I had a chance to talk
to a friend of mine, whom we'll call Sally, during this project. I asked her
what her biggest fear was pertaining to family. She mentioned that she has
always heard about how bad "the list" is, but couldn't help but want
to see the guy she has have these qualities. She felt like everyone she had
gone on a date with was not willing to change to her standards and that
frustrated her. As far as she is concerned, she has to have her list satisfied
before she can feel the person is the "the one".
Sally comes from a
broken home situation. Her father was non-existent in the family and her mother
was not ready to raise her at the time. She was raised by her great grandmother
until about 16 years of age, when the grandmother died. She had been spoiled
rotten by her great-grandmother and had never had to do anything she did not
want to do. Things were very much on a "my way or the highway" basis.
She recognized that she is at this point single and wants to marry but could
not understand what it was that she was doing wrong. A few of the items on her
list were as follows:
- No hair that covers the ears.
- Natural hair color only.
- Has to like Abercrombie.
- Has to be 2 years older than her. Only two years.
- Cannot go more than a day without shaving.
- Must be a returned missionary.
- Has to love hiking, but not swimming.
- Has to love reading more than watching TV.
- Has to have 6-pack abs.
- Doesn't wear glasses (only contacts, no colored).
- Has to have both mom and dad, no divorce.
I saw something
interesting in Sally that I think happens to a lot of us. We all have a
tendency to want things our way and to think that we know things will be best
if they are. Human beings are selfish in general and we usually do not want to
do or see something that we do not like. But a problem arises from this: How
can you truly be open to finding "the one" if you have already
decided against most of the male population?
Jason S. Carroll talks about
this a lot, amongst other things, in his book Successful Marriages & Families: Proclamation Principles
& Research Perspectives. He quotes Elder Bednar on the
issue of becoming the right person before getting married:
As we visit with young adults all over the Church, often they will
ask, "Well, what are the characteristics I should look for in a future
spouse?" As though they have some checklist of, 'I need to find someone
who has these three, or four, or five things." And I rather forcefully say
to them, "You are so arrogant to think that you are some catch and that
you want someone else who has these five things for you! If you found somebody
who had these three or four or five characteristics that you're looking for,
what makes you think they'd want to marry you?"
He goes on further to
describe what the list is really for: you. Sally had not realized that in
looking for a returned missionary, she would need to be just as spiritually in
tune with him. Otherwise, why would they want to be with someone who would
bring them down in spirituality and not practice the habits they developed over
the two years? In looking for someone who was physically fit, she had not
thought about her own physical fitness and that they may want to go to the gym
with her and do physically demanding things with her. That would require a
lifestyle change.
The best part of this
project is getting to share with the people I speak to what I've learned from
Carroll. I presented this information to Sally. In taking in any information
that disagrees with our own ideas the first reaction is always denial. Sally
held true to this for the first 5 minutes, trying to show me how all of the
things she was looking for were eternally important. "If he doesn't shave every
day, how can he say he really values his appearance and his body? Our bodies
are temples right? So then we should keep them clean!" It was only after
about 20 minutes of discussing things that she finally started to see that some
of the things she was looking for were not important. I asked her, "What
if your guy had everything but the six-pack abs? Or what if it was everything
but the love for hiking? Would you turn him away for one thing you didn't get
checked off on your list?"
She finally started to
see that the list was holding her back more than helping her. All this time she
was looking for "Captain America" and she had finally realized he did
not exist. I reassured her that just because he wasn't going to be perfect
didn't mean he wouldn't be perfect for her. She decided to completely redo the
list and look for things more eternally important while at the same time making
sure they were things that matched with her own standards. I told her that may
be the first step to finding a companion.
Reference
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