Day 56

Well, for my mom's birthday yesterday I went off my diet. Cake and ice cream, baby. However, this was a planned diversion from the diet path. Having occasional free days helps me to resist more temptations for the rest of the time. I'm right back on the wagon today.

Today at church I had an experience that can only be described as awkward.


Our stake presidency was there for ward conference. Since I am in a singles ward, there were of course two "M" words as the topics of discussion: Missions and Marriage.

After a brief discussion on the importance of flirting, it was announced that we would now practice. All the boys were asked to go to one side of the aisle of seats, all the girls on the other. The men were then instructed to walk as a row straight across the aisle and stand in front of a girl. Once everyone was in position, it was explained that the boys were going to be attempting to flirt. The girls were to stay sitting and listening until the guy said something that impressed them as a good flirting technique. At that point the woman would stand up. He said that we would go until every girl was standing or we ran out of time. The entire time this was being sorted out, the guy standing in front of me avoided looking at me to an impressive degree. I had never met him before, but I noticed he had on a tie with ducks on it. Right before the flirting was to commence he turned and whispered in a panicked manner to his friend standing next to him, who muttered a few words of encouragement and advice. As the Stake President said, "Go", Duck Tie turned to me and immediately blurted out, "I like your hair." I smiled and thanked him. After a few moments of him looking around the room quietly, he looked back down at me, shrugged and said, "I really don't know..." After gathering that he was not going to finish that sentence or start a new one, I tried to look kind and encouraging as I said, "Well, asking questions is usually a good place to start when you aren't certain." After several seconds of looking up with a pained expression on his face, he looked back at me and, "Do you go to school?" tumbled out of his mouth. I replied that I did and he seemed to relax a small bit as he asked follow up questions to my responses. After a minute of that, I decided to put him out of his misery and I stood up. He let out an audible sigh of relief as he sincerely told me, "Thank you for standing up." I made a couple more attempts at getting a conversation going with him, to no avail. He was looking everywhere but at me, which was quite the accomplishment with how close we had to stand. Finally, I resigned to stand silently. Looking around the room, I was surprised by how many women were still firmly planted in their chairs, while red faced boys made valiant attempts at flattery. My heart went out to all of these brave young men. I certainly would not know what to do had the roles been reversed. Finally and mercifully, the Stake President called for all the guys to return to their seats. As Duck Tie shuffled back from whence he came, without a goodbye, I realized that we'd never even exchanged names. I honestly don't think any less of Duck Tie, though. That was a rough situation to be thrown into.

While I understand the method behind the madness, and know that my stake presidency truly loves and cares about the members of my ward, I must say that I don't think I'm even a half step closer to marriage after today. And I can't speak for Duck Tie, but I wouldn't be too surprised if he's sworn off "flirting" for life.