Last night after midnight, I received a phone call from a young twenty year old woman. She apologized for waking me up and asked if I happened to have a vehicle large enough for a bike. Puzzled, I said I had a mid sized SUV. She explained that she had taken her bike to work (she works late nights) and that when she left, both tires were flat. She said she was worried about her safety and asked if I could give her a ride. I told her I would be by in five minutes.

By way of background, this girl knows me because we've been in theatre productions together, so we consider each other friends. I'm married and in my late twenties. My wife is out of town, and I'm sure this girl knew it. I figured she had the common sense to call others for help before calling me. I understood that she lived outside of town and would have a long way to walk her bike home very late at night. Still, the situation seemed a bit strange to me. I tried to reconcile it by saying to myself I was just being a good samaritan.

I found her, put her bike in the back, and drove her home. She said she had called friends to come pick her up, but they didn't answer their phones. That made me feel better.

Then she explained she had moved in with her dad and was now living in town. Wasn't the long distance I had expected it to be. I pulled into the driveway and unloaded her bike. A bit awkward for a married man to be at a younger lady's house at 12:30. There were a few cars in the driveway and a television on in livingroom. Did she not ask her dad for a ride? She thanked me and went inside.

Don't know what to think of this situation. Part of me felt guilty and alarm bells rang. But I don't know if this was just my former mormon zealot "don't be alone with the opposite sex" days coming through or if there what I did was winnable.

Did I do the right thing? What would you have done? Maybe I should have called my wife to tell her, though it was pretty late? Maybe I should have tried to help her think of others to call? Called a neighbor to come with me?

OR

Maybe I did the right thing and need to shake off the guilt.

What about the girl? Do you think it ever crossed her mind she was asking a married guy to pick her up? What about her actions in calling me? Innocent?

Perhaps I'm analyzing this wrong and she called me because she trusted me not to take advantage of the situation. It is hard to say. Maybe I'm just a friendly, helpful guy. Sometimes I am dumb and cannot tell when a girl is simply trying yo get attention.

No you did the right thing.

I think letting your wife know you were going to give your friend a ride home and even having a friend come along are great ideas. You need to let your friend know where you stand and how much you love your wife.

I do believe your Mor(m)on thinking is surfacing here. It sounds pretty innocent to me. Maybe she didn't call her dad because he didn't have a car large enough to hold the bike. My take on it - nothing but a ride home late at night for a young scared girl happened - forgetaboutit.

I agree, if those were cars in the yard, maybe her bike wouldn't fit. Maybe her father can't see at night. I can't. Maybe he'd been drinking and didn't want to drive.

From her attitude, it sounds perfectly innocent. It doesn't sound like she tried to put the moves on you.

The next time you talk to your wife, I'd mention that you had to drag your ass out of the house after midnight, and explain why. I wouldn't think any more of it.

And she couldn't call her dad? And you're feeling guilty ... why?

I know I'd feel a helluva lot safer on a bike than walking and certainly much safer than walking with a crippled bike.

Furthermore, anon for this, if you want to know why she called you instead of her dad, maybe the next time you see her you should ask.

Anything anyone says why she did or did not is pure speculation and totally made up!

A 15 minute bike ride could be a 45 minute to an hour walk. On a bike you can avoid trouble easier than walking because of the speed of travel. If you see something suspicious you can turn around and go the other way quickly, or move to the other side of the street.

When you come out of a cult, feeling guilty is not a good measure of wrong doing. Personally, I don't think OP had any reason to feel guilty at all.

If the girl has her sights set on him, she will keep doing stuff like this and at that time OP can set her straight. Till then, this was just a girl who needed help.

You did the RIGHT thing.

Mormonism has this huge "avoid the very appearance of evil" thing. It also has a huge "avoid situations of temptation" thing. This leads to weak people who can't resist temptation so they have to avoid situations where there is temptation.

Jesus was accused of hanging around with sinners, of doing good deeds on the Sabbath (which was a no-no in itself).

IF you went in and spent the night with her then you did the wrong thing. However if you drove her and her bike to her place and then said goodbye you did a good thing.

Save your feelings of guilt for when you actually do something wrong.

She's really young and likes attention. We played love interests in some of the theatre productions and have spent a lot of time on stage and backstage together. I know I can keep that in perspective and separate it out, but I wonder if she can. Perhaps helping her out in the way I did wil only lead her on if she does have some sort of infatuation.

Or, once again, maybe this is just very innocent. Maybe most people in the world would not think twice about it.

I think what is happening is that despite not having problems with it myself, I can't prevent myself from thinking that other zealot mormons would have big issues with it and would warn me that I was in danger of falling. Can't be too safe, they might say.

IN OTHER WORDS...I still find it hard to act normally. Haven't been fully deprogrammed yet. Dangit!!

IF she called you because she wanted to start something up then that's her problem. IF you didn't go along with her starting anything up then you did nothing wrong.

Like I said, save your guilt feelings for when you actually do something wrong.

And, yes, Mormon programming runs deep. Dealing with that fact is a major part of the recovery process.

i dont htink you need to tell your wife either...it was innocent enough not to mention..... thats how i see it!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/30/2011 05:23PM by bignevermo.

If I were out of town and my husband had gotten this call and refused to go help, he would have caught hell from me. Seriously.

Whether she has a crush on you or not, when someone calls needing help, I would be livid if my husband refused to help because he thought I might get upset.

You did the right thing, regardless of what her motives may or may not be.

I think what I did was the right thing. But I don't think a lot of TBMs would agree. My wife will probably freak when she hears about this. So you are in this bind where you cannot do what your conscience thinks is correct because of the backlash from your spouse. You are torn between doing the correct thing and satisfying the sheltered tbm views of your spouse.

That opens a whole new can of worms..to what point should you support your spouse if your spouse isn't being rational about things. Cetainly you need to stand behind them. But what about situations where they are clearly in the wrong?

I guess you have to learn to pick your battles.

Try cultivating empathy with her.

What would she do if she had been in this situation? A niece? A daughter?

And you need to emphasize that she can trust you. You helped someone in a tight spot and that's it. She has nothing to fear from this friend. And that if your wife ever found herself in a similar situation, she should call anyone and everyone she can think of to help her out and get her home safely regardless of the person's gender.

This fear might be more of a reflection of me needing to develop for trust with her.

In my TBM days, my dh helped a few co-workers out this way before, I see nothing wrong with it, you were helping someone who needed help. If it becomes a pattern there may be suspicion of it being more but based on your description and this being a one time event, you did nothing wrong.

Anon for this Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I think what I did was the right thing. But I
> don't think a lot of TBMs would agree. My wife
> will probably freak when she hears about this.

Sooooooooooooo . . . your wife is TBM?? Hoo Boy. That opens a whole new can of worms. Now I can understand your discomfort. When/if she finds out, YOU'RE IN BIG TROUBLE MISTER!

j/k. I vote with the majority - you did the right thing.

;o)

Ha ha. But you're right, it does open a whole new can of worms if his wife is the type who doesn't think the bishop should ride alone in a car with the RS president in broad daylight.

He has a pretty good idea she will be upset about it. What does he owe her? I previously suggested he just tell her about it in the way he'd tell her anything else that happened while she was gone, but maybe that's not a good idea now that we know it will upset her.

I have no idea how to handle that because if he doesn't tell her, it's like he has something to hide. If he does, he's probably in trouble too.

I can't stand that kind of behavior and thinking, so personally I'd just divorce her and get it over with. But it sounds like that's not what OP wants.

It's what people do --it's common ordinary kindness, helping out a friend.

i MIGHT have had the thought to ask why her father couldn't help at the time...

When I was a (Idaho State) cop, when we transported someone, it was protocol to call in time & mileage to dispatch at the start & end so there were 'No Questions' about no-nos.

IF things were ? with yr wife, you might have called & explained up front, buy Only You & her need be concerned.

Good Goin!

I agree giving her a ride was the right thing to do. Also, if she does have a crush on you, so what? It would be up to *you* to reciprocate such feelings or not. You can't control what she might feel and you if she were to flirt with you, you are not not a helpless bag of male hormones, which is basically what Mormonism tells us men we are. The church injures our images about ourselves in regard to women, attraction, and sex. If you feel attracted to her and feel bad about that, I would tell you you are normal. It isn't always the thought that counts, but the behavior.

It all depends on if your wife if the jealous type and how good looking the young lady was, IMO anyway

It seems like a stretch that the young lady would have done this on purpose. Middle of the night? A bike with flat tires? As long as she wasnt flirty or touchy, I would say it was innocent. Plus u guys are good friends and she probably trusts you. Ur worrying about it too much. Mention it to ur wife in an offhand way, like no big deal, if u feel guilty. Its a little extreme/ mormony though. Its not like she called u in the middle of the night to go to her empty apartment to unclog her sink or something. This was a genuine emergency.

+1

You did a very kind thing. It was probably a huge compliment in that she trusted you and felt safe with you. Curious that she didn't have her dad come get her, though. I would think that you could squeeze a bike into most back seats.

you done the rigt normal thing. This is some more of the mormon guilt and negitive bullshit thinking. Why feel guilty and wrong? Over the years while in this TBM neighborhood,,helped several women/girls out with rides and late night car help. Never thought anything about it. Just the right and christian thing to do.

It's possible that the young lady called you for help because she could trust you to not take advantage of her when she was in a vulnerable position. And maybe all the other people she called that late at night were drunk.

I think you did the right thing.

I would say that you did the right thing. Your wife being out of town actually made you more available to help others.
When a friend called for help, you were there to give it.

I doubt that she had any intentions above and beyond getting a ride home. And you are one of the people she trusted enough to call even when it was late at night.

Tell your wife about it after the fact. She doesn't need to be woken up in the middle of the night just to hear about you helping somebody.