Someone Unlike You

Adele's song Someone Like You has always struck me as a bit problematic. In case you don't know the song, a woman looks up a man from her past and finally accepts that things are fully over between them. So she says that she is going to look for another man like him.

Well, if she does manage to find someone like him I see one of two things happening: either she will find someone who reminds her of him but doesn't quite live up to his standard or she finds someone like him but better. In the first situation she would be always disappointed in her new guy. And if she is as stuck on the old guy as the song indicates I can't see her really believing the second to be possible. And if by some odd chance she really does find someone exactly like him, well, that would be just plain freaky.

I think she'd be better off looking for somebody radically different to love so any comparisons would be apples and oranges.

Don't Say It

I have heard many times that the thing that originally attracts you to someone is eventually going to be the thing that most annoys you.

I haven't seen any research addressing this. It probably is true in some cases, but not all. I'd guess it depends on why whatever it is attracts you and how the rest of the relationship proceeds. Whatever the facts of the matter, I don't see any good from telling it to single people. I can see two rational responses to such information, especially without any qualifiers about how or why it would happen.

1. Avoid marriage and romantic relationships in general
 This option is pretty bad for the survival of the species.

2. Marry someone whose personality does not draw you in any way
This seems like a great way to create unfulfilling marriages.

Isn't there enough out there to scare people away from marriage without making us afraid that the very fact that we like someone is a sign that we're going to end up driving each other crazy in a bad way?

Love Hierarchy

When great love is rejected, Rosalee, something inside a man dies, so all he can do is run away. And he can meet the girl he'll love second most.

-Angelica, Win a Date With Tad Hamilton

I don't think I could ever marry the man I loved second most. Suppose my great love rejected me. After that, I just wouldn't get married if I couldn't find somebody I believed I loved more than I had loved him. To do otherwise would feel fundamentally dishonest.

Actually, I couldn't even seriously date someone after that if I still wanted the first guy more than the new one.

Firestarter

As a teenager I noticed that I could take two guys who were equally attractive, equally nice, equally intelligent, both with great personalities, and one would interest me but the other wouldn't. I could find no explanation for why certain boys would grab my attention more than others.

In one of the last three The Work and the Glory books by Gerald Lund, Kathryn Ingalls tells her husband, Peter, that she doesn't know why she loves him. I think this is shortly after Peter tells why he loves her. Anyway, I tend to be that same way - I really don't know why I like or love somebody. I can list attributes of theirs that I like, but I can't say what it is that brought that spark, changing my feelings from a fairly indifferent or slightly fond, "He's a good guy," to something more.

The Many and The One

I recently read an MSN relationships article about how to be a man magnet. The advice in it was not particularly revelatory, except that I apparently need to perfect the art of sexting. Somehow I don't see that happening anytime soon. I guess I'll have to live without the hordes of men flocking to me.

But what I did find interesting was that one of the man-magnets they interviewed was one who had only been single for a total of three months during her fifteen years of dating. And since this was an article on how to attract a lot of men and not how to build a strong relationship, I would expect that the boyfriends she had during this time numbered more than two. So this woman we are meant to learn from spent, at most, an average of six weeks between 'official' relationships, which in this case would have average out to have lasted not quite five years each. That seems like a pretty short time to properly move on from such a long relationship. Of course, even three five-year relationships doesn't qualify someone as a man-magnet to me, but however many relationships there are, there does not seem to be an appropriately long break between.

Maybe she wasn't really all that invested in her relationships. In that case, it seems like a huge waste of years she could have spent finding someone she really liked or else learning valuable things with her independence.

Or maybe she just bounced around from rebound to rebound. Once again, a waste of time and energy.

And assuming that she did over these fifteen years have relationships that really meant something to her but she was able to properly recover before moving on to the next man... what are the chances that she would be able to find a good man to date so quickly after each recovery period? Yes, there are a lot of good men out there. But a good man who she finds attractive and fun to be around and easy to talk to and interesting, and who sees the same qualities in her, along with that extra spark, enough to form a serious relationship with, is not quite as common. And it is my opinion that if two people do not see in each other everything I mentioned in that last sentence there is really no point in having a committed relationship.

I really don't feel the need to jump around from boyfriend to boyfriend. Sure, hearing that it only takes one isn't particularly comforting to the girl who just wants to be going out and having fun. It also isn't particularly comforting when the lack of dates makes her wonder if she just isn't attractive. But there is a difference between going out with a lot of different boys and being in steady relationships with lots of different boys. The first one involves getting to know them, having fun, and learning what you like. The second involves cutting down on your opportunities to meet someone who you really would like and learn from.

And even if I don't have a multitude of boys coming after me, that's okay. I'm going to just be myself, live my life, and trust that in doing so I will attract one man who will bring me more satisfaction than a long stream of suitors. And I'm going to do that without sexting.

A Quick Anne Quote

Tonight I was thinking about things my friends sometimes post on facebook, bragging on their husbands' thoughtfulness or saying that they have the best husband in the world.

Then I remembered this exchange in Anne of Avonlea.

"What is it really like to be engaged?" asked Anne curiously.

"Well, that all depends on who you're engaged to," answered Diana, with that maddening air of superior wisdom always assumed by those who are engaged over those who  are not. "It's perfectly lovely to be engaged to Fred . . . but I think it would be simply horrid to be engaged to anyone else."

"There's not much comfort for the rest of us in that, seeing that there is only one Fred," laughed Anne.

Insert polygamy joke here.

Best Friends Forever

It's confession time again.

Sometimes I like to read those dating and relationship articles on MSN.com. It's mostly an entertainment thing. After all, most of those articles are one person's opinion and experiences presented as absolute truth. I definitely am not going to go date a guy who is all wrong for me but has great abs just because some online writer put that on a list of things to do before I get married And it's fun to laugh at the lists of 50 things women wish men knew - about half of which are blatantly untrue. For me, at least.

But mixed in there are some not so fun ones. Griping, bitter ones. Lists of annoying things that couples say or do. I sometimes read those ones too. And most of the things listed I see nothing wrong with. But the one I least understood was on a list of annoying relationship cliches.

"I married my best friend."

I was a little bit stunned to see that on there because I had always thought it was about the most romantic sentiment out there. After all, who doesn't want to be married to somebody who always has their back, whose company they enjoy, and around whom they can feel completely comfortable just being themselves? Then I read the commentary on it:

"Of this, a married girlfriend of mine writes, 'Oh, you're so unique! Your spouse is your BEST FRIEND? Wow. My husband is probably my favorite person to spend time with, but … I have a lot of great friends in my life.' This one is true. Perhaps your spouse is your closest friend, or your best guy friend, but he doesn't have to be your end-all, be-all. So stop making other people feel bad."

So what exactly do these people think a best friend is? Evidently not your closest friend or your favorite person to be with. No, a best friend is apparently supposed to be your only friend. An idea I thought everybody had grown out of by adulthood.

Beautiful Beast

Earlier this summer, I read a new (to me) retelling of Beauty and the Beast. As usual, at the end of the story the Beast turns human because Beauty confesses her love for and to him. Although this version didn't say much about the Prince's human appearance, he typically is depicted as being very handsome. And for probably the first time, I wondered how Beauty felt about that.

Generally in the story, it is a good thing - she is able to see past his exterior and love him for who he is, so she is rewarded with a handsome exterior that she can be actually attracted to. But she learned to love the Beast for who he was. And who you are does include, to some extent, your physical body.

She probably does eventually get used to and appreciate his new form. But how long does it take for her to look at him and see her Beast?

They Are Also Sayd to Love

I don't really believe in love at first sight.

As I said on here before, the word love can actually be a bit unspecific. So, to clarify, it is possible to care about somebody the first time you see them. It is even possible to care deeply about someone early on.

But when it comes to being actually in love with somebody, it takes more time. In Win a Date With Tad Hamilton, after Tad tells Rosie that he loves her, she says, "You maybe wanna love me, but I think what you love right now is the idea of me. You can't love someone for what they stand for or what they seem to be. You have to love them for their details; for the little things that are true for them and only them." And I'm not sure how exactly I share that feeling, but I do know that for certain types of love, including what I tend to think of in association with the phrase "love at first sight", you need to know somebody well.

This past spring, I was really bothered by how often in literature characters are depicted as being 'in love' with someone they barely know. The offender I remember most clearly is The Three Musketeers, probably because of a combination of it being what I was reading when I got really irritated and because it is particularly bad in this regard. As I remember it, d'Artagnan, the protagonist, falls in love with two different women he knows absolutely nothing about. The first woman he finds out is really bad news, and he falls out of love with her fairly quickly - more quickly than I think would be possible for anything I would consider more than a crush. If it had come out that he had just thought himself to be in love, that would be one thing. But no, it is referred to as though he really had been in love and just got over it. I sometimes thought that maybe it was a problem with the translation; that the French had different words that more exactly expressed the nature of the feelings. But I wasn't completely convinced. Partly because I had noticed similar issues in books I read in their original language - English.

Last Wednesday I was reading Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes. In Chapter VI, Hobbes defines a number of the terms he will be using throughout the book. About love, he says, "That which men Desire, they are also sayd to LOVE: and to HATE those things, for which they have Aversion. So that Desire, and Love, are the same thing..."

As I read that, I thought that reading 'love' to mean 'desire' would work really well for me in books such as The Three Musketeers.

Any Other Name

When Kate Bjorkman starts actually dating her brother's friend in the book The Unlikely Romance of Kate Bjorkman (Sorry for the spoiler, but seriously, it's a romance. You know they're going to get together.), she starts calling him Richard instead of Rich.

In The Luckiest Girl by Beverley Cleary, Shelley won't call Philip "Phil" because the nickname doesn't feel special enough for him.

I don't get that.

Whatever my feelings about them, I tend to think of boys by whatever everybody else calls them. If he generally goes by Ricky, I think of him as Ricky. If he goes by Richard, that's what I call him. The only time I didn't, it was because his nickname was very unusual, which made it seem like a pet name. And I did not feel close enough to him to use it. I did eventually get over that. But it was a real issue, because a pet name is special. Short form nicknames are often just "their name" - if you ask a guy his name and he answers Dave, there's a pretty good chance his birth certificate says David. But nobody is likely to answer the "what is your name" question with the pet name their mother calls them unless they're about a year old.

You hear of lovers calling each other pet names like honey, bunny pie, sweetums, and so forth. Other names actually come from real attributes and specific conversations between the people involved. I understand those. In fact, I actually use some. But I don't understand when or how you go from calling somebody "Jack" or "Alice" to calling them "Darling". And I am apparently not the only person who finds the transition odd. When Zack and Kelly get engaged in Saved By the Bell: College Years, Zack decides the time has come for them to use the traditional appellations, and he and Kelly have the following conversation:

Zack: Well, good morning, honey.
Kelly: Honey?
Zack: Sure. I mean, what do almost married people call each other? I know, I know, why don't you call me what your mom calls your dad?
Kelly: Okay, I'll call you Frank.

Maybe I could someday end up calling some guy weird petnames Or be called them by him. I don't see it now, but I probably shouldn't say impossible. Still, when I think of it... well, I was watching Oklahoma! with my family one day this winter, and when Ado Annie sang about "Sposing that he says that you're sweeter than cream, and he's gotta have cream or die?" I said I'd probably laugh at him. It's not that I don't like romance - I do. I just don't think that is romantic. Romance should be sincere and personal. And a lot of those over-the-top compliments usually seem insincere, unoriginal, and impersonal. I want compliments that apply specifically to me and could not be used on just any old girl who catches your fancy. And even more than that, I want them to actually mean something.

Loverly

The first time I watched My Fair Lady, I was a teenager with dreams of perfect romance and I thought Eliza should end up with Freddy. After all, he was the young, attractive boy who was so smitten with her that he was happy just to wait around outside her door, then followed her to the bad part of town because he was concerned for her safety before escorting her home again.

Several years went by and I watched it again. My ideas of romance had changed somewhat since then, and this time I saw Freddy as a foolish boy with too few responsibilities and who was infatuated with Eliza because she was different than the girls he was used to. But I still don't like her going back to Professor Higgins. He treats her like an object. And the revelation that he treats her the same as everybody else, which was supposed to be a good thing, is the biggest turn-off of all. I'd rather a man treat me poorly because of some personal bias than because he just doesn't have any respect for people in general.

So I think the best ending for Eliza would be to be set up in a flower shop, like she had wanted at the beginning. Sure, it would be hard at first. But she'd adjust. And it'd be better than being married off to a man who has no concern for anybody other than himself or to a man who could never understand where she came from.

The Wrong Question

A week or two ago, someone asked me if I had a boyfriend. When I said no, he asked why not. I had just met the guy, so I of course did not go through all the various factors contributing to my current single status. Actually, I probably wouldn't do that for, well, anybody. I just said, "I just don't" or something along those lines.

Later on, though, I thought about his question. And I thought it was the wrong question to be asking. Because the way I see it, being single is the default state, where you are when you don't have somewhere else to be.

Then today I remembered that one of my friends previously expressed basically the same sentiment. He is a single Mormon guy, older than the typical age of marriage for Mormon guys. And he has been asked before, "Why not this girl?" or "Why not that girl?" And he said that is the wrong question. He isn't going to marry a girl just because he can't think of anything wrong with her. He is going to marry a girl because he can come up with a compelling answer to the question, "Why should I marry her?"

I am not going to be in a relationship just to be in a relationship. I am going to stay single until I find somebody I really want to be with. And until then, if somebody asks me why I'm single, I guess I'm going to have to answer, "Because there is not currently somebody in my life who I think is worth being in a romantic relationship with, who thinks the same about me." Although hopefully I will find an easier, catchier way to say it.

That's Love

There is at least one song on my itunes that I don't really like but haven't ever bothered to delete. The music is fine. But I don't agree with the message. The song? That's Love by Brad Paisley. Here are some of the lyrics:

You're starin' at a burnt steak
You bite the bullet and you clean your plate
And then you go on and on about how great it was
That's not a lie, that's love.

Well, it's the very same thing
That she does for you...
Your bummin' out, she says
There's somethin' kinda sexy about a bald head...
That's not a lie, that's love.

As I've mentioned here before, I am big on honesty. I want to be able to trust that you will tell the truth. I want to know that I can count on you to tell me things I should know, even if it might hurt my feelings in the moment. Say it as tactfully as you can, but don't lie. And I take that upon myself, too. If I choose to lie, I am going to remember and feel bad about it for years to come. Yes, years. Trust me on this.

Besides, if I burn dinner, I know, and I probably feel bad about it. If it's like bad gravy on a Goodyear tire (Paisley's words) and we can afford it, you can even get us something else to eat - spontaneous dinner out, delivery, fast food, whatever. Otherwise, yes, clean your plate. But don't tell me it's great - I have taste buds too, you know.

And from what I know about love and women, a girl who says a bald head is sort of sexy may actually feel that way. Especially when that bald head is part of the man she loves.

Better advice comes in this column by Orson Scott Card. Basically, he is saying that if it doesn't really matter, you don't have to say anything. If it does, be tactful with the where, when, and how. But tell the truth. Now, that's love.

Mr. Nice Guy

I never saw the appeal of bad boys.

We've all heard that nice guys finish last. And the idea has appeared in books and plays and movies all over the place. But I have always liked the good boys. The boys who go to church every Sunday, treat everybody kindly, and respect authority figures. The guys who, if you imagine them drinking, smoking, or doing drugs, the image in your mind would be so incongruous you just have to laugh.

I think most girls realize that they don't want a really bad boy. They don't particularly want to be abused. And for the long-term, at least, they realize that the ability to hold a steady job is good and criminal tendencies are not. But there is still apparently something appealing about the image of a bad boy. In the first book of Dean Hughes' Hearts of the Children series, three cousins have the following conversation:

     Diane smiled. "The only thing I ever think about is finding some guy who looks like James Dean... really handsome but--"
     "You mean, dead?"
     "No. Like he looked when he was alive. He was really cute but a little bit bad. You know what I mean? I want him to be good, and in the Church and everything, but sort of dangerous at the same time."
     Kathy had begun to laugh.
     "See, I told you--"
     "No, no. I'm sorry," Kathy said. "I'm not laughing at you. It's every girl's dream. Anne - in Anne of Green Gables - says she wants a boy who's good but one who's capable of being bad and chooses not to be. Something like that."
     "Yeah. That's it. That's exactly right."
     "So who isn't capable of being bad?" Gene asked.
     "You!" both girls said at the same time.

 But I don't want that. Of course, anybody really can be bad. But I would like a guy like Gene - someone who the girls would say can't.

Except I seem to recall Gene as being pretty popular with the ladies, and I've typically not liked the same guys all the other girls were into. Even when they were nice.

Not-So-Icky-Gooey Love Stuff

A couple thoughts:

1. One evening in institute last fall, the class got into one of those "what do you look for in the other sex?" discussions. While this was going on, I was finally able to put into words the conclusion that I have drawn from the many similar panels/discussions I have been present for. And that is that if you live so that you like and respect yourself, there will be someone else out there who will appreciate you for who you are.

2. I've heard it many times before: a woman says that her husband is a better person than she is. And then the husband responds by saying she thinks he is better than he actually is, and that he tries to be a better person to live up to what she thinks he already is. Or maybe it's the husband saying that he married way above himself, and the wife saying that he underestimates how wonderful he really is. And in thinking about this, I remembered that when we were discussing A Separate Peace in 10th grade English, the point came up that since we see Finny only through Gene's eyes, but we see all that Gene is thinking, we really see more of Gene's dark side than we do of Finny's. But Finny also has his dark thoughts; we just don't see them. We get the view of his good side, but not those things he represses. And then I thought about how we can't really judge anybody completely objectively, ourselves or others.

Soul Mates

I have been thinking about soul mates off and on for several months now, and I'm not sure what to think.

Believing in them is not really the cool thing to do. Now, I try not to let how cool an idea is influence me too much as to whether I agree with it. But the idea that there is one right person for everybody and that if you miss them, you're sunk just does not ring true to me. Because someone is sure to make a mistake and end up throwing things off for who knows how many other people.

John Bytheway wrote a book about dating and looking for an eternal companion. And one of the things he said was that sometimes you pray about someone and get a go-ahead answer, but then you mess things up and have to move on. Part of me understands and agrees with this, that people and situations change. But another part of me goes along with something I heard elsewhere, that if something was right before, it's not going to just change. And I believe that no relationship is so far gone that it can't be fixed if you put enough effort into it. Some relationships might not be worth that effort. But if it was a worthwhile relationship before and neither of you have gone off the deep end, I can't see it being anything but worthwhile now. Of course, there is always the possibility that you were told to go for it to teach you something, or because you had to go down that path to see for yourself that it wasn't right.

I mentioned the Spencer W. Kimball quote about how soul mates aren't real and almost any two righteous people can make a happy life together in an earlier post. But there definitely are some people that go better together than others. And if I would be better with Jake than with Jack, and better with Jerry than with Jake, and so on, how many people would be at the top? Could it be that Jordan is the person who I would fit best with, or is he tied with Justin, Josh, and Jed? If I messed things up with Jordan, I know I could find someone else to be happy with. And things will all work out in the eternities.

But off the top of my head, I can think of four different stories where someone was impressed that they would marry a certain person, then later did. One is a young couple in their twenties, one is in my parents' generation, one in my grandparents' generation, and one my great-grandparents. All have been happy so far. And if they got these impressions, then that suggests to me that maybe in some cases, there is a specific person you should be with.

Dating

I have no desire to date.

I know I should date. At least, that's what we've been told many times. Go look for an eternal companion. And do that by dating regularly. Don't just hang out. Make the boys take you on dates. Stop feeding them and being available to them for casual hanging out. And so on.

But really, I would much rather just hang out. It's more fun- at least, in my experience. Of course, this may be because of the high proportion of blind dates I've been on. When I was on those blind dates, I usually managed to have a good time. But it would have been just as fun, or maybe more fun, without him. Of course, when I was with a guy I knew and wanted to be with, who wanted to be with me, I did have a good time.

But in general, hanging out is more enjoyable for me. You get to know each other doing different activities and see each other interacting with other people. And dating piles on more expectation, which leads to more stress.

And with dating, I just don't see the point in going out just to go out. I used to like the idea of going on a date just for fun, but somehow, that is no longer appealing to me. I can have just as much or more fun with a large group of friends, and I can be gratified enough to know that they want to spend time with me.

I recently learned that there are girls around here, including at least one of my friends, who don't necessarily like the boys who are their boyfriends. They just go along with it. And I really don't understand that. It seems unfair to both of you. And I can't understand why they would want to be cuddling and kissing with someone they don't have strong feelings for. The very thought is repugnant to me. For me, the physical and the emotional and the relational are all very much connected.

But back to my original topic. If some boy asked me on a date, I would probably accept. After all, I am supposed to be dating. And I would go through all the motions of figuring out what to wear and how to do my hair and makeup and so on. But I would not be at all excited. And I would try to give him a chance, but I don't know how successful I would be. And with me going in with a poor attitude, chances are good that neither of us would have a great time, so nothing would come of it. And I could have spent that time in some other manner. Maybe productive, maybe not. But even just wandering around on the catwalks for a couple hours sounds more appealing. And it has been that way for several months now.

If She Would Have Been Faithful

I listened to the lyrics of Chicago's song If She Would Have Been Faithful for the first time today, and I have a couple of issues with it. The part that causes problems for me is "If she would have been faithful... I would never know real love. I would have missed out on you."

I have heard many times Spencer W. Kimball's statement that "Soul mates are fiction and an illusion; and while every young man and young woman will seek with all diligence and prayerfulness to find a mate with whom life can be most compatible and beautiful, yet it is certain that almost any good man and any good woman can have happiness and a successful marriage if both are willing to pay the price." Also, you hear a lot about the success of arranged marriages when proper care is taken and effort put in and how they grow to love each other. Well, if this singer/songwriter/whoever I'm talking about truly thought he was in love, I think he had a good start. And I've heard from a lot of different sources that their love has grown immeasurably during the years/decades they have been married. And with these two having already chosen to be together, they probably have a decent start of regard for each other and with enough time and effort and work, they should be able to grow to real love someday.

Also, he is making assumptions here. I am going in a contradictory direction from some of what I said in the last paragraph now. But if she was cheating on him, there were probably already serious problems with the relationship and even if she had not cheated, the relationship likely would have ended anyway. So who's to say he wouldn't have found the new girl later? You can never say what would have happened if things had gone differently.

Making Connections

I recently put some pieces together in a way that I am surprised I haven't before.

People who marry young are more likely to divorce. That is a fact. Part of the difference has to do with associated factors- people who marry young are likely to be poorer and less well educated than those who wait a while longer, both of which are also contributing factors in divorce rates. But even when controlling for all other factors, age at marriage does make a difference.

Some people point to evidence that the brain keeps developing into the twenties as a possible explanation. They say that since you are still developing and changing so long, it only makes sense that you should wait to get married, to make sure you know who you really are before you marry. Well, that never sounded quite right to me. You don't stop loving your family because you are changing. I love my siblings and my cousins, and they love me. And they and I have been changing and developing all along. The way I see it, if you marry young, then your spouse is part of who you are becoming. Sort of like how my birth family is a part of me because they are the ones who influenced me as I grew up. And anyway, it's not as if once your brain is developed, you stop changing. My grandparents have been married for almost 60 years. I doubt they have stayed exactly the same that whole time. But they love each other.

So I thought that the difference must be related in some way to maturity and ability and willingness to put the other person first. Which reminds me of a portion of an article I saw in the Mormon Times a while ago about extended adolescence. I don't really want to go into an extended tangent right now, but I linked to the article and will put the relevant portion at the end of this post.

Anyway, that sounded reasonable to me. After all, we hear all the time about the problems with selfishness in the world. And ideally, people develop more maturity with age. But then, not quite a week ago, I remembered one of John Gottman's seven principles for making marriage work.

John Gottman is a marriage expert who wrote a book I read for one of my classes. He has researched happy marriages more than probably anybody else in the world and can predict with 91% accuracy whether a couple will stay happy together after observing them for five minutes. Beyond that, his marriage counseling is more successful than most. Nine months after therapy, the national relapse rate is 30-50 percent. His rate is only 20 percent. Because of the reliability of his methods, the large amount of data he collected, and the fact that what he says makes sense, I tend to put some value on what he has to say.

Well, one of those things he has to say is that in good marriages, spouses maintain what he calls active love maps. Basically, they keep up to date with what is going on in each other's lives. They know what they are doing day-to-day and who they are interacting with and what they are worrying about and what they are dreaming of and so on and so forth. So, basically, keep knowing your partner. Now, this takes some effort no matter who you are and how long you've known each other. But if you are still developing, you might be changing more quickly. And if you are both still developing and changing quickly, then maybe it is just harder to keep up-to-date. I'm not sure about this, but it sounds reasonable to me now.

___________________________
Nelson said he found in surveys he conducted that "what (LDS students) believe they need to acquire for adulthood looks different" than what those outside of the church think they need to acquire. While both young adults in and out of the church believe financial independence and accepting responsibility for their actions are hallmarks of adulthood, the BYU sample he surveyed also considered being in control of their emotions, developing concern for others and preparing for family relationships to be signs of maturity.

While Nelson's research is ongoing, he said it appears that those surveyed in the BYU sample group "are further along. They tend to be further along in their identity development. They just seem to be further along in the process than their peers to becoming adults."

"You can tell they're hearing both messages loud and clear," Nelson said. "The message of the world that this is the time period to focus on yourself and have fun, but at the same time they were hearing the message on Sunday that 'now you need to be focused on others and you need to prepare for family roles."

One Little Word

If you do not want to know about the world in Lois Lowry's The Giver at this point in time you may want to skip this post.