Thanks to a well-meaning relative who ratted out my whereabouts, I’m now on the mailing list of BYU MAGAZINE. Thus I am kept informed as to how well some of my former classmates are doing, and how grateful they are for the opportunity to bequest a portion of their fortune to the institution where they met their future spouses. On almost very page I’m reminded of how vitally important it is for Mormons to marry within the faith; indeed, everything that transpires at Brigham Young University appears to be aimed at fostering romantic encounters—for example, social exchanges between on-campus housing units. Such exchanges often lead to first dates, which in turn lead to marriage proposals that almost always involve ice cream and/or pastries. She who is proposed to inevitably accepts, although I’m told Marie Osmond was momentarily put off when her drunk-on-sugar suitor proposed by smacking her in the face with a banana cream pie.
However, most unions that begin over a platter of sweets at the Milk and Cookies Café endure—that is, provided hubby doesn’t come home from work late one night with a smudge of chocolate caramel swirl on his collar. Ergo, first thing I do when the magazine arrives is turn to the how-we-met story section.
Writes former coed Ashley, who met her one-and-only when she was just a seventeen-year-old freshman:
“We had just gotten ice cream and were walking back to the car when he asked my age. He literally tripped on the sidewalk when I told him. Back at his brother’s house, we played a word guessing game. When he gave the clue ‘Aliens made it!’ his brother immediately shouted, ‘Duct tape!’ and they erupted in laughter. I decided, for sure, this guy and his family were seriously weird.”
Yes, Ashley! Good call! And yet—wouldn’t you just know it?—Ashley ended up married to her “adorably nerdy” stalker.
Then there’s a story from a Brother Bruce whose freshman acquaintance Rachael called one Friday morning to ask him out on a first date. Bruce readily accepted.
“Around 4 p.m. Rachel called again. She said that in the six hours since she had asked me out, she had driven to her nearby hometown for lunch, and when an old childhood friend surprised her by proposing, she had accepted.”
That’s just how fast it happens at Brigham Young University. So just imagine how I felt—nerdy but still single—come graduation day. Where had I gone wrong, I wondered? Well, it turns out that unless a guy has served a mission, his chances of finding a mate at BYU are exactly zero. I should have realized that the night a comely coed I’d never seen before paddled over as I was bobbing in the deep end of the Heber J. Grant Natatorium.
“Are you a returned missionary?” she asked.
“Um, no.”
And with that, she paddled off.
Perhaps I should submit a story telling of how I, alone, failed to find an eternal companion at BYU—but evidently, no one wants to read about some loser who fails to grasp the connection between aliens and duct tape and whose oh-so-righteous Mormon girlfriend dumped him in favor for a returned missionary wearing an ice cream mustache. Or that how that rejection resulted in me wearing a Lucky Lager foam goatee. For reasons that escape me, the editors of BYU Magazine would consider that an unhappy outcome.