Also, I “took up the cudgel”, so to speak one day in Gospel Doctrine. And gave them all a right blasting. They all apologised; I nearly walked out the door. So disgusted with them.

Have you also encountered this hatred ? I have for far too long.

I remember when I first came to the Bloggernacle there was a very bright, kind blogger (I think her name is Annegb or something) who said something really shocking, but it’s probably representative of what many members don’t say, but actually think. Mind you–she’s an elderly Mormon woman, married with children. She said that single adults in the Church who had never had sex should just go ahead and have sex, repent if they want to later, and get over with it, because virgins of a certain age are “weird” and “icky.”

This from an active member!

I know many people look down on singles wards as a “land of the misfit toys” where teeming hormones and unfulfilled angst create nervous monsters.

So sad, really.

I actually share your … sentiments. The idea that no sex = more righteous is the slippery slope of celebrating celibacy. But contemporary Mormonism does not exactly celebrate marital sex either (even though our theology could suggest a very positive attitude toward physical intimacy). In the practical context of contemporary Mormonism and the larger contemporary society we are where we are and where we are is on the celibate side of things. So I’m just thinking we can make something positive of living our covenants instead of letting the more annoying of our co-religionists define our lives as waiting for God knows who (literally) to get with in the Millennium.

I’ve found what others have found as well–the diversity of the ward makes my own idiosyncracies stick out less. Everyone is so different in the married ward I’m in now, my singleness is just one aspect of my differentness. And it certainly helps that my ward is on the very non-judgmental and accepting side of things.

Don’t count me in. Blech.

I’d be curious to know if you encounter these kind of comments as much in the Church in an urban college area as in, say, Utah? At least here in NYC, I think most everyone is sufficiently sensitized to avoid the most egregious comments. However, we can’t totally escape the larger Church environment.

The key is that that larger Church environment is becoming and will remain more and more single. With a large number of converts (usually disproportionately female), the recognition that gay men should not pushed into marriage (probably a higher proportion of the active LDS male population than the general population), and higher inactivity among men in general as men who don’t make the mission hurdle cut are marginalized, (and probably a number of other reasons) it is arithmetically inevitable that there will be more and more single people in the Church. Is there a better way to accomodate this doctrinally?

Here again (I am picking up from a comment on the “Universal Salvific Will” thread) I think we could fruitfully borrow from some of our Christian friends, starting with Brad Haas, whose input is really helpful and appreciated. Doctrinally I think Mormons would find it difficult to accept that someone is called to celibacy for eternity but the fact is that many Mormons are called to it in this life given that our strict code of sexual morality bars us from other sources of initimate companionship available in modern larger society.

So I would suggest that we Mormons need to start Celebrating Celibacy. Such a positive emphasis would give single people some deserved praise and credit for keeping these strict standards of chastity. However, mostly it would need to draw on the rich tradition of worshipping God through celibacy that exists in Christian history, not as a doctrinal matter, but as an example of personal sacrifice and service. Single LDS sacrifice and serve as much in their circumstances as marrieds.

Of course, those Christian faiths with a history of celibacy are struggling with it as well in current society. What a PR and missionary opportunity! As a practical matter, in contemporary society Mormons may be one of the largest groups of celibate Christians around. How can the Church PR people be missing this? Let’s get out the press release!

Now I don’t expect the Church to take up such a program officially (it would probably come out creepy if they tried) but could single LDS use this kind of approach to change their immediate Church environment? At least with this emphasis we can let our married co-religionists know that comments such as the ones cited in your post are part of the suffering we endure, but that’s OK, Christian martyrs in the Scriptures and through history have endured worse.

But that only lasts so long. Then comes the magical, somehow meaningful age of 31, and you are no longer one of many, but one of the pitiable few who didn’t “graduate.”

I’ve spoken with other friends about this issue, and we all agree that if singles were only in singles’ wards for the duration of undergrad, and that everyone went back to family wards at about 24 or 25, it might not be such a pariah-ish age. As it is, I got asked to leave, and what little social life I had in the singles’ ward dried up entirely. I’m never invited to anything anymore, and I’m not welcome at the ward activities, or at least, I don’t feel welcome.

So you go from having this support network of having people surrounding you just like yourself for about 13 years (18-31), but somehow you hit that birthday, and wham. You’re done. Off you go to be all alone in the family ward.

But being in a singles’ ward for so long conditioned me that I could only relate to people who were in my age and marital status bracket, and it’s taken me a year to get over that. Happily, after a year of wandering from family ward to family ward, not really feeling welcome or a part of things, I have found a ward that welcomes me with open arms. I even spoke today, on Father’s Day, giving a different perspective than the youth speaker or the high counselor (without anyone dwelling on my singleness). And in being able to share my heart about my dad and how that relates to my feelings about Heavenly Father, I was able to reach out to a few people in the ward who came up to me and said stuff like, “My dad isn’t a member, too, and your talk really touched me”–helping me to feel once again like I can make connections with people who are different than me.

Singles’ wards. Yeah. I have a lot of conflicted feelings about that topic. I’ve had some really good ones and some really bad ones. The bottom of the barrel was BYU, where the wards seemed to primarily function as marriage markets and everything centered around that. But others have been more positive– in one in particular that I was in a few years ago, there were half a dozen female grad students, and I loved not feeling strange for my academic pursuits. Also, my last experience in a family ward wasn’t very good, and I have to admit that’s made me worry about eventually going back to one. On the other hand, I know people who’ve been much happier after ditching a singles’ ward for a “regular” one– so, as with many things, it could well depend on the ward.

Brad, thanks for the input from an outsider. I’ve talked about this issue with Catholic friends, and they’ve had a similar take on things– some people are called to be single. The soteriological necessity of marriage in LDS doctrine frames the issue a bit differently, but I think it nonetheless allows for at least the possibility that God could call people to singleness in this life, which is an interesting thought.

Katya, I totally relate to your comment that people outside of church don’t even think about the issue. At school, no one cares a whit about my marital status, and I love it.

Eve, I always knew you were living in sin. But I was under the impression that it was due to things like the presence of Mountain Dew in your home.