I have a neighbor in her 60s who is going to a Mormon singles conference with her daughter (30s) this weekend. One is divorced, the other never married.

What do they do there? I am not Mormon, and don't know them well enough to ask. I can't imagine anything constructive occurs, but I could be wrong.

It's just a meeting with speakers on church topics, just like general conference.

However, it is designed as a mixer to have singles meet each other in hopes of spawning relationships with other Mormons.

Single wards (churches) are for the same purpose.

They check each other for garment lines and desperation.
Those with both wind up in a quickie temple marriage.

Wowza! There's a boatload of so-called conferences. My suspicion is that these 'meet ups' are being sponsored by web sites like 'LDS Mingle/Single/Whatever' to propagate their business.(??) I don't think ChurchCo is behind this although they likely supply speakers to 'enrich and uplift' and to explain why these poor single folks are very valuable servants in God's Kingdom despite the serious and damning flaw of remaining unattached.

http://www.theldssinglessite.com/sa_usa_sc.html

OMG that website. Welcome to the 90s. It infuses in one such a crushing sense of boredom and futility.

In Morland, I've never seen marriage or relationship education, no waiting period, etc. for vetting married.

Probably lots of quickie marriages around Provo & Rexburg... go figure!

Oh hell. I went to so many singles things trying to find my "one and only that God was going to bestow upon me." Nothing ever came of all my participation. These things are so discouraging and so self-defeating. No matter who you are.

It shocked me to go work somewhere like Thiokol and all the nonmormons wanted to date me.

Mormon single life is pure insanity.

One was a sanctimonious jerk, who often said, if I dared to voice an opinion, "You probably should discuss that with the bishop."

I married the other one more than 25 years ago. Best decision I ever made.

I met some friends for gold at the Homestead Resort in Midway, Utah. The place was swarming with women--mostly older women--and we figured it was some kind of Mormon women's conference, because the women looked very Mormon. We asked the guy at the pro shop, and he told us it was a Mormon Single's Conference. We saw two men, walking alone together, but they might have been golfers.

Your neighbors might make some good women friends, there, and hopefully, they will enjoy that for what it is. It's always worthwhile to socialize. However, the Mormon message to singles is very negative.

"Too bad you are single. We can help you cure that as quickly as possible, so you can live a good Mormon life. Unless you are married, you are defective.

Breeze Wrote:
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> I met some friends for gold at the Homestead
> Resort in Midway, Utah.


I, too, would like to meet some friends ....for gold, especially if the gold is large nuggets.

If you are really curious about it, then attend it. MORmONS love it when outsiders express interest in MORmON events.

You did not say if you were single or not, but your spouse IF you have one, is the only one that you would really need to explain to. When or IF any MORmONS spoke to you at the event, you could just play right along to whatever degree you wanted to. After all their church lies to them to an astounding degree and some of the people who are attending are most likely just as phony as their MORmON religion.

I am speaking from experience. The speakers will have an emphasis on living the gospel so that the lord can finally bless up the single people's broken (miserable) lives. Many are already well past spent trying to demonstrate their devotion to the MORmON faith /religion. The theme of the talks just ratchets up feeling of guilt, shame, inadequacy and failure.

At one conference, 2005 Utah County to be specific, the conference concluded with a sunday fireside. that fire side concluded with a prayer. The self infatuated married person giving the prayer decided to prayer sermon that lasted over 10 minutes. I remember hearing some weird noises to my left during the extended prayer. I looked in the direction that the strange noises were coming from. It was a female who had given in to out right weeping that she could not contain.

The dance for the utah County single adult conf used to be a semi normal affair. Since there is little to no infusion of younger people into that conference, because the upcoming generation (rightfully) sees the church as dead and BORING compared to other available social options, that dance has down sized and gotten much more creepy as most of the attendees are the way over the hill die hard super seedy professional LDS singles that have been going to Utah singles activities for the past 2 decades. After so many years, Most /many of them know all about each other, there are highly ingrained clicks, so the gossiping/ back stabbing/ internal strife/ spats are EPIC.
When new /fresh people do show up, it can be like seeing chum dropped into a shark tank.
FTR, I know of one guy who has been married 15 times.

smirkorama Wrote:


> FTR, I know of one guy who has been married 15
> times.


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Say what?!!

Surely he's practicing Polygamy?

That can not be 15 separate marriages & divorces?!!!

To find another (single - or two) [and make a double or quadruple or more] or just to be around a bunch of other, um, you no, other mormonites, or suffering people forced to be there!

M@t

Mormon singles conferences are sponsored by TSCC's regional single adult organizations, like this one: http://wyomontsa.com/

They are not sponsored by LDS dating websites, although those sites usually post a list of upcoming conferences.

What goes on there?
In the region where I lived, they were meat-markets (and, to a lesser extent, meet-markets). There were panels of speakers, workshops, activities, mingle time, usually some sort of church meeting in a chapel, and the dreaded dance on the final night (or every night, depending). I dreaded it, attended it, hated it during and after, and eventually, couldn't bring myself to do it anymore.

Women outnumbered the men. It was an ultra-competitive, shark-tank atmosphere punctuated by the same meaningless drivel about "living the Gospel" that one hears at regular church meetings. Everyone there was hungry, horny, and on the prowl except the about-to-be-engaged or engaged couples who showed up to flaunt their relationships.

The whole singles scene in the church gets pretty scarry after you get too old to be in the young adults group anymore. Although I judge this by the appearance of most of the women, I am sure it applies equally to the men too. I stopped by a ward house where a friend was DJ-ing a Young Special Interest dance, shortly after my mission. These weren't the same kinds of people I knew in the youth and young adults groups. It was obvious in most cases why these people were single. There was probably two hundred of them there that night. I got out quickly, after some woman old enough to be my grandma asked me to dance. Sadly, many of them probably didn't have the social skills to meet and date non-members. That's when I started dating non-members. A few times after that, I crashed a few young adult dances that I was too old for, but had a good time anyway because I would run in to friends there. But as for the Special Interest groups, run and don't look back. Find a non-member to spend your life with, resign from the church, and be happy.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/13/2017 03:10AM by azsteve.

Non Mormon but worked one of those as a caterer in a ballroom. They booked for 400. The soft and large Mormon matron overseeing it gushed up and down the hallway of the ballroom with a 450 capacity "MYGOODNESS400PEOPLETHISMUST BETHEBIGGESTEVENTYOU'VEEVERWORKED!!!"

There was tons of breathing space with at most 175 attending.

The conferences I have attended have a lot of service projects that you can sign up for, like this last one, we all went to a food bank to put meal kits together for families in need.

The dance, I can't say I love the dances, it is kind of awkward because no one asks me out to dance (except for friends I've known for a long time, I guess they feel bad no one asks me out to dance lol). I have met really nice friends.

So it has its cons and pros. Some of us go just to hang out with friends not looking for anything else I guess.

-Some of us go just to hang out with friends not looking for anything else I guess.

Can't you organize yourselves without the need to connect with the church?