Hi everyone. Long time, no talk.
I haven’t posted on here in a long, long time, but I figured that this audience might enjoy the most recent issue of my advice column over at Default Wisdom.
I copied and pasted the most relevant parts, but if you want to see the whole NSFW answer, click here. And if you’d rather submit a question (for whatever reason!), you can do so here.
I do always want to bring this back, but I’m so over-committed it’s a little bit impressive. I’m never sure how it gets this bad, but every so often it does. Call it Freshman Club Syndrome—I sign up for everything. I just can’t help myself.
Just last Sunday, the prompt we did for my writers’ group was “Describe your first memory with religion.” Maybe I’ll type that up and share it here… If you have one yourself, drop it below?
I recently left the Mormon church and moved to Miami.
I want to date and get a feel for the landscape, but I don’t drink and don’t want to start. How do I get to know people whose primary drug for relaxing is alcohol?
Perhaps this is judgmental of me, but this seems to be a majority of people, and definitely when it comes to something as anxiety inducing as dating. There seems to be a wall between us, and we just can't connect.
Should I just write these people off? Filter them out completely and not date anyone who has touched the devil’s water? It seems hypocritical and like it would cut me off from a lot of great and beautiful people.
Should I stop being a wimp and start drinking and see if that will solve the issue? It would lower my inhibitions, which would solve the problem if “maybe it’s me.” But lower inhibitions is not something I generally want and the two times I've drunk I've done things I regret. Is there a middle ground here and how should I approach it?
You know, the first person I collaborated on this advice column with was an ex-Mormon, who, at least at the time, was stuck in this purgatory of first dates. By his count, he’d been on at least a hundred first dates that went nowhere. It always boggled my mind.
I had never met someone as likeable as he was who struggled so much with dating. He was tall (well, he’s not dead, he still is tall), decent looking, worked in tech, had normal interests, was friendly—it was a truly rare case where it should have been a buyer’s market. And I’d seen the matches he’d get on dating apps, too: a dream for a single man and the platonic ideal of nightmare fuel for anyone who was romantically interested in him.
Finally, I think after we’d reached a certain level of friendship-intimacy ourselves, I realized that his problem wasn’t the dating market, it wasn’t dating apps, it was none of the stuff that usually troubles young men.
He didn’t feel the Holy Spirit in his heart anymore, but once a Mormon, always a Mormon. He kept experiencing culture clash. My suggestion to him was to date other ex-Mormons. People who’d be familiar with his very particular, very Mormon idiosyncrasies… things that read as absolutely psychotic in any other context, but to anyone familiar with the Church, was just regular Mormon guy stuff.
All this to say, my guess is that the problem is deeper than alcohol. It’s the culture around alcohol, something that is probably totally new to you. You might also find that non-members move a lot quicker sexually, too. That this might be fun at first, but fun in the same way going to Tokyo is fun—eventually that cultural disconnect creates that wall you’re describing, even if you really like the place that you’re in.
So, what do you do?
I don’t think you need to avoid alcohol-drinkers, but you should prioritize finding people whose values are more familiar to you, even if they aren’t as extreme as yours might have once been. As someone born and raised in South Florida, I’m sad to report that you’re not going to find many exmos. But you might find that you’re on a similar wavelength to Latin women, who, while they may drink, are more accustomed to a more traditional style of courtship.
Let’s say I’m totally off the mark here, though. My next suggestion is that when you ask women out, pick dates that don’t need alcohol. Where alcohol might even be out of place. A coffee shop; Knaus Berry Farm; a botanical garden. That might give you the opportunity to get a feel for these women without the temptation of drinking.
Salutations. I don’t really know how I’ve ended up in this little nook of Internet, but I will nonetheless respond as able to your inquiry. Similar to yourself, I grew up in a house deluged with Maher. In a way, watching Real Time with my father was a religious experience, insofar as it provided us with a shared understanding of the world. Anyways, the first recollection I have of attending a church was for a funeral. Another memory is going to a Christmas service with my Grandma, which I found boring. Far more related to your Substack, I grew up in a town with a substantial Mormon population. Once, when I was in middle school, two missionaries visited my house. We must’ve spoken for a few minutes, and I took the book. We scheduled a meeting for next week, and I made a commitment to read a certain passage. When they arrived next week, I invited to them into my living room- the table cluttered. Rushing back to my room, I tried to skim the passage before returning. I don’t remember how long that first meeting was, but I was pretty shocked that they wanted to schedule my baptism for next week. I told my mom, and the next time they visited she explained- politely or not- that I wasn’t interested. This is probably a common experience for people living in towns with a Mormon missionary presence. This is a neat Substack.