Let's go on a Date

What’s the hardest part of going on a date? Getting asked out in the first place. Personally, I can say that I had been on 4 legitimate dates from ages 17 to 21 and that was not annually, there was like a three year dry spell in between, but when you’re a Nun, you have to count what you can get.

It has always baffled my mind how some girls have an endless line of suitors taking a number just to sit next to them on a couch. What is it about them? They may not be the prettiest girl in the world, but somehow, they either know how to pluck the male or they possess an aura. There must be some secret fountain of endless dating that these girls drink from that allows them to get this glowing aura. This aura is so powerful that it blinds guys from getting out of their comfort zone to ask out a Nun which leaves Nuns dateless on the weekends.

So, we have to resort to other means to get some dating experience. Last Sunday, in my ward, we had the dreaded fifth Sunday Priesthood/Relief Society marriage talk. I usually like to blank out on these discussions, but I did happen to take away from it a valuable quote: “You aren’t going to get asked out on dates if you don’t get out of your comfort zone and sit around on your couch waiting for someone to ask you out.”

This statement was like an epiphany for me because in all truthfulness, I do enjoy sitting on my couch and before the age of 21, that is all that I did. Every time that I was on that couch on a Friday night watching a Disney Channel original movie where 13 year olds were finding love, I would say “why doesn’t anyone ever ask me out? Why doesn’t Troy ever sing to me like he does to Gabriella?” I guess you have to get up and stop being so comfortable in order to find a guy friend with the values you desire in a bf and this will help in the dating department.

I think that you don’t have to be the social butterfly of the group and it may not have immediate results right away, but your ability to be yourself in a social setting will help. So don’t lose hope. One day you and a boy will click, and it will be beautiful.

<3 The Nunnery

You might be a nun if

1. Instead of having a face-to-face conversation with a boy, you’d rather have one over fb chat

2. You create elaborate schemes to get him to acknowledge your existence. Such schemes would include: creating an IM account to talk to him as a mystery girl (shout out to my middle school days), conveniently showing up at a place that he frequents, making him a homemade valentine with an encrypted message that means I love you

3. You decide not to dress grungy on the days of the week that you know you will somehow see him, but every other day you like a hot mess.

4. You have only been on a handful of dates in your life with boys you didn’t really even like, know, or been set-up with.

5. You’ve never had a real bf and you’re pushing 23

6. You’ve never been kissed and you’re pushing 23

7. The thought of a relationship excites you and terrifies you at the same time

8. You have flirted all your life, but no one’s ever feelin’ it. They move away from you when you come up to them; they avoid because you’ve become a creeper

9. You have already made a plan to move to a big city and live up the single life at 30 because you think you won’t get married (not true!).

10. You have more crushes on celebrities than on actual people.

<3 The Nunnery

How to tell if he likes you

The other day I googled “how to tell if he likes you.” The results of this search taught me one thing: apparently, I was supposed to figure out the signs to tell if a boy likes me back in middle school. There is tons of advice on the web for struggling middle school girls, but what about the advice for us nuns? I feel like back in middle school that some potential nuns were too preoccupied with friendships, school work, and extra-curricular activities to even being thinking “seriously” about love. Middle school is awkward enough with without having to also try to decipher the male mind. But, I guess it’s better to figure out these things in middle school than to be in the position that many nuns are in right now: late teens, early twenties still clueless about dating.

I know that there are probably some current nuns who understood how to tell if boys liked them back in middle school. They probably had it down to a science then and thrived, but now that they are older their abilities seemed to have diminished substantially. Why did that happen? It seems like a cruel trick of fate. We’re past middle school and there’s no going back, so we’ve got to make up for the deficit somehow. If I have learned one thing in this past month of my life, it is that if a guy is genuinely interested in you, you won’t even have to ask Google for the answer.

He will find ways to make it known to you because he will take the time out to pursue. He will want to talk to you. He will want to find ways to be around you. He will initiate interaction. Now this is not to say that as nuns we just have to sit around and wait to be pursued. Also, this does not say that if no one is pursuing us (which may be a true case right now) that there is no hope for us. Plenty of great relationships have happened when the boys couldn’t initially see how great the girl was at first.

As nuns, we have a habit of hiding behind our awkwardness, insecurities, or fear of rejection, and that is why some guys won’t consider dating us at first. Once we find confidence in our ability to interact with boys, they will see this confidence in us and will FLOCK to our door. But, I think that it all begins with our ability to be patient with ourselves and to take our interactions with boys one step at a time.

<3 The Nunnery

The Cinco

The Cinco involves having 5 main crushes at any given time, I propose:

1. The Ward Crush
2. The Work Crush
3. The School Crush
4. The Facebook Crush
5. The Olive Garden Boy Crush (Can also be Spoon Me Boy Crush, Macey's Cashier Boy Crush etc, you get the idea)

You can have any other random crush in any place you frequent, maybe Gold's Gym Treadmill Boy Crush or whatever.

This way, you don't accidentally obsess too much over one boy. And if School Crush rejects you, you can move along to Work Crush or any of the others. Slowly you can replace School Crush for when this may happen again. You get the idea?

<3 The Nunnery (Special Contribution by Kelsey)

The 80/20 rule

Some recent events in my short time of trying to understand relationships, and how to actually interact with men have reminded me of a scene from Tyler Perry’s “Why did I get Married?” in which the male characters talk about the 80/20 rule. Although this movie primarily focuses on marital relationships, I think that the 80/20 rule can apply to any stage of love.

The rule says that in a relationship you will only get 80% of your needs met. An outsider may offer you the other 20%. If you take the 20% you may risk losing out on the 80% that you were getting, leaving you with less than you had before.

As Nuns it is important that we become familiar with this rule because as soon as a guy shows interest in us, we are going to want to put our all into the relationship to make sure that he stays interested. But, we alone cannot give 100% to the relationship to ensure its success. A relationship should be a partnership where each person strives to put aside his or her own selfish desires to truly consider the wants and needs of the other person. Together, you make decisions that are best for the couple.

I think that many a Nun may think that as soon as one guy becomes interested that she’d better latch onto him because he may be her only chance at true happiness. But, don’t ever sell yourself short. Don’t choose to settle for someone who deep down you know is a jerk and is not worth your time (a 20%er). Remember that you deserve someone who is your 80%! You may not find him right away, but as you look for him, you can strive to find yourself and to understand your own wants and needs.

<3 The Nunnery

Cultivating a Friendship

So, here lately I have been TRYING my best to cultivate a friendship with a boy. Through this cultivation I hope to grow a potential relationship. The reason that I am trying to make this friendship work is because it has recently come to my attention that I mainly have a lot of girl friends and maybe one guy friend, if that (among other things). I have realized that maybe it is important to know how to interact with boys . . .

I don’t know what it is about the opposite sex that causes nuns to become socially awkward and unable to interact with boys like “normal” humans. It’s like something weird happens to the nun’s mind as soon as she registers that she will be in the presence of a boy. She has a major freak out or some sort of chemical imbalance once she discovers that boys will be around. Her mind starts to race and she tries to think of the cleverest thing to say and the best outfit to wear, all in hopes that one or all of them will like her and want to be around her again.

If the first encounter goes well and there is talk of a second meeting, the freak out process will occur again. This time she will be concerned with being as consistently funny and clever as she was before, but she also will try to spice it up to keep the boys interested to keep them wanting to be her friend. But then, sometimes nuns have off days when they just can’t think of anything funny to say; of course these are the days when nuns find themselves in the presence of boys.

When you are a nun and eternally awkward, making friends with a boy is the hardest thing to do, especially if you like him. My main problem with trying to make friends with this boy is that I always fear that if I show too much interest in him that he’ll know that I like him. But wait, isn’t that the point? I think that there is a line between being a guy’s friend and being all up on him. Why is it so hard to make friends with a boy?

<3 The Nunnery

I Can't Get Started with You

A crush is an intense but usually short-lived infatuation. This infatuation is so short because nothing usually comes out of it. One reason why crushes are so short is because many girls (and even boys) spend too much time gazing at their crush from afar and don’t tell them how they feel. However, there is a moment in every crush where you get tired of sitting idly by and you feel the need to act, to let your crush subtly know you “love” them and do exist. You think that by putting yourself out there that in a couple of days or months, a love match will finally occur because you broke the ice. You sort out all of the “tension” between you two that your crush did not even realize existed. Props to you for finally letting your crush know that you’re interested.

But, WARNING, the act of putting your heart on the line can have two results:
1. He realizes that you’re an interesting and cool person that he really does want to get to know. This response could lead to a DATE, the ideal.
2. Your over-eagerness sufficiently creeps him out. This response could lead to you moving onto your NEXT CRUSH and trying not to be as creepy this time.

I think that result #2 stems out of the fact that as Nuns we may not be sure of how to interact with boys/crushes when we want to let them know how we feel. This uncertainty then makes us nervous and may cause weird sentences to leave our mouths. These sentences may make you go home and ask yourself “Why did I say that? What’s the matter with me?”

But does it ever occur to Nuns that maybe the things we said actually weren’t that weird, but we just think they’re extremely awkward. We didn’t get the reaction we hoped for. I think it would help if Nuns and all girls for that matter start trying to understand how guys think. Go spend time with your brothers, or your friends who are boys and observe . . . I think that guys really don’t see some situations as being as awkward as girls do. I think that everyone gets a little awkward when it comes to true feelings and I think that’s ok. What’s most important is that you were brave enough to express how you feel. Your act of bravery should tell you something about yourself; you’re brave enough to handle your feelings even if you know you might get hurt.

Once you’ve told your crush how you feel it’s up to them to handle what you’ve said. Based on the way that they handle this new information will tell you whether or not you truly want to be with them. People are entitled to say yes if they like you and no if they don’t. With each response you need to respect their decision and then move on from there. But what about the crush that totally ignores your act of trying to get something started? How should a Nun handle that? How can she move on with no sense of closure?

<3 The Nunnery