You make me feel like a natural man

Listen, churchy chumps, stop using the "natural man" argument to conveniently bolster your hobby topics such as homosexuality. A natural heterosexual man falls in love with and wants to be with women. If your logic is that everything which feels "natural" is evil, or that I am supposed to overcome any arbitrarily selected "natural" inclination in order to prove my dedication and gain glory, then let's see straight people live single and celibate their whole lives to prove their willingness to overcome the "natural man".

And I'm not just talking about those people who, despite their desire and effort, "just don't find the right person," but everyone. I'm talking about everyone choosing to be single and rejecting opportunities which seem to be real shots at happy companionship with someone who'd want to build a family with them--someone with whom they're personally, ideologically, financially, and otherwise compatible, whose values they share, whom they respect, to whom they're attracted, for whom they have more than a "Christlike" lovin' feeling--only because the potential partner is the wrong gender. Because hey, their 'natural' appetites and lusts are not sufficient to build an eternal relationship. And showing your love for and obedience to God requires the willing sacrifice of all things. Then I'll start believing they understand what they're preaching.

While we're at it, let's have mothers refrain from ever holding their babies. That's a natural impulse, and one's faithfulness is proven by showing their willingness to subdue all earthly comforts and attachments, all natural appetites, to show their dedication to eternal growth rather than earthly comforts.

That's different, you say? Good, I agree it is. Because holding your baby is a divinely appointed good? Because God hasn't spoken, through what are believed to be divinely appointed mouthpieces, against holding your babies? Because research has shown that touch deprivation is psychologically and physically harmful for babies? Well OK, then, stick to the real issue and stop browbeating with accusations of not understanding that God requires difficult things of the faithful or asserting that only the proud reject an involved, personal God. Focus on the real issue of what you believe God's will to be, and get your misguided, arbitrarily applied "natural man is an enemy to God" and "doing what's harder brings rewards" motive-demeaning fluff out of my face. It's old and stinky.

The homely truth about O-Mo

There are a few things I think people sometimes misperceive about me and a few tidbits which seem to surprise people when they find them out. I've probably thought of some of these because of the new people I've been meeting and spending time with and the questions they come up with along the way. It makes me wonder what perceptions people have of me and when they'll see past their self-told stories about me based on initial impressions. So by way of clarification:

• I'm interesting and fun to certain people, but I'm often terribly boring to people who "like to have fun" in the dancing, partying sense or frustrating to those who are especially action-oriented or hardcore.
  
• I know a few people genuinely and deeply care about me and say they're glad to have me around, but I occasionally still feel completely useless to everyone, like my total absence wouldn't make any notable difference.
  
• While I sometimes let the previous feeling motivate me to want to live in a way that would be more impacting, I sometimes instead wish I could just vanish away to stop using up resources and people's energy for my piddly life and concerns.
  
• I am often confident about many things, but I'm also insecure sometimes about others. Being confident or having conviction about some things does not eliminate insecurities or uncertainty about others.
  
• I have an abundance of love and affection to offer, but I nevertheless often think that the strongest and most animating affection and love I have felt will be homeless, and I'll be better off alone or am unfit to really match up with anyone in a meaningful, lasting way unless I shut down significant parts of my personality and cognition which most people find difficult to deal with or share...
  
• I have a lot of beliefs and conviction, but those have been gained through or proven by questions and doubts.
  
• I want to make the most of my life and really contribute something but often move on to another idea or lose practical interest before the follow-through. It's not that I don't have ambition or don't care, it's that I may need external help to channel and invest and don't easily identify that help.
  
• I fall into intellectual laziness sometimes, failing to exercise my mental muscles or remember why I've incorporated certain principles, and emotional attachments or desires sneak in to draw me in directions I don't believe are ultimately best but which "feel good" at the time. Fortunately, I'm also slow to act, so I typically have time to realize my potential direction and remember the reasons before I've done anything "rash" (like going to church in a moment of wishing for the sense of community or simplicity of just playing along but without believing it, or fooling around with someone who's hot and seems willing but with whom I don't want a romantic relationship and whom I don't trust enough to know that they're disease-free or know for sure where they're coming from emotionally). This lends an air of stability which is pretty accurate but is not necessarily the whole story: there's still messiness behind the stability--it just typically gets processed internally.
  
• I'm intelligent but easily distracted from learning about things by shiny, newer things or old hobby interests.
  
• I like good books but rarely read because I'm a very slow reader and don't feel satisfied by skimming.
  
• I am once again without a job and am, in fact, looking for employment but not nearly to the degree I probably "should" be because I hate job-hunting and let myself get very easily distracted by...blogging, for example. Or dates. Or movie nights with the boys. Or a long, hot bath. Or working out. Or cleaning my room. Or manscaping. Or cooking. Or editing wedding photos I have to get done. ...and then I procrastinate the photo editing because once it's done, I know I'll be out of good excuses to put off job-hunting...crap...
  
• I chew the skin around my fingernails. A lot. Especially when I'm reading blogs and formulating my own entries. Then once I've done it a little, I have to keep going until there are no rough edges. This often means I've made a meal of my own skin after a couple of hours before I force myself to stop. It's pretty disgusting when I think about it. I don't consider it a "nervous habit", just a lost-in-thought one, but one I should probably kick nonetheless.
  
• I care about people's feelings, but I have a threshold to how much I can hear complaints about the same thing repeatedly, and I can become insensitive when I get especially pragmatic with other people's trials. This is 'ironical' because my journals and blogs show a pattern of talking about the same things many different ways...and sometimes the same ways...
  
• Even though I wish more people were more direct with me about what they perceive as my shortcomings (whether or not I'll agree), I'm also sometimes afraid to ask direct questions or realize I just don't care about someone's opinion on something.
  
• I feel a desire to be more, to do more, to contribute more, but I also value just enjoying the company of those I care about and making happy memories together from what we have, even if it's not much. Of course, I can't help but wonder if I am a slothful, apathetic person because I'm not so goal- and accomplishment-oriented as some of my friends. Part of me thinks there's more to it than that, that there's a fundamental personality difference that I have yet to tap into to find my place, but another part of me wonders if I really am just lazy, or if my priorities are not lined up for my happiness, even if I don't think they should be lined up the way others around me line theirs up...which I don't. *shrug*
  

Hey, the first step is admitting the problem, right? On the other hand, I didn't write these for y'all to confirm or deny them. Almost every time I write or say something like this, someone says something they think I meant, and I didn't, and I disagree, and then they think I'm just stubborn and rebellious for not agreeing with their own interpretation of or spin on what I said. Ha, whatev.

On a related note, there are those things which are, I believe, not so problematic (at least not anymore) but "just are":

• I rarely remember references or quotations, and I rarely repeat information or pretend to know something about something until it's been confirmed in some reliable way, or else I'll repeat it but make clear that I don't know its validity. I used to worry this made me sound less intelligent. I no longer worry about it, even if it's true.
  
• I'm a fairly good-looking guy, but I'm heavily acne-scarred on my face and shoulders and upper back, and it took me years to first get over the shame and then come to terms with it pretty thoroughly. I used to hate the thought of disgusting people with my ugly back and zit-covered face and couldn't keep from worrying about it in many situations. Now it rarely occurs to me, not because I'm naive to the fact that some people will be disgusted but because I no longer am. One step in that process was having someone I cared about and was attracted to look right at my acne-scarred shoulders, touch them, and even kiss them without apparent reservation years ago. I sometimes forget how meaningful that was to me at the time.
  
• I've been accused of being a bit of an exhibitionist in certain circles (only among trusted gay friends, really), but I was painfully modest for over a decade and was really uncomfortable about being seen shirtless, so it's possibly an overcompensation...though I'm really not a nekkidness freak or anything.
  
• I have what some might regard as a few refined tastes, but I also unabashedly like some things which seem to invite the response, "Really? I think I just lost a little respect for you." Like watching The Bachelor. *wink* I pay little attention to such juvenile judgments.
  
• I'm a jack of a few trades, master of none. I thought of myself as talentless for years. I now think of myself as having a talent or two, albeit very underdeveloped because I can't seem to maintain interest in one long enough to really excel. I'm no renaissance man compared to some I know, and I may be OK with that.
  
• I fart. A lot. No, seriously. Like, more than is probably healthy for any normal human. But I'm OK with it. It's everyone else who seems bent out of shape by it. Weird.
  

Somehow, I felt like this post was going to feel more...exposing than it does. But I guess it's nothing huge, just those things I've noticed people seem to overlook or be surprised by. I suppose my blog readership has a very different view of me than a person I met on a dating web site, so I'm probably misdirecting this energy, but ah, well. It's been an interesting exploration for me, at least. :-)

Bitchelorettes and my mission dynamics

Remember how I said, in the comments on my post, that I've known women who remind me of Michelle on The Bachelor, and I think she was intense and manipulative and got caught up in playing up the drama when interviewing but probably was hiding some insecurities and might actually be pretty lovable? Yeah...OK, so I didn't spell it all out, but that's what I've thought.

Part of me actually thought I might really like her and wanted to get past the exterior shell and defense mechanisms to see what was past those. I don't think her breakdown on this week's "The women tell all" episode was an act. And I think Jackie and Stacey (and maybe that blonde girl whose name I don't care to look up) are far more bitchy than Michelle ever was, and they always have been unapologetically so. I also think more people forgive their brand of bitchy because it's more socially standard. More people are like them than are like Michelle, so they get a free ride on the guilt of the masses. I can't stand their self-protective, superiority-grasping snarls and scoffs. Jackie wears a perma-sneer I've always wanted to slap right off of her face. I had a strongly negative impression of these girls from the first episode: yes, girls, not women. I had quick impressions of Michelle, too: high-maintenance, overbearing, but potentially very interesting because she immediately reminded me of a person or two I really like... As I see it, if anyone was putting on airs and being two-faced in classic mean-girl fashion, it was the girls attacking Michelle. The way they looked at each other to affirm each other in their attacks was obvious. The way they clearly criticized her in roundabout ways and tried to deny it was deceptive and hypocritical. Michelle was over-the-top aggressive and made biting comments, but she's not pointing the finger and kicking someone while she's down: they are.

But then...if I'm going to be fair in the way they refuse to be with Michelle, I have to acknowledge that they're probably operating from within their own limited paradigms, they don't understand what Michelle means when she says she's "easily misunderstood". They don't understand her particular brand of self-defense or coping mechanisms, so her tears don't make sense to them except as a ploy, and I saw in their faces a look that seemed sincerely flabbergasted that anyone was buying into her "sob story" or showing sympathy, maybe because they figured that's exactly her design. But I am open to the possibility, or probability, that she was very much genuine in that moment. Even if, mind you, it doesn't "make sense" rationally when you put everything externally observable together, it's the unseen, internal factors that may incite sincere and very real emotion in her and make sense of what she's trying to say. So even if she will look back five years from now and think, "Wow, I was kind of a mess and had some things to figure out, and I probably shouldn't have been so bent out of shape and shouldn't have said some of the things I said on the show," (incidentally, she already has admitted that much) that doesn't mean she was being fake. But I don't expect everyone to have known the people I've known and understand the same people I understand, so I have to acknowledge that these women's hard faces and defensive glares might be no more indicators of their badness than Michelle's comments on the show were of hers. Jackie's perma-sneer notwithstanding, she might be a very good person in many ways I don't readily perceive because I struggle to get past her prickly demeanor. And I must admit, she saved some face towards the end, when she backed off a bit...but she still had that blasted expression of false superiority...

Here's the thing: I identify with Michelle. That's probably no real shocker. Of course, I'm not aggressive in the way she is, but I just...I guess I'm just one of those who saw past her words to her, as she put it, dry, sarcastic sense of humor. I got a good laugh when others were gasping at some of the things she said. I imagined her smirking a bit inside as she said some of the things she said because she knew how intense they were but was hamming it up during the camera interviews. I got a kick out of the editing to ramp up the "stalker" factor with brief shots and creepy music. I figured, "OK, she might be a bit of a creeper, but I suspect she's just...a bit intense and coping in her own quirky way." When she didn't take the other women's bait to engage in a cat fight but briefly defended herself and apologized and broke down, I saw the side of her I suspected had always been there, not shocked as the host said.

On my mission, just a couple of missionaries seemed to "get me" in the sense that they saw past what I was only in the process of realizing were prickly personality traits and barriers I had up. In some ways, I was an a-hole to most companions and unnecessarily rigid, but I sincerely didn't mean to be unkind or dismissive of anyone as a person, and I didn't know how to be any different while upholding my standards and defending my values, and I wasn't acting out of spite for anyone but out of desire to maintain my own beliefs and principles above all else. I've never been just like everyone else, personality-wise, and learning to adapt and put people at ease or engage in certain arbitrary social tokens has always been a bit challenging or tiring for me, to be honest. I find directness so refreshing, but most people find it uncomfortable. I most often challenge my own ideas internally before vocalizing them, but when I challenge someone else's, even in what I think is a benign way in order to understand how they arrived at something, all they often hear is, "I disagree and think your ideas aren't worth accepting and would rather do it my way."

I suspect many missionaries believed that they "saw through" my poise and "quiet dignity" to a selfish a-hole who didn't give a rip about anyone else, believing my "righteousness" to be an act to save face or appear respectable and gain approval from authority. But some saw what I believe was my intent and seemed to love me despite my thorns, and even then, I had an inkling that there were things I'd need to learn if I was going to keep from alienating people my whole life, and I wanted to learn them but couldn't as long as people just pushed back against what they perceived as me being an a-hole rather than loving me and showing me by example or kindly offering constructive criticism in the right moments.

See? This is an example of the stuff that goes through my head while I'm watching The Bachelor. I know: kinda intense and analytical, hm? But that's me, baby. Of course, I also simply enjoy the train wreck factor and the melodrama sometimes. :-)

Bachelor Twist

I have the next twist on the oddly conservative show, The Bachelor: a gay bachelor marrying a woman. But the women can't know he's gay. In proposing this, I mean absolutely no disrespect to anyone who's been through it, just like I don't watch this season in order to belittle the challenges of those on the show now. I just love an engaging social experiment.
The bachelor's reasons may be religious, social, personal, whatever, but I want to watch as he visits with a therapist, navigates the challenges of approaching marriage with a woman, etc. And during the testimonials, the women can express how impressed they are by his "respectfulness" or how confused they are by his lack of affection. Of course, it'd be refreshing to not have all the eye-rolling hot tub makeout... *cough*

Or maybe he'd be great with the physical stuff, just like a straight dude, though I'm thinking if it's gonna be that way, the producers need to impose at least a two-year makeout fast on the bachelor to make sure he's good and pent-up by the time the show shoots.

Or maybe it wouldn't be that different after all...until he tells the final 6 women about his secret, and we get to watch them deal with it. Oh man, I'd be glued.

Of course, the show's season would be about two or three times as long as usual.

Whom do I contact to get this done?

Yes, please

Speaking of crushes on Henry Cavill, he's slated to be Superman in the next iteration. I think I approve.

Not just about 'marriage'

I often hear church members say they support civil unions and giving same-sex couples the same rights as mixed-sex couples (many stop short of adoption rights), just not allowing same-sex couples to use the word 'marriage', and some even say the church has said as much.

It hasn't.

It has come out in support of certain rights for same-sex couples:

The Church does not object to rights (already established in California) regarding hospitalization and medical care, fair housing and employment rights, or probate rights, so long as these do not infringe on the integrity of the family or the constitutional rights of churches and their adherents to administer and practice their religion free from government interference. - The Divine Institution of Marriage

That's great, but it comes with the "so long as" qualifier (part of which [infringement of constitutional rights of churches and adherents] is totally understandable and probably necessary, the other part of which [infringing on the 'integrity of the family'] is completely subjective and allows for plenty of wiggle room should the church need it) and says nothing of civil unions, adoption rights, taxation, insurance, guardianship...

It has also clearly and officially implied it does not support giving same-sex couples all of the same rights and responsibilities as mixed-sex couples:

Legalizing same-sex marriage will affect a wide spectrum of government activities and policies. Once a state government declares that same-sex unions are a civil right, those governments almost certainly will enforce a wide variety of other policies intended to ensure that there is no discrimination against same-sex couples. This may well place "church and state on a collision course." - The Divine Institution of Marriage (emphasis added)

Classic "us or them". Of course, they expound on other reasons to bolster their opposition to same-sex marriage, reasons I believe are completely debatable if not debunkable. But my point here is that, to the church, this apparently isn't just about the word 'marriage', folks. So at the risk of spurring some of you to change your minds in a direction I disagree with, I say to my LDS-faithful friends and family: be careful about where you draw your lines, or you may find yourself unexpectedly at odds with 'the brethren' in your attempts to be 'tolerant'.