Utah as a box

As of January, I will have been living in Utah for a year; that's a hell of a long time. 

After being here for that long, I have since decided that moving here wasn't all that it was cracked up to be. Granted, its a lot better then where I was before, either AZ or ID, but its still falling short of my expectations. Those expectations being that of a improved social life.

The biggest thing is that, quite frankly the social life here sucks. Everyone here is enveloped in Logan's own subculture; go to school, go to church, be Mormon. I'm not trying to start a anti-Mormon rant here, because thats just not the way I prefer to portray myself as; but the way things appear to someone such as me, an outsider to the church, it's all pretty sucky. 

The problem is that, when your not a member of the church, you're essentially, locked out of society here; that is that your excluded from so many activities and even excluded from being a normal member of the community. It seems as though, when you're a non-member, people shun you. Now, if I were to come up with a random number, I would say 75% of the community here is LDS, and just like that 75% of all relationship opportunities, 75% of social activities, 75% of everything.

Now, this may seem like a load of unsupported bullocks, but it's true. There have been numerous instances where I have talked to girls, or even guys and we'll have a normal, healthy conversation, then the moment they pop the question of "where did you go on your mission" or things like that, the conversation heads south. Apparently that's all that is required to keep people away from you. As soon as people find out your a non-member, they don't want anything to do with you.

That bring's me to another thing; what is with girls here wanting missionaries? I'm sorry but that just seems asinine; automatically being more attracted to someone who only has a label in front of his name, and for what reason. What reason do a lot of males go on missions here. I have a lot of friends who are on mission/have been and they don't fit the stereotype of a missionary. Going on a mission doesn't really make you an angel, you're not saving children in Africa from starvation, you're not saving dogs from being eaten in China (yes, I am allowed to say that), Basically, what I am saying is that people should be realistic, don't date someone because he has the word "Elder" in front of his name, or because he is a member of PETA, or whatever bullshit people do; date someone because they are genuinely what you want, because they're a good person. There is as much potential for someone who hasn't gone on a mission to be as good of a person, if not better then someone who has.

Another thing, stop and think about what you're doing. Don't say you don't watch rated-R movies and then go and spend the night in someone of the opposite gender's room. Both are may be harmless on their individual levels but doing that is kinda a hypocritical. There are so many good things that can be experienced from rated-R movies. There are so many good thing that can be experienced from a lot of things, but don't just mindlessly follow what people tell you to do.

To summarize my very rant-like non-rant, all I am trying to say is, don't judge a book by its cover. Don't be so close-minded that you only hang out with people of the same religious following. Don't exclude people because they're not what your society has taught you to be righteous. Those goes for every religion, race, culture, sub-culture, whatever. 

I'm done non-ranting.

What the hell, your 20 live your life. Get out there and get crunk, not married

Excuse my title, but really? Maybe its just because its finally starting to happen to people who I can actually associate with, but damn, people need realize that 20 is the middle of the most exciting period of your life, at least so they say.

I can't even count how many people I know that are married before their 24. Most of these people are still in school, most of them work in a job getting paid minimum wage, most of them (this is of utmost importance..) drive a shit car, most of them live in an apartment designed for college students. None of these things should be descriptions of people who are married.

To get married you need to have a stable income. You need to be able to provide for yourself AS WELL AS YOUR PARTNER should, heaven forbid, anything happen.

First and foremost before you get married, you need to be mentally, socially and economically mature. This sounds a little weird but in my head, it makes sense (but so does vegetarian velociraptors)(WTF, my spell check doesnt know velociraptors?!). What I am saying is, I look at all these married couples and again, economically, they're not prepared. They work at your local grocery store as a waitress or your restaurant as a stocker (thats backwards but IDK). Thats not a good enough job to provide enough money for a marriage. Not to mention to even make enough money to make a difference your working long hours at odd times, so your not even spending quality time with each other. On top of this, a lot of these folks are still in school. Lets do some math here:

Average college student puts in between 12-14 hours a week for school, they say for every hour you spend in class, thats 2 hours of studying.
Say your working 30 hours a week @ $10 an hour.
you should be sleeping 8 hours a night.
these people usually go to church for 3 hours a week

so lets see here 12+(2x12)+30+(8x7)+3=125 hours of nothing time.
theres a 168 hours a week.

168-125=43 hours a week=6.14 hours a day of lovin time.. granted thats not bad but when you factor in that people have lives and actually have other things that aren't anticipated in life, thats not much time.

Oh another thing, your 20, you should at least hope to have some social life, subtract that from your 6.14 hours per day.

Which brings me to my next point, being socially mature; i.e. being not socially retarded.
This is simple, you don't want to be that friend that is lost to all of your other friends because you got married. We all know what I'm talking about. You get married and then your in your own little world; your practically a loss to society, you don't really contribute nor subtract. you're just a rock. No one wants to be a rock because rocks get ground up and made into concrete which is boring.  When you're 20 years old you need to get our and enjoy life. Because after that you'll have a real job and be forced to be a responsible member of society.  So act your age, be irresponsible and wear undies on your head....

Okay economically mature, your wondering "what the dickins does that mean?". I shall tell you, NOW!
Okay go back to my previous number of 30 hours a week of work at $10 an hour. this yields $300 a week. Say you get about $270 after the IRS has their way with it. Combine that with approximately the same amount from your partner, thats $540 a week, not bad. That works out to about $25,920 a year, below the average household income of Utah, much farther below. Thats not much. Estimate rent to be about $450 a month; insurance, gas, utilities, food. That leaves you very little to work with. What happens when your waitress partner gets mashed by a shopping cart then what?

I'm not ready to be called Olaf: destroyer-of-relationships, but living here in Utah and being surrounded by married people or people getting married, I am just hoping people have put all this into consideration before then tie the knot.