K, I am gonna go to the multistakesingles.org Singles Conference this month and so I thought I would write about the standard questions that you get asked at these conferences (or at LDS Singles Dances). Once I was tempted to write the answers to these on my nametag but I haven’t – yet.

LDS Singles Questions:

1. So What Do You Do? (translation: are ya making enough bucks for me ta even bother with ya?)
2. So Where Are You From? (translation: do you live in a decent neighborhood?)
3. So What Do You Do For Fun? (translation: if we start dating are you gonna come up with some decent ideas for dates, or No?)

If those questions go okay and if the person who is asking them is daring enough then they may go on to these questions:

4. So are you divorced? (translation: which category can I throw ya in: never married, divorced, divorced multiple times, widower, etc)
5. Why did you get divorced? (translation: what the heck is wrong with you anyway? The best answer I have heard for this question is “Why do you ask?” and if they keep asking “I’d rather not say until I get to know you better.” The problem with the second reply is if you say that, they still think that something is wrong with you and now think you are trying to hide it. The real thing about it though is that hopefully you say that so that you are protecting your kid’s Mom and not cutting her down, and/or yourself down, in front of every person you have met for about 30 seconds.)
6. How long have you been divorced? (translation: are you over her or are ya still weepy and trying to figure out how to get back with her?)
7. So was it just the one time then? (translation: are ya a lost cause that can’t figure out marriage?)
8. So do you have kids? (translation: are ya coming with baggage?)
9. How old are they? (translation: am I gonna have to be a-changin’ their diapers?)
10. When did you graduate from high school? (translation: how old are ya, ya old fogey, and are ya gonna make me do the math and take current year – graduation year + 18 years to get your age or what?)
11. When did you go on your mission? (translation: how old are you and are ya gonna make me do the math, mission year – 20 = birth year, plus or minus one, current year – birth year = age).

When some people ask these two age related questions ya can just see the wheels churning in their mind till they figure it out – I usually just tell them “fabulous ___” (or whatever has the same starting letter as your age – and watch what their reaction is. Lots of times it’s, “Well you don’t look it.” I’m tempted to say to them, “OK, well I will work on that one.”
12. How old are you? The daring ones (or maybe the ones who aren’t as good at math?) come right out and ask you.

This is the best one I have heard for determining what income category ya are in – or how much debt ya have:
13. So where have you been on vacation lately? (translation: are we going to the Bahamas on our honeymoon?)

There’s probably more but that’s enough for now.

So here’s what I was thinking of putting on my nametag:

“John Doe” and writing this around it 47, 2 kids (12, 14), rocket scientist, divorced (once, and 3 years ago)…

Another thing that is kind of funny (but frustrating too) is that I am in the weird position of being too old for the magic 31-45 LDS Singles activities and group, but too young (in my opinion) to feel really comfortable with the 46-120 year old singles group.

I just got an email today from the SLC-SA.org May Singles Conference “game night” interest group that I signed up for. There are only 9 people on the 46+ list (I think it is kind of funny how inexperienced people always email a list like that by putting the email addresses in the “To:” field and not the “BCC:” field – if you wanted to you could grab those email addresses and have at ‘em I bet there are a ton more people in the 31-45 group (since this was one of the most popular groups at the conference but I’m gonna have to go incognito and be dishonest if I wanna go to the 31-45 game night group that I feel more comfortable with right now.

Course if I did go to that group and someone asked me how old I was (believe me this is a popular question) I could scare someone to death when I told them I wasn’t 31-45 – that wouldn’t be good either.

I went to the LDS Singles Conference last weekend May 15-17 in Salt Lake City, Utah.

http://www.slc-sa.org/

It featured Peter Vidmar, Olympic Gymnast, as the speaker and a concert from Peter Breinholt that included Ryan Shupe.

It also had a dinner Friday night, workshops Saturday morning, then a service project.

After the service project – when I finally got there they had “Special Interest Groups” mingle activity. This was very unusual and kind of cool because they had sign up sheets where you wrote your name and address and signed up to be in interest groups like: photography, family history, game nights, dancing lessons (one of the most popular), emergency preparedness, exercise and fitness, cooking, gardening, etc.

After that they had the concert and then Speed Dating (which I personally think is a total waste – you learn about as much about someone when you dance with them – as long as the music isn’t too loud), Mingling in the hallway with water and refreshments, and the Dance – which was one of the best ones I have been to in a long time (lots of people there and most of them dancing and good music).

Does anyone think it is a bit funny or weird that people go buy those decals of the people/pets that are in their family?

I was wondering where you could even buy the things but just found out you can here:

http://www.customlabels4u.com/decals-stickfamily.shtml

and a million other places:

http://www.google.com/search?q=family+decal+stickers&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

I am very very tempted to buy one and let’s say have about 20 kids and 8 pets or so on it (unfortunately it is about $4 a kid) so I may have to rethink this cuz $80 for a sticker could be a bit much

I think one of the big most tricky questions is if you are single and have kids – I have an 9 and 15 year old, is, how much should you date?

Obviously it would be good to find someone to marry and that would/could be another parent for your children, but how often should you leave your kids with a sitter or relative so that you can go out on dates in order to find someone?

Get yourself some free – till 5/19/2009 KFC!

Free 2-Pc Kentucky Grilled Chicken Meal (2-Pc Chicken, 2 Sides, 1 Biscuit) Printable Coupon: ““

or just go directly to http://unthinkkfc.com/

(Via SlickDeals.net.)

Went to a concert last weekend and a single lady who went with us and sat by us shared with us her theory on multi-stake LDS singles dances. She says that she and other attractive ladies are leaving the dances in tears because the less attractive women are the only ones being asked to dance and all the more attractive ones just stand on the sidelines.

I have been to those dances before and sometimes there are “unique” people there. The lady I was with thought that the theory should be changed to something like the “unique” people want to dance with the “unique” people and so the cool, attractive ones are left on the sidelines.

K, get a-going guys so the attractive ladies aren’t left on the sidelines and going home crying!

This was in Orem and had awesome speakers, the Provo Temple President and Matron, and it was well attended.

One funny thing is that at this fireside they didn’t put the mingle/refreshment chairs in the cultural hall in circles – they put them in about four rows facing each other (I think that worked better – at least they had more chairs up so that helped).

I met John, Clyde, Jayne at it and here’s where ya go for more information on the Utah County LDS Singles Firesides:

http://multistakesingles.org/singles/index.php?page=events.php&etype=fireside

This dance was pretty cool. It wasn’t as crowded as some of them are – that may have been because they had three dance floors instead of two:

31-45 group (I went to this one even though I am older)

46+ group

Latin Music – this was upstairs and wasn’t going that great when we checked it out but may have gotten going better (with more people) later on.

In years past they have advertised “cowboy caviar” for the refreshments – I didn’t check those out though and don’t know if ya coulda loaded up on some heavy duty spicy cowboy caviar with peppers and onions and then whispered some fiery breath of sweet nothings into the ears o’ who you were dancing with.

Saw some very cool people from when I went to Cheryl Merrell’s LDS Single Parent Issues class so that was fun.

Here’s where you find out about these mult-stakesingles dances.

http://multistakesingles.org/singles/index.php?page=events.php&etype=dance

Tried this activity out with my good friend and arrived a bit late on April 3. As we were walking up to the door a group of women were leaving and were saying “It’s too crowded in there…” We went in anyway and it was crowded but it was in a very nice home. Downstairs they had foosball and air hockey and some board games. We were kind of sad cuz the “Deal or No Deal” game had the electronic game part of it missing so we couldn’t do that but they did have some puzzles and other games. The most popular thing to do downstairs was the foosball game followed closely by air hockey so we had some fun with that.

Upstairs they were watching an Elton John Concert and visiting and we had fun visiting with a cool lady who works in Provo.

They are planning on doing these dinner parties again so check ‘em out here for the latest info.

http://www.utahvalleysingles.com/