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

The Unattainable Man

I think that the one thing that stands in the way of getting asked out or asking someone else out is the unattainable man. We all know the unattainable man quite well; he is the ideal man contrived from all of those Young Women and Sunday school lessons or any list we’ve ever made that addresses the qualities we’d like our future spouse to have. We’ve been told time and again that “who you date is who you marry” and so subconsciously that list comes out and we start to compare those who try to get close to us with the “ideal” person we’ve created.

While the concept of the list creates a great foundation to help us avoid dating complete jerks, we must still remember that one person ALONE cannot possess every trait on our list; after all, no one’s perfect. This is where the idea of the unattainable man comes in, because it may cause us to become preoccupied with searching for a person who may not actually exist. In our search for the unattainable man, we may not recognize the good traits that others may have to offer that may not exactly be qualities we put on our list.

Maybe if we take a break from our quest, we may find that the traits we once saw as “imperfections” (those qualities absent from the list) in those we may have never thought about dating will grow into qualities that we enjoy about them. We may even find that these people may even possess some of those qualities on our list as well.

Now I’m not saying that we should just date every craze on the street and I’m not knockin’ the idea of finding your “perfect” match, but I’m just saying that maybe if we keep an open mind, and try a different approach that we may be happy with the outcome. We may find that we can gain a great friend just by talking to someone we wouldn’t think we’d have anything in common with before. It’s all about making friends first . . .

<3 The Nunnery

Facebook Confidence

This phrase coined by the vp of the nunnery is used to describe the confidence that comes through facebook chat. When chatting with a boy or anyone who you want to impress on fb, something comes over you, you begin to say things that you'd never ever actually say to that person in real life. What possesses us to do this? maybe it's the fact that we can't see the person when we say ridiculous things. But do we ever think about the awkwardness that will occur the next time we actually see them in person? I actually fear it . . .

Last night, a friend of mine had a major surge in facebook confidence. She started chatting to a boy about dating and told him that she feels that it easier for boys to ask girls on dates than girls to ask boys. She expressed her frustrations in trying to ask boys out but she said that she feels some boys just don't get the hint. In response, he asked whether she meant girls not picking up on guy's hints or girls not picking up on his own hints. At this moment in the convo, facebook confidence possesed my friend completely, something came over her (i have no idea what, but props to her) and she responded: "You not getting my hints . . ." It took him a little bit of time to respond after that, but they made plans to go on a date in the near future. We'll see what happens because of her fb confidence.

<3 The Nunnery

I Want a Boyfriend at my Convenience

Actually no I don’t want a boyfriend because I think they are bad habits that girls just can’t break. When my friend recently stated that she wanted a boyfriend, I was reminded of the unfortunate fact that many girls just want boyfriends to have one, hence the arm candy theory. I have heard of this theory numerous times, I remember my old roommate saying that all she wanted for Christmas was a boyfriend and a sweater. Is this true? Do girls really just picture boys as potential “handbags” to wear?

The problem is that if your beginning mindset revolves around being “In a relationship”, the situation is doomed from the start. Soon after, the annoying tendencies will reveal themselves and you will have a dilemma. This is why I wish you could go to a store and rent a boyfriend. I know what you’re thinking, but no I’m not suggesting an escort service. When I was a little girl there was a TV movie on the Disney Channel where the children were given three coins to go to the mommy market and pick out a new mom. The potential moms were essentially categorized as an athletic mom, a rich mom, and a wholesome mom. Basically they were older versions of the Spice Girls: Sporty, Posh, and Baby Spice. Lets be honest, boys can easily be categorized. There are the nerds, jocks, triathletes (they get their own category), sci-fi freaks, business moguls, outdoor enthusiasts, political advocates, gamestop whores, etc.

Imagine the convenience of going to a boyfriend market with labels already attached, kind of like price tags. We could rent them and by trail and error find the type of boy that suits us best. I personally think this is practical solution for girls who break out in hives by the thought of dating and who simply want to try out a boy without the full-pledge commitment.

<3 The Nunnery

A Text of Death Story

I think that now it is only appropriate to talk about an actual date, or a way of obtaining one. Sadly, the story that I am about to tell does not have to do with talking to a boy in person (like our last discussion teaches us) but through text message . . .
So, there is an evil game called text of death. In text of death you switch phones with someone and then they are allowed to text someone in your phone (there are restrictions to who you can or can't text).

I think that one problem with not communicating with people face-to-face is that sometimes messages can be misinterpreted.
One day, I was innocently playing this game with a couple of friends when one of them decided to text a boy in my phone. The message that she sent him did not say anything like: "Could you see us 2gether? "or "I've always wondered what it would be like to go on a date with you?" but it was just something simple like "I haven't seen you in awhile, Will you be in Utah for the summer?"

However, he responded to the message by saying: "Are You Asking Me on A Date?" at this point, I was freaking out! because I didn't really know this kid and because text of death was getting out of control(as it always does). Of course my friends responded by saying "Yes I am asking you out" (even though I was fighting for the phone). So, I went on a date . . .

But also, I'm wondering if girls always have to be "forward" to even be considered to get asked out on a date. Like, we have to have an "in your face" personality all the time. I think for sure that showing your personality is a big part of not only getting dates, but also getting friends(of either gender). I mean if you don't show your personality, who else can you blame . . . but even if you are trying hard to show who you are and aren't getting the results you want, what should you do then? sure, we can move on to liking other boys or finding boys that share a common interest with us, but what else can we do?

<3 The Nunnery

Lesson Learned: Do not compare tooshies to baked goodies

As nuns we lack the confidence to express our true feelings to the boy we admire. We tend to marvel at our crush from a far, enchanted by the way he walks down the hallway in his letterman jacket or how his face turns beet red when he laughs…okay sorry, I was reminiscing a moment. During an immature phase of my life that is still pending, my roommate and I decided to obtain a boy in our ward’s attention by sending a personalized card. The handmade concoction included a colored drawing of a muffin coming out of an oven. Inside it asked,

“Does your Daddy own a bakery? Because your buns are amazing!”

Obviously this is extremely middle school and definitely not a mature way of obtaining your crush’s attention. However when these types of acts are done in an anonymous manner it does lessen the stupidity factor. To Mark I apologize perpetually for contributing to the joke that caused a laugh throughout the ward. Also I am sorry for staring at your firm behind on multiple occasions.

<3 The Nunnery