straight from the Bayou. Or the circus freak show. Also keep in mind that there is so much trash in the ocean it actually has its own Wikipedia article.

Comment below if you have thoughts.

Date and Preserve the Planet

Sit beside a mountain stream, see her waters rise.
Listen to the pretty sound of music as she flies.

Find me in my field of grass, Mother Nature's son.
Swaying daises sing a lazy song beneath the sun.

As is tradition, I am going to write about an upcoming holiday. This time it is St. Patrick's Day. For this special St. Patrick's Day edition of the blog, I will be talking about how you can have a great time going on your weekly quota reaching date and also preserve the planet. This is what we call "Dating Green." As I have a few associates that come from states that claim to desire to preserve the planet, I felt that this topic would be very fitting for the Day of Green.

1. Walk or bike everywhere for the date. If she objects to walking several miles to preserve the planet, remind her that the future children you will have together depend on a healthy planet.

2. Refuse to use anything made of plastic. This includes most of the known world. If the girl is wearing eyeglasses, chances are that her spectacles are made of plastic. Dispose of these immediately. It is better to be blind and live on a clean planet than be able to see in a pollution heavy world.

3. Avoid children at all costs. (This is something I do even when I am not trying to be green, which is most of the time). It is a well known fact that children are damaging to the planet. Used diapers, empty juice boxes, greenhouse gases, and nuclear waste are just some of the many things that children produce that are damaging to the planet. You might as well just be throwing uranium tailings into the ocean. On the topic of diapers, I am aware that a few of you have "gone cloth," which is a huge debate on mommy blogs. I am not a mommy blog writer, so I have no real opinion. Maybe Kelsey Gurley can give advice on "cloth."

4. Do not shower before going out on a date. This will save quite a bit of water and will give your skin a darker complexion. They invented Axe Body Spray for a reason. Unfortunately Axe only really works if you are dating a high schooler with a cold.

5. Consider a planet friendly wardrobe. I remember seeing a lady once that had crocheted a big purse out of used plastic bags. Why not extend this concept to your clothing? Here is a smock/coat made from old high density polyethylene bags. It is waterproof, it preserves the planet, and it will hold in your stench from not bathing.

6. Only eat at restaurants that buy locally. Too many precious resources are spent transporting your food from Siberia to your dinner plate. Eating at restaurants that buy locally also has the added benefit that they are in walking distance. Yeah......I'm not going to lie, you might start regretting that whole "no car" rule.

7. In keeping with the no plastics kick, do not drink any bottled water. Remember, streams, lakes, and irrigation ditches are the most natural sources of water. Next to nuclear exposed children, irrigation ditches are also the largest source of unplanned genetic mutation in the U.S. But that is the price we all must pay for going green.

8. When you do decide a bath is absolutely necessary, use organic shampoos and soaps only. I am actually aware of a guy who claimed to be making such products. No word on his dating habits, although he did set his room on fire.

9. Do not touch your date. When you touch a person, your heart rate increases, which also makes your breathing rate increase. This will use up a larger supply of oxygen and will also produce a larger amount of carbon dioxide. If you hold hands with this girl, get ready to plant a tree, because you have breathed up at least twice as much oxygen as you otherwise might have if you had remained untouching. Do you want to save the planet, or do you want to hold hands with that girl that probably is just phishing you for answers to the math test? You choose.

10. Instead of paying for your dates with money, consider bartering using recyclable goods. Newspaper, plastic bags, cardboard, and small children all make excellent bartering tools for those desiring a greener way to pay.