Posted on the Pasadena Young Single Adult Announcement board:
Break out your swankiest clothes. You've been invited to a lock and key event at the Ultra Swanky Retro Lounge. Sip mocktails, indulge at the Chocolate Fountain, sing your heart out or just relax and listen to some ultra smooth live music while you expand your social circle. Visit www.socalmidsingles.org for more details.
For the first time in years, I felt a bubble of anticipation for the announced event instead of an immediate spike in creativity as I formulated excuses. Finally! an event that spoke to my need to be "on the town" without having to shield myself from the overly drunk. I pictured lush couches, my friends- both LDS and not - , lovely drinks with umbrellas and lime, and strawberries coated with rich dark chocolate. So much of this event called to me that I hesitated not long enough to remember that "sophistication" is not in the Bible dictionary.
I clicked on the website only to discover this dreadful addendum to the anticipated night of "safe clubbing":
Lock and Key events are parties where women are given a lock and men are given a key and they spend the evening trying to find the corresponding key which fits their lock (or vice versa).
Aargh! Not even the promise of an unintentially suggestive activity and the mirth it would bring my equally perverse friends and I could overcome my disappointment. The previously interesting event had been gimmicked. I immediately formulated my excuses and made "other plans" for the evening.
I believe and live every tenet of the gospel, but I have no testimony of youth activities. Why must they all contain a gimmick? I have attended several events that have been co-opted from 'real' life only to find them destroyed! Speed dating at a fashionable restaurant? Fun and flirtatious. Speed dating in the cultural hall? Humiliating and uncomfortable. Online dating at eHarmony? Fun and self-exploratory. Online dating at LDSSingles.com? Creepy and shallow. Clubbing in downtown? Fun and fabulously exhilarating. LDS dance at same club? Lame and embarrassing. Attending a Hollywood date movie? Amusing. Attending an LDS date movie? Horrible. Why? Because each had to contain its own silly gimmick- from key dances to treasure hunts to silly hats to ridiculous plot lines, thus ruining the enjoyment of the event itself.
I crossed over to modern life somewhere around the silly hat experience. During high school, I had enough of clever dating. All I want now is a noisy club with good friends and an occasional flirtation. Is there no way to achieve this within the structure of the church? Are LDS youth so sex-starved that they will descend into orgy if not forced into self-humiliation? That doesn't make sense since my friends and I carefully live the law of chastity without ever needing to ask someone to "check a box on our 'Know Your Neighbor' checklist."
In open rebellion, last night for Mutual, I put the girls in a circle and asked them a bundle of questions: What's your middle name? Who is your hero? What was your most embarrassing moment? We laughed until I held my middle and declared the event complete. Somehow, without a single silly hat, we learned about each other. They probably found it dull, but maybe someone, someday will be on an activity committe and will stand as the only voice against pointless activities meant to hook up Latter-Day Saints.
As for me, this weekend, I will be at the House of Blues watching a dueling pianos contest.
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