The Metaphorical Shady Side of Town

There's a guy that I work with that I'm not especially fond of.  He's not an altogether horrible person, but it seems like every time I work with him I discover another thing that I don't want in my future eternal companion. Things like avoiding going to the temple because it puts him to sleep, or not being able to watch an entire session of General Conference without flipping channels to check the score on the football game.

Remember my job-turning-down incident of the last post? I've started to look at that experience like I look at dating. There were a lot of really great things about that job: great hours, great benefits, etc., but at the end of the day, the pay was just not enough. The compensation would not be enough to sustain me in the matter to which I (and all people who like to live in health and safety) have become accustomed. Having nights and weekends off would not make me feel any safer if I had to live in a seedy neighborhood. Prescription coverage wouldn't do me much good against the cockroaches and marijuana fumes I would be at risk of enduring in a sub-par apartment complex. No extras can make up for the basic essentials a person needs to live in safety.

So it is with dating. I could find a man that is absolutely smoking hot. He could have advanced degrees and a gorgeous singing voice. He could be the kindest, funniest man in the world. He might have even served a mission and attends church every week. But what if he goes for weeks without even thinking about cracking his scriptures open? What if he hasn't gone to the temple in years? What if he spends his nights watching R-rated movies and telling crude jokes with foul language? These are things that will not sustain a relationship at the level of spirituality that I have spent an entire life working to get to.  I need to date someone who will be an example to me, who makes me want to be a better person. I need to marry someone who will help me raise our children to be strong because of our example, not in spite of it. It's kind of important to me.

I guess what it boils down to is that there are requirements and there are bonuses. They pretty much consist of what I've already discussed. Of course, there's also personality compatibility, and he should probably be roughly 23-30 years of age, but the really serious things are way more important. It's like that object lesson they give in Young Women's. They give you a piece of cake, or whatever, and talk about how delicious it is. Oh, except there's one ingredient that you might not like: dog poop. Clearly, that's not something that you want to be eating. But what if the cake has an ingredient that may sound a little unusual, but not detrimental to your health...like sour cream. When I first heard of baking recipes that included sour cream, I was sufficiently weirded out, but it actually makes a difference for the better in the finished (and delicious) product.

So to sum up: don't settle for the shady side of town, put sour cream in your cookies.