There's a reason someone in this story isn't married yet... you decide who it is

Anyone who's had the experience of being an "over 25" single LDS person knows that the world of dating (and not dating) can be confusing, frustrating, and sometimes our own personal ninth circle of hell. Men and women alike struggle to navigate the complexities that surround what dating is (and is not) in this modern world and during these attempts they often run aground, take on water, face hurricanes, battle sea monsters, and basically consider casting themselves overboard and ending the madness, all in one weekend. Of course, some of this struggle unfortunately also includes pointing fingers at the other gender.

"All men are man-children who prefer video games every weekend to going out on dates with girl" or "All women expect men to be able to give them everything their daddy's gave them by the time they're 24.. it's too much pressure." or "Men are pigs... women are nags... men only want to make out... women only ever want to "talk about things"... and so on and so on. 

Of course, the blame game gets everyone nowhere very fast. Correction, it gets you a one way ticket to lifelong singlehood very fast. Having a little faith in the opposite sex, at least the faith that there is ONE member of the opposite sex, that will love you and you can love them back, I feel, has basically become a true blue, God given miracle. If anyone out there questions if miracles still happen - mutual love is it. It seems the odds of that happening are almost astronomical these days and likewise, for that love and companionship to beat the 50% divorce rate is comparable to summoning a plague of locusts or parting the Red Sea. In fact, I think Moses would prefer wandering in the wilderness another 40 years to the University 2nd Stake's Speed Dating Extravaganza complete with cow bell. Mooooooove to the next piece of meat lads! Sigh. I know I would. 

That said...

I'd like to present you with just such a scenario that takes that sliver of "faith" and crushes it into a fine powder that is sprinkled over the  billowing smoke of discouragement. How's that for bleak? It's almost all one can do to not utter that word saturated with bitter disdain, "Typical."

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The story commences...

I'm a member of ye old ldssingles.com. It's alright. I'd say the.... "quality" of single person on this website is the highest of most LDS specific dating websites I've encountered.

So, I get a correspondence from a nice guy upon said website, asking the basic questions (school.. work..movies) and we exchanged pleasantries over a couple of weeks... nay 5-6 weeks come to think of it. It started to seem fairly stretched out for me, I got a little busy, he actually said I few things that signaled a potential yellow flag or two; so though I responded in a mostly timely manner the whole thing pittered out say... four months ago.. ish. Yes, I think I was the one who didn't respond to his last correspondence. Truthfully, I got a little bored. After a month or so and he didn't seem close to wanting to meet organically in some respect (there's only so much you can say over email...), he stopped blipping on my "give it a try" radar completely. Judge me how you will; this story isn't over.

Four months pass...

Then last week I received an email from him. Fairly random but very nice. Observe the pleasantries below

"Andrea. Hey. Haha, remember me? I thought about you a little bit ago and thought I should write and see how you were! I enjoyed getting to know you a bit and think it's too bad we never got together for dinner or something. Hope you're doing good, it would be cool to hear from you. Ttyl!"

I was pleasantly surprised I'd say. I proceeded to scan through our previous correspondence and decided, hey... maybe I was in a weird phase when we were initially emailing because he sounds like a pretty decent guy and we could have fun. I didn't entirely remember why I'd stopped emailing him, though those few little yellow flags still waved, they could be chalked up to "well, some meanings are lost over email." Fair enough. So, dear friends... I responded probably a day or so later with the following:

"Hi,

Yes I remember :) I'm glad you touched base again. Yes, it is a shame we never got together. Perhaps that needs to be remedied? I hope you are doing well too. And perhaps enjoying the random warm day we get once in awhile. Spring is such a tease. - Andrea"

It's been... two and a half weeks... three weeks on Sunday... and nuthin. No response. Radio silence.

Now, without attempting to wrack your brain for the next hour as to a plausible explanation for this radio silence (maybe he's out of town... in Borneo.. where they don't have email access... and he won't be back for a month... and clearly it makes sense to randomly email someone and then leave the country for a month...), tell me how dating is not in every single way annoying, confusing, ridiculous, and possibly the man's fault. HA! Okay, possibly THIS man's fault because friends, I don't see why this person would email me out of the blue "slyly" hinting at his despondence at us never getting together (which I just have to say, was also somewhat his fault... see: six weeks of correspondence) and my attempt to additionally suggest I am also despondent by saying it "needed to be remedied" only to be met with silence.

It. Doesn't. Make. Sense.

Thus why I will likely remain single forever; as will this joker.