It’s rather peculiar that in the church adults are segregated by marital status. There are entire wards (and in some more densely populated LDS areas, entire stakes) just for the unmarried. And I don’t like it.
When I was a teenager at church, I noticed that there were a few elderly widows and the full-time missionaries but that I never saw any other single adults at church. I was taught in my YW lessons that a husband would be the inevitable reward for living a righteous life. It was whispered that occasionally some people might not marry, but it was always an afterthought. It was never really expected that it would happen to any of us. It only happened to “other people”.
Then I grew up and became other people.
I’ve visited singles’ wards on occasion for things like missionary farewells and homecomings or friends giving talks or performing special musical numbers, but I’ve never been a member of a singles’ ward. I was subjected to pressure to attend when I was younger, but I resisted, preferring to worship in a non-segregated setting. As I got older, the pressure lessened and then abated, presumably because after a certain age, I’m seen as a lost cause.
I live in a wonderful ward now where single adults are treated like adults. I’m a person who happens also to be unmarried, rather than being The Single Person. A few years ago, a neighboring stake started up a single adult ward for unmarried adults ages 30-45. Someone asked me if I was planning on joining that ward and I said no. They asked me why, and I somewhat flippantly responded “Singles wards are against my religion.” Sacrament meeting started so I didn’t get a chance to elaborate on my answer, and honestly I don’t know that I would have wanted to in the moment anyway.
Now that I have a blog platform to do so, I’m going to expand on my answer. Here are six reasons why singles’ wards are against my religion:
1. Singles’ wards show the youth of the church that there’s no place for them if they don’t marry.
Teenagers at church observe the adults around them to see what their future in the church will be like. With the popularity of singles’ wards, what they see is that upon adulthood, single people are sent away from the congregation and are permitted to return when they either have done the respectable thing and gotten married, or when they have failed at that task and are kicked out of the singles’ ward to return in disgrace.
Half the adults in the church are unmarried. If teenagers could see single members participate in the life of the ward and stake, then when they grow up to be single adults, they would see that there is a place for them in the church, and fewer of them would feel unwelcome and leave.
2. Singles’ wards perpetuate the notion of single people as “other”.
This is related to the first point. The church has a default assumption that adults are married. Any deviation from that state is seen as an aberration. I can’t even begin to count the number of Relief Society lessons that just assume that everyone in the room has a husband and 4.5 small children underfoot. I’ve been in wards who have referred to the Relief Society as “the mother’s group”, and I was in one ward that didn’t allow single people to hold callings. I was invisible because I was different. If singles’ wards didn’t exist, there would have been dozens of people like me in the congregation, and there is strength in numbers.
3. Singles’ wards deprive single members of opportunities to experience a diverse congregation.
In a singles’ ward, everyone is roughly the same age and in roughly the same stage in life, especially given that singles’ wards are, in addition to segregated by marital status, also segregated by age. The Apostle Paul (who, incidentally, was single himself) when using a metaphor of the body to describe the church, reminded us that
For in fact the body is not a single member, but many. If the foot says, “Since I am not a hand, I am not part of the body,” it does not lose its membership in the body because of that. And if the ear says, “Since I am not an eye, I am not part of the body,” it does not lose its membership in the body because of that. If the whole body were an eye, what part would do the hearing? If the whole were an ear, what part would exercise the sense of smell? But as a matter of fact, God has placed each of the members in the body just as he decided. If they were all the same member, where would the body be? So now there are many members, but one body.
1 Corinthians 12:14-20
Diversity is essential to the proper operation of God’s kingdom. God made people of all ages and all marital statuses. By segregating our congregations, we diminish God’s creation.
4. Singles’ wards deprive the rest of the church of the talents of single people.
Six days of the week, single adults are treated in our workplaces, schools, community organizations, and social circles as adults. But on the seventh day, we are treated as overgrown adolescents who need to be supervised by married people. We have jobs. We have bills. We manage a household without the help of a partner. We are leaders in our communities. We would be assets to our wards if given the opportunity.
My current ward and stake are fantastic about this. In the 7 years I’ve been in the ward, single people and married people have been equally likely to be the president of an auxiliary. Single people teach the youth and are on the high council. We have many things to add to the ward and stake. And wards and stakes that exile their single members are depriving themselves of a large talent pool.
5. There isn’t a separate Jesus for single people so there shouldn’t be a separate church for single people.
Ephesians 4:5 reminds us that there is “one Lord, one faith, one baptism.” We’re all in this together. There’s only one Jesus who saves, and He saves all who repent and follow Him.
6. Singles’ wards distract from the purpose of church.
The purpose of church is to bring people to Christ. The purpose of singles wards is to get people paired off. If people are sent to a ward whose purpose is to find a spouse, it’s easy to get distracted from finding Jesus. I’m not opposed to having ward or stake activities geared toward allowing single members to socialize (just like there are activities allowing other groups of members to socialize), but that needs to be a balanced part of a well-rounded diverse ward, not the purpose of the ward.
Fantastic and important post. Thank you.
it’s frustrating how much energy is spent trying to coerce/force people to do so many things on “the covenant path”. Priesthood, missionary work, temple, marriage, kids; they all tend to be treated like things that we feel the need to push people into, rather than things that may or may not happen in this life, nice to haves that those who want such things can pursue.
Making opportunities for singles to meet each other is a good service; fencing them off from the rest of the members is certainly not.
In my opinion, those waystations on the covenant path are designed to bind one to the church, not necessarily to God or the Savior. I resent it deeply.
Thank you for this perspective. I hadn’t really considered it. I currently serve in my ward’s RS presidency, and I will do better about respecting sisters’ decisions to attend/not attend YSA ward and not pressuring.
Wonderful post, Trudy.
Thank you for this perspective. My ward is currently a magnet mid-singles ward — that is, it’s a family ward, but single people from all wards 30-45 are also in my ward. Though of course they can choose to stay in their geographical ward. I think the idea is to create community? I feel grateful to have these awesome folks as part of our ward, with different obligations/schedules/needs/abilities. It has enriched our ward a lot. I don’t think a ward of entirely single people would be so great though.
That said, I do feel like maybe there is a difference between areas with a large LDS population and a small one. I met my husband in our local singles ward. I have virtually never met a Mormon in the wild in my town — that is, working with or some kind of independent social activity and then realizing we’re both members of the Church. If I want to meet a member of the Church, I have to first find them at church, and then hopefully do non-church things together as we have common interests. I certainly do not think that single people should be forced into segregation, and I definitely think singles wards can be weird little habitats. But from my own experience, I’m grateful that they exist where I am. Every LDS person I know who got married to another member in my area met their spouse at the singles ward. That is including now-senior citizens who met their spouses there fifty years ago. The purpose of Church is not to pair people up. Singles wards should not be pushing that. But also if you WANT to meet someone and get married, in many parts of the world the only way to do that is through church, and your odds are greatly magnified through a singles ward.
Stake activities, magnet wards, etc. are all options that don’t necessitate a singles’ ward, nor the stigma of being kicked out of singles’ wards when you get “too old.” Many of us were asked to “move on” as if we were overstaying our welcome rather than that it was literally the only place we WERE welcome until we suddenly weren’t.
(Like, I don’t think you’re quite getting that being in singles’ wards for 20+ years and then being told you’re no longer worth spending resources on, but then the family ward you’re shunted to doesn’t know what to do with you except to assume that your purpose in life is to serve married people because it’s not like you as a single person might have needs or anything, just perpetual servitude because that’s your role in the kingdom until you become worthy enough to get married–I don’t think you’re fully grasping what that does to someone who is single past 31+, especially when you start hitting further decades.)
I am a mid singles late 30s. I recently had the dreaded conversation with my family ward bishop. I understand the church isn’t perfect… but the gospel Is. I understand that being a mid singles is limited to almost nearly nothing when considering feeling like a black sheep.
I understand bishops aren’t perfect.
What I do not understand or begin to fathom, with my experience, is like what this post says.
My bishop told me this after I had an argument with family member and i was looking for a blessing.
“Truth is normally after highschool you move out go to college and get married… ”
After having a looooooong talk about myself and my goals… My bishop said, and it still stings. “God hates people who do nothing….” After which he said ” associate degrees are a waste of time. Get your bachelors degree stop your day jobs get a career move in with sister until you can get an apartment. And push your self to date. ”
First off, God hates the sin not the sinner. Second jobs and the economy aren’t doing well with inflation. My location limits me in places to apply and bars are at a high. .With my experience and fellow friends of others who are mid single hearing the “God hates people who do nothing” sounds to a single ” I got nothing for you here. You’re not trying hard enough. ”
.
Here is the basic truth.
Churches don’t know what to do with mid-singles. Which is why many drop out .
There aren’t enough wards for mid singles because it’s just the way it is. And even if you could bring some…. There would not be a good number for years due to the situation given in these times. Unless a miracle happened to which every mid single had a come to Jesus conference and the prophet hands them a good stern fixer upper to do list.
Dating online is a joke and frowned upon. Depending on the church or otherwise. Not to mention scammers are taking over the Internet. Please be careful. And be respectful to everyone. But seriously, true love takes friendship first. Not your in or out. Dont settle for anything less of you.
Lastly, having an idea of what it should be vs actually is …. being able to understand, see and experience the world today ,…is almost as bad as the church tossing a blanket over and leading mid singles away when they should be having a decent idea of what goes on in their lives. I mean seriously, you want everyone to do the same lifestyle…? We are all raised up different have different families and lives etc. You know your on the right path. You know the truth.
To all mid singles….. You are not alone. Flds is not LDS. Scriptures say… the true church same name through out.
What ever you do don’t give up on the gospel. Churches aren’t perfect. People aren’t perfect. You do you. And if it doesn’t work here on earth…. We’ll be blessed in the eternities.
You have your own truth. Your own testimony. Hold onto it. Do no harm take no cow dung.
You are not alone.
God bless y’all
Great article! But you left out one reason why the church wants singles separated from the married folk and it is that married women look on single women as competition. After all we know how easy it is to tempt married men.
That’s gross, dude.
What?! I have never heard a woman express this and i surely don’t feel it. If a man’s eyes are going to wander he can surely find easier candidates for the girlfriend role outside the group practicing chastity. An adulterer can just as easily find a dissatisfied married woman in the ward, or someone from work, the gym, literally anywhere. My ward is a mid-singles magnet ward and at no point have I looked at our single sisters and thought “there goes my rival”
Excellent article. And yes, people don’t have to be in a separate ward. They can always have activities where they can meet. I never have understood the whole point of Singles’ Wards.
Great critiques, Trudy. I think especially your first point hits home to me. I grew up in a ward that had few-to-no single adults in it, and as a result I definitely underestimated how many adults in the church were single. Like you, I saw married people and figured that therefore pretty much everyone was married.
Love this. There were multiple reasons why I did not enjoy my singles ward experience. To your point, among my frustrations were the way we ALWAYS got the worst meeting time (ie., 3 to 6 p.m. for years on end with no respite) and were repeatedly told it was because we “wanted it that way” (a complete lie); and the time it was announced, back in the days when General Conference came in over satellite, that our ward would provide babysitting in another part of the building on the Sunday morning so that parents could go and listen to the session with no distractions (and, NO, nobody checked with us ahead of time to see if we even wanted to do that). The message was, over and over, that we were somehow lesser.
I also felt that my singles ward bred self-absorption (don’t know if that’s true of others), but I won’t go into that.
Interestingly, one of our bishops was doing the annual marriage talk in Relief Society, and he said that although singles wards are intended to provide a forum for men and women to meet each other, they can be counterproductive. His point was that if you look around you and see plenty of competent, capable, interesting people whom you admire, whose lives appear to be full and rich, that you find role models there, then you might not feel the need to look for anything else in your own life. In some cases, I suspect that’s true.
Amen to everything! Especially about being treated as adults for 6 days of the week in our professional lives, but not on Sunday. That hit so hard once I finished grad school and began working. I was in ward council in my YSA ward and the bishopric would mention how “when we became adults.” It didn’t help that all of them had kids our age. I was still treated as a child who needed immature activities and chaperones to socialize. The activities were literally the same as youth activities. Very few people at this point even date, let alone actually marry, someone in their ward. I became well aware how I didn’t want my social life to come from church anymore at ages 27+. I couldn’t wait to be 31 and kick myself out of the singles ward. I should have done it way earlier. I refuse to go to the mid singles ward because there’s no point, plus the sheer size is unfathomable for my introversion. Eventually I’ll be too old for that ward too – then having to join a traditional ward at 45 after 25+ years? No thanks.
Great post! The way you lay it out, I can’t think of any valid reason to not get rid of the dumb singles wards. They make no sense at all.
Amen. God and one make a family according to an old talk by Elder Ashton (“Be a Quality Person”) and I’ve held to that.
Student wards were fun when I was in college, but I found myself feeling **over it** the closer I got to graduation. After getting my degree, I switched between my family ward and YSA wards with mixed results. I felt out of place in my old family ward, but some YSA wards were either downright hostile, cliquey, and unwelcoming to people who weren’t part of the “in crowd”, or gave off such bad energy that I couldn’t hightail it out fast enough.
There ARE good YSA wards out there and I was fortunate enough to land in one for a time before moving to a different state for a new and better job. However, so much of that is dependent upon having a good, solid bishopric who knows how to connect well with single adults and doesn’t create or enable an environment where cliques and exclusivity are allowed to fester. Outside of that, the biggest problem with singles wards is that they infantilize grown adults and treat them like children. FHE and single adult activities are a continuation of the Mutual and Primary programs, single adult dances feel too similar to stake youth dances even with nice venues and attempts to make the event more formal, and single adult conferences are too similar to EFY in their format even with more enhanced activities. The other problem is that single adult activities, conferences, and special events are about meeting new people, but everyone stays in their own friend groups and no one makes an effort to reach out. It defeats the purpose of putting those activities and events on in the first place.
Church leaders also act as “chaperones”, which is problematic in that single adults aren’t seen as real grown-ups in their church and spiritual lives, and it’s also problematic in that nothing is done to enforce the age limit for YSA activities. I’ve seen men in the 31-40+ age range hitting on and pursuing 18-year-old girls at YSA activities, conferences, and dances, and nothing is ever done about it.
Get rid of the singles wards and put the single adults to work in meaningful ways in their family wards. Don’t put them in Nursery or Primary, because that’s just another way to isolate single adults and make them feel like they don’t belong. Make church about the Savior above all. For activities, I don’t know how that problem can be solved. Single adults need better activities and don’t need church leaders babysitting them, but it’s also not appropriate for people who are 31+ to attend YSA activities and it creates a lot of liability issues. I don’t know how that can be enforced when people are on their own, and I think the reason as to why church leaders don’t do so now is to avoid hurt feelings. I also think student wards need to have a policy in place where attendees need to show concrete proof that they’re in some sort of higher education program (associates degree, bachelors degree, masters, doctorate, business/dental/law/medical, trade/vocational school) in order to attend with the age limit being 18-30 and strictly enforced.
I transitioned to a family ward upon turning 31 and relocating. Since then, I’ve been put in callings (NOT in Nursery or Primary) where I feel that I’ve been able to make a good impact, and I really like the family ward I’ve landed in. It’s been nice to attend church with and learn from people who have life experience, and to have my Sundays focused on worship as opposed to marriage.
Yes. I agree, and I’m not a single adult. We need you.
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As you mentioned, the view that YSA are “youth” and thus require chaperoning and supervision by married adults is one that is particularly obnoxious to me.
On this front, things are changing quite a bit — as of this year, YSA are now being called as counselors in YSA bishoprics, as members of the high council, stake relief society presidencies, etc. In my current YSA ward, the only married person is the bishop himself. I have observed that getting rid of most of the married leadership has changed the tenor of the meetings for the better and has eliminated much of the babysitting syndrome.
I admit, I’m very conflicted about attending a so-called “family” ward (known in the handbook as a geographic ward). Walking into a ward that is full of traditional family units spread out on their reserved pews with their cheerios and coloring pages can be pretty uncomfortable. Our status in the church is still primed on our lack-of-marriage as an essential attribute.
Even well intentioned married members frequently fail to look beyond us as “a single person” and if I’m being honest, I frequently fail to look beyond married people as “married people”. I wish it were easier to not reduce people to easy, single data points.
Another type of specialty ward that has made me uncomfortable at times are wards whose membership requires a certain race or ethnicity. I understand there is sometimes a language component, but in the U.S., I have observed these wards frequently devolving into “this is the ward for people of a certain ethnicity” instead of “this is the ward where we speak language XYZ.”
I am of two minds here. I lived in Utah when I turned 31 and had the option to go to another singles ward (well, to get on the waiting list if I swore to be social and date and do my visiting teaching and go to the temple and not be needy), and I didn’t want it at all. I went to a family ward and, while I did not love that ward, still preferred to the singles ward option. But I’m 10 years removed, and I find I miss certain aspects of the singles ward. No Primary meant that all the really smart women who had ideas and thoughts about the gospel were in Relief and Gospel Doctrine, asking questions and teaching lessons and sharing those thoughts. Conversation was deeper and better. (Caveat: Usually. That’s not true in every ward and it wasn’t true every Sunday, even in the good wards.) Ward activities were geared more toward my lifestyle. I have RS activities now that are in the middle of the day. I enjoyed visiting teaching a lot more because I was more likely to have things in common with those women; we were more likely to be in a similar life situation. And, I just get tired of feeling othered all the time–of being on the list of people we definitely have to reach out to because she’s all alone, and having home teachers from the high priests because that was somehow a rule (not a problem anymore, thank goodness) and wards just generally unsure what to do with me. I’ve been in Primary once–it was short, and being released was good for both me and those poor Sunbeams, and I’ve told every other bishop since that I would not be in Primary, so that’s good. But I do get slotted into the single rep calling–who else would it be?–and then get asked what “the singles” need. What I need is not what every single person needs. I go to the family ward and feel out of place for being single and I go to the singles council meeting and feel out of place for never having been married, for not looking for a partner, for not wanting to socialize, for not being lonely and sad about my single status. (Does anyone else feel that way? I already felt like a bad Mormon for being single, and then I felt like a bad single person. There’s no winning!)
I think the problem with the church is less the singles ward and family ward structure but just that, functionally, there is not a place for single people in this incredibly family-centered church. We have no organization for that. We threw in the YSA structure, probably not just to help people get centered, but that was certainly a motivation, but when that doesn’t work, what then? There just isn’t a space where we fit.
“What I need is not what every single person needs.”
I feel this in my bones. You know the saying about how the same 10 people in the ward end up doing all the heavy lifting? That’s true about singles wards too, but amplified to 1 billion. I was that person in one of my old YSA wards for a time, and I still have a lot of mixed feelings about it.
On the one hand, I’m grateful for the opportunities I had to serve those who wouldn’t have gotten that fellowship and support otherwise. I’m glad that I was able to be a friend and someone those people could turn to when they needed it, and that the leaders saw me as being capable and up for the task. On the other hand, being literally the only person doing it all caused a lot of resentment that took a long time for me to process, get past, and heal from.
Married people and leaders in the singles ward setting especially tend to forget that single adults have lives too. When it comes to service in both family and single adult wards, it shouldn’t all be put onto one person, nor should anyone assume that single adults can take on a billion different tasks just because they don’t have spouses and/or children.
I had great experiences in some student singles wards, but what finally made me quit them was simply this: Even granting that marriage is an important gospel principle, I needed the other 98% of the gospel too. It wasn’t getting its due share, and I was getting spiritually malnourished.
A couple years after my glad return to a plain old ward ward, some Real Grownups decided my church experience needed to center on my marital status some more, and gave me the calling then known as “YSA representative,” which had these duties: Attend a stake council meeting at which Real Grownups would organize programs for singles. Help them out as requested.
That’s all. That’s what the handbook said about it. I poo you not. And I was usually the only unmarried person in attendance. I’m not saying Salt Lake picked “representative” by looking up “token” in a thesaurus, but I’m not saying they didn’t.
Salt Lake did rename that calling “YSA leader” a couple months later, and commissioned us in our own right to minister to singles in our jurisdiction and try to bring them to Christ.
I assumed that meant Jesus Christ. The other members of the council seemed to think “Christ” was another name for the singles ward. The multi-stake singles ward bishop even dropped by our meeting to tell us that “the good kids all go to the singles ward” (actual quote).
I started my next turn with “Speaking as one of the ‘bad kids’,” which got a laugh, and I mentioned some reasons why I would not be supporting the position of “come unto the singles ward, and be perfected in it, and deny yourselves of all other interests, and love dating with all your might, mind, and strength,” which unfortunately did not make the “to Christ” thing as clear as I hoped in the minds of the Real Grownups.
(Note to that bishop, if he ever happens to read this: My making ’em laugh was not a completely adequate substitute for you apologizing, which would still be welcome.)
(Regarding the term “Real Grownups”: During my singles ward days, one of my Home Evening sisters, who was 22 years old, about to graduate university, and in ward leadership, once discussed some trouble she was having getting a Provo jeweler to honor their warranty on her engagement ring. Our bishop’s wife suggested that “when you go back you ought to take a grown-up with you.” Bless her heart.)
I found this, that I wrote closer to the time of those events:
Tired of fighting to get the benefits of the 95% of the Gospel that isn’t “get married,” which got poor to absent institutional support. Tired of hearing CES broadcasts out of a can: “At this period in your life, you face many important decisions regarding education, career, and relationships, blah blah blah.” Tired of getting berated at literally every Stake Priesthood Meeting for allegedly not wanting to get married, allegedly spending all my time on video games or ‘hanging out’ instead; tired of not being instructed at those meetings in any other aspect of my faith. Tired of the weak community that comes from the transience of YSAs; tired of the weak commitments that come from letting people drift from regular ward to YSA to neighboring YSA; tired of the superficial and instrumental ways that people relate to other people in an atmosphere overwhelmingly focused on only one thing; tired of being treated as though I didn’t have any other interests or needs, of being reduced from a person to a marital status. Tired, in the end, of going to The Church of You Want to Get Married of Latter-day Saints, instead of The Church of Jesus Christ.
As a recently called YSA leader, I stumbled on this thread looking for insight on how our stake reps can help us find and invite less actives to attend church, partake of the sacrament, and develop a better relationship with their Savior. What I have witnessed in our YSA ward is a group of men and women facing similar challenges in life and drawing strength from one another, serving one another, and loving one another. Also, having fun, participating in activities that they plan and execute. They also go to the temple together. Many of our ward members are not native to our area and their “home wards” are not nearby. I learn from them every week. I am 61, but still feel 25. I can share parts of my life experience if asked and want nothing more than to serve. I can empathize with your feelings of being categorized. As a young couple, we were unable to have children and each Mother’s Day was a tearful event that my wife didn’t want to celebrate. But that doesn’t mean that Mother’s Day should be removed from the calendar. More than a few said things like, “you’re the only couple in the ward without kids” or even less sensitive comments about our lack of children. However, proposing that the YSA ward program be discontinued isn’t fair to all those men and women who are making life-long friendships while worshiping together, and many times providing support to each other in ways that only they can as they face life at the same age. If you’re not looking for that, fine. But don’t discount the good it is doing in other people’s lives.
I am totally against the forced segregation being practiced against people over 30 in the Church.
Years ago a local Bishop decided to abuse this climate. He set himself up as a neo-Gestapo official and arrogantly expelled those over 30 out of Y.S.A. dances. These victims were handed a baloney sandwich and a road map to hell. If it destroyed someone’s vital social life as a Latter-day Saint………too bad and tough luck! We live in an area where we have a Young Single Adult Stake. They recently had a Regional Conference with a thousand single adults in attendance. Conversely, we also had a Regional Single Adult (31+) fireside where only 10 people showed up.
Why only 10? …Because the vast majority of expelled people over 30 take one look at the social freak show they are banished to and simply refuse to be forced into that realm. This is not a pleasant truth, but it is the unimpeachable fact of the matter. What ever happened to Joseph Smith’s mantra that stated “I teach them correct principles and they govern themselves”?
As long as anyone is behaving himself or herself, age differences at a dance are none of anybody else’s business. If nobody is being pressured to dance or flirt, free agency should prevail.
Well….we can’t have a 40 year old wanting to dance with an 18 year old…..can we? Generally speaking the answer is that such a union would be awkward in our Western culture. Our own recent and past history, however, does allow for exceptions. In the 21 century, we had President Nelson marrying a woman who is 25 years younger than he is. In the 19th century President Lorenzo Snow, age 56, married a woman who was 16 years old. They had a good marriage and 5 children together. Those were, of course, different times and conditions but I think I still have a valid point here! The current system in the Church is not working. No one, however, has the right to “Steady the Ark”. Meaningful change can only happen from the “TOP DOWN”. I hope and pray that our leadership eventually sees the problems in such a way to enact progressive changes.
That will be up to them in their Priesthood stewardships. I believe that we will someday see progress in this matter as the Brethren become more and more privy to what is happening. I say that with confidence in the jurisprudence of our leaders!
Not sure if the above comment was written by a man or a woman, but this absolutely reeks of someone in the 40+ range being butthurt over the 18-year-olds and other people in the YSA age range NOT being into them.
If you don’t understand why those age limits were put in place for activities to begin with, you’re part of the problem. I’ve seen predatory behavior come from people like you – people who don’t think there should be enforced age limits at YSA activities – firsthand. I’ve seen how uncomfortable it makes people and seen that turn YSAs away from the YSA program and the church itself.
And honestly, do you really think anyone in the YSA age range is going to be into the 40+ people? The 40+ people may think they come off as being experienced, suave, and sophisticated, but the reality is that they come off as creepy.
Honestly, just get rid of the singles program all together – for ALL AGES. It’s counterproductive and does nothing but infantilize people.