Singles Branch Life

Gotta love this topic, and it's just been so amusing lately that I'd figured I'd write about it. It all starts off with this girl. Gee I wonder how many stories start off like that. Anyway, at a Friday night activity I happened to go to, I met a girl that just moved into the branch, and happens to be the first one in a year and a half that I actually seem interested in. We had a really good conversation that night, it was pretty nice and pleasant. Course there's the whole girl next door issue, which by the way sent me an e-mail last week, making the first time I had contact with her in five months, but I can try to get my mind off that issue like I probably should. Anyway, at the next FHE activity, we are playing sardines. For those who don't know what it is, it's a version of hide and seek where one person hides and everyone seeks, and when they find the hider, they join them in the hiding spot till everyone is there, in whatever tiny spot, and the last person it gets to hide or something like that. Anyway, they chose a spot on the stage without the lights on. So by the time I get there, I'm still used to the light and jump in. Well I can't see a thing and basically stare straight ahead, whereas everyone there has adapted to the lack of light and can see. Anyway, I happened to be staring directly at the said girl for about two minutes straight before my eyes adjusted. Now girls, if a guy you barely met a couple of days ago stares straight at you from a foot away for several minutes, you would probably be a little freaked out by this, am I right? Well that's what happened. She wouldn't even look in my general direction. It was rather humorous. Most people probably wouldn't have liked the situation too much, but I guess I've learned not to let what other people think of me bother me, so basically whenever I saw her and she would ignore me, I'd just have to laugh at the whole stupid situation. Forward one month...

Alright, it's 30 minutes before church starts, I'm waiting for the ward to get out so I can get the number for sacrament and take care of my duties. She walks up to me and starts talking to me. Again we have a really good time talking to each other. At least I was. I think she was, anyway that's beside the point. An older couple serves in our branch as institute teachers among other things. Anyway he comes up to shake our hands. Well I happen to have a one track mind. Once I start doing something, I am very intent on that activity and nothing can distract me easily. Well, I didn't even notice him because I was so involved in talking with this girl. He then makes fun of me right then and there, saying that he knows that the girl I'm talking to is much more attractive than him, but that I could at least notice him enough to shake his hand. It was rather embarassing, because what he said was dead on. I know my face turned several shades of red, and she saw it all. Then, I was so distracted by her, that I didn't get the numbers up one the wall, and had two seconds to do it. She offered to help and did one side, while I tried to do the other before opening hymn. Well the numbers on my side read, 1924, 13, blank, and the last number was actually right. Terrible. Well afterward sacrament he continues to tell me to ask this girl out, tease me about it, etc, etc. I think he was just excited to see me doing something other than music also, he probably thinks I need a good woman, the way I'm going. Anyway, that Friday night activity afterwards everyone's around talking and I've talked to her several times throughout the night. Well everyone's decided to go to a movie and I have absolutely no money on me. She offers to pay for me. So I go with them. Now, I definately wouldn't consider this a date, since we drove with another guy and there were several other groups of cars also. Afterwards, the guy we drove with drops us off at the church. We spend a little over an hour sitting there talking. But me, being very socially stupid at times, and feeling very comfortable talking to her, unleashed a lot of things I had thought about for the past 5 months. Since girl next door hasn't been around for me to talk everything, and this blog just isn't the same as talking to someone, I just unleashed on her. It's a good thing I can laugh at my stupidity and mistakes. She still seemed okay with it though. Well I decided to ask her out, and offer the same courtesy she offered me. I never did it though, I just don't think it would work out at all, so left it at that. But that's a different story from where I want to go with this mayhem.

Now, onto the Relief Society grapevine. Well, apparently she told her roommate some of the things that I told her. Her roommate happens to be Relief Society President and her brother happens to be my hometeacher. As today is the 31st of the month, today is when they came. Since we didn't have a lot of time, as it was just an hour before church, and they had to visit other people. Well he seemed to know exactly what my thoughts have been over the past months, and addressed several of them rather untackfully. None of the usual foreplay in trying to get someone to trust you enough that they'll tell you what their thoughts and concerns are. Well he tried to address and give suggestions for my concerns that I didn't address as concerns the entire time. It doesn't help that I'm a usually a very independent and private person and don't like anybody knowing anything about me, let alone try to help me with it. It bugs me if people know about me and sees my weaknesses and try to sympathsize, or whatever it is, with me. That's probably yet another thing I need to work on. Being more sensitive to what I need from others and others need of me. Growing up in a family of nine kids, being LDS, and well known by much in the backwoods community where I grew up, perfection was required of us, so we gave them that on the surface, and kept the imperfections buried deeper than most everybody else. In a way that has hurt us quite a bit. But I'm getting off track. All right, where was I? I must say though, that I was impressed with my home teacher's faith and prayer, and you could tell that he was concerned and genuinely cared about my well-being. I do like the guy, and really I'm not too upset about his retrieval of information through the grapevine. I just find all of this pretty typical Singles Branch Life. Am I right?