Do they call it a fireside because you're sitting right outside the gates of hell?

Just wonderin'.

Yesterday at church I was sitting, minding my own business when my friend Jen came up and asked me to go to a Single Adult fireside with her that evening.

Dilemma: I love Jen and I would like to get to know her better, but I HATE firesides. Scratch that. I generally like them once I get there, but it's the getting dressed in my Sunday duds again and driving across town to attend yet another meeting part I can't get behind.

I. Hate. Meetings. A feeling that's only gotten stronger in my two years as a master's student at UNLV.

I thought about getting out of it, making up some stupid excuse and staying home with my dog who loves me and who I don't have to impress, BUT..... I decided to climb out of my hobbit hole and go.

I told my sister right before I left for the fireside that I didn't know if Jen and I could ever be REALLY good friends 'cause she's just so darn positive about everything. Let me tell you something. I was wrong. Jen is hilarious and just a lil' bit dark about the whole "Single LDS woman past the age of 30" thing. I can get behind that. I feel that.

The topic for the fireside was on financial planning. It sounded like a kind of dry topic, but I thought, "Hey, I might learn something important." Instead of teaching us how to make wise investments, the speaker spent twenty minutes telling us not to be suckers and fall for bad investments. It was pretty depressing, but I thought that the next twenty minutes would be about how to make good ones.

The speaker went another direction with it, though. After the twenty minutes of doom and gloom he said, "Well, I'm going to stop there. Let's go eat some cookies and commiserate." Seriously. That is pretty much word for word.

I know what you (or at least my brother Matthew who likes to give me grief about my lack of a social life) are thinking, "It was a single adult fireside, were there any romantic possibilities there?"

Well, most of the guys (4 of the 5) that were there looked kinda like this:



or, even more frightening, like this:



The fifth guy was pretty good looking and because Jen and I were sitting by him I can also report that he was funny and a little sarcastic. Now, here's where I show what being single over the age of 30 for 4 years has done to me.

Did I look at this handsome, clean cut, guy who came to a single adult fireside by himself in order to learn something and think, "There's a handsome, clean cut, spiritual guy that I might possibly want to date."? Nope.

I thought, "Hmmmm. I wonder what's wrong with him." I know I know. Some of you right this second want to post comments about the fact that I need to be less negative, that I need to give this whole single adult activity thing a fighting chance. In theory, I agree with you.

In practice, however, I've found that if a guy looks too good to be true, you need to do your research. This involves the homegirl background check: call every single LDS woman you know and find out which of their friends have dated him in the past in order to find out if he's a commitment phobe, mama's boy, or garden variety freak show.

In practice, my last boyfriend is now the vice president of an organization for lesbian and gay professionals (I'm NOT lying about this).

In practice, I currently have a bad attitude.

I'm working on it.