Is he your eternal companion or the ward creeper? A reflection on the downside to the existence of personal revelation in LDS dating.
Photo by Ben White on Unsplash
During this month that boasts a holiday focused on love and relationships I found myself reflecting on LDS dating which then led to me thinking about the serial ward creeper of my youth. I have a feeling most of us have a ward creeper story and if you’re open to sharing, I’d like to hear about yours so we can compare red flags and hopefully help some of the LDS youth of today avoid having experiences like this.
It’s not easy to date as an LDS teen and it’s definitely not easy to figure out how to navigate romance. In my youth, our young women’s group saw romance through the lens of the movies we watched together like “The Princess Bride” and “The Cutting Edge” but also through the lens of eternal companions and the couple from Saturday’s Warriors. To say we weren’t exactly seeing reality modeled is an understatement.
Admit it if it’s true, you’d loudly sing along to Feelings of Forever from Saturday’s Warrior while dreaming about your eternal companion too.
Todd: I’ve seen that smile somewhere before.
Julie: I’ve heard your voice before.
Both: It seems we’ve talked like this before.
Todd: Sometime, who can be certain when?
Julie: But if I knew you then…It’s strange, I can’t remember.
Both: Feelings come so very strong, like we’ve known each other oh, so long.
Todd: The circle of our love is found
Both: In every warm and tender thing
Todd: In God’s eternal plan
Julie: it goes
Todd: forever.
Photo by frank mckenna on Unsplash
Was I naive to believe that I could have an experience like this? Yes. Yes I was. I imagine a lot of us thought we’d hear a voice and somehow the veil would become thin enough for us to almost remember each other from the pre-existence. Judging from how popular it was, a lot of the young men also held the same naive belief. Coupling that naivete with the concept of personal revelation complicates romance for some youth.
A young man who started attending stake dances became quite infatuated with a young woman in my home ward. He began showing up occasionally on Sundays to join Sunday School and before long he was regularly in attendance. The young woman had not welcomed his attention and let him know that she wasn’t interested in dating him. He then showed up at her front door dressed as the Phantom of the Opera thinking it was romantic. When she told me about it I thought of the kidnapping scene as Christine is led to the dungeons of the theatre. When that “romantic” gesture didn’t give him the results he expected, he showed up in fast and testimony meeting. He stood at the pulpit and proclaimed that Heavenly Father revealed to him that he was meant to marry this person. Since the young man refused to accept that the young woman was not interested in marrying or dating him, an Elder in the ward pulled him aside in the foyer and asked that he please leave the young woman alone and not return to the ward again. He was rarely seen after that but rumors swirled that he continued to find his eternal companion over and over again in numerous wards.
Photo by Erika Giraud on Unsplash
Manipulation can be difficult to recognize in secular settings but I find it to be especially difficult to recognize when it’s used in religious settings. When it’s used in a religious setting and involves 2 people with a power imbalance, it feels scary to me. That’s what I felt when I heard that young man proclaim Heavenly Father revealed the eternal plan for him and the young woman he terrorized. There was also the smallest but noticeable thought in my mind of “what if he’s right though and she’s not able to recognize it?” I pushed that thought away but found myself wondering when exactly priesthood holders/men can get revelation for others. I was taught that priesthood leaders can receive revelation for women because of stewardship. Bishops for their ward members, male spouses for their wives, and father’s for their children. The most logical reason would be once they are married or set apart in their calling.
I’ve read accounts of Joseph Smith’s proposals to numerous wives containing revelation. Eliza Partridge writes “”While [living with Joseph Smith] he taught to us the plan of Celestial marriage and asked us to enter into that order with him. This was truly a great trial for me, but I had the most implicit confidence in him as a Prophet of the Lord and not but believe his words, and as a matter of course accept of the privilege of being sealed to him as a wife for time and all eternity. . . . Times were not then as they are now in 1877, but a woman living in polygamy dare not let it be known, and nothing but a firm desire to keep the commandments of the Lord could have induced a girl to marry in that way. I thought my trials were very severe in this line, and I am often led to wonder how it was that a person of my temperament could get along with it and not rebel. But I know it was the Lord who kept me from opposing his plans, although in my heart I felt I could not submit to them. But I did, and I am thankful to my Heavenly Father for the care he had over me in those troublous times.”[246]”
I cannot imagine what it felt like to be in this position but I worry that there’s a young woman who once opened a door to the phantom of the opera who might.
Do you ever get confused on if it’s a matter of faith or a matter of “run” and how do you combat doubt? Submit a guest post.
13 Responses
There was a man in my first singles ward in Utah (I moved there after college so was mid-20s and this was in 2005) who got up in testimony meeting and basically said women should yes when they’re asked, that they shouldn’t turn down men who ask them dates, that they should give men a chance. He didn’t call out anyone specifically and I didn’t know him well enough to know if this was spurred by a specific incident or overall frustration that he wasn’t doing as well in dating as he wanted to be, but it was uncomfortable. The women talked about it later.
I also remember a couple of Sundays that the police officer in the ward brought his gun to church because of this man, so there were some concerns. Nothing ever happened, as far as I know. But overall, he made people uncomfortable.
I met a guy who was. “Sure” I was supposed to be his eternal companion.
Fortunately I had heard elder Bednard, at the time, president of BYU I, say something like this, If you ever hear a man telling you that he received revelation and that you’re to marry him, “Run away,” and I did. It was one of the best choices and advice I received and held to it with my whole heart mind and strength.
This hits a little too close to home! While I didn’t have my particular guy tell me specifically he had received revelation, he did stalk me in I had to transfer wards because I felt so uncomfortable.
When a family member served as RS president in a singles ward in UK, she told the sisters categorically that they were in no way obliged to go on a date with anyone who asked. There was a creepy guy in the ward at the time trying to push that they should.
This reminds me of a clip from the movie Pride & Prejudice: A Latter-day comedy. A man proposes to a woman (someone he hasn’t even been on a date with) and she says no. Then he gets up in fast and testimony meeting at the singles ward and angrily says that women should say yes when a man proposes. Then the woman imagines throwing a hymnbook at his head, knocking him out, and everyone in the chapel clapping.
I’ve always been taught that both people need to receive revelation that it’s the right person to marry. If only one person receives that revelation, that’s not enough, since personal revelation is personal. I took an eternal marriage class at byui and the teacher said that women should always give a man a chance and go on at least one date with him. I don’t think women should be under any pressure to go on one date with someone they’re not interested in.
We have an older gentleman in my ward who was never sealed in the temple and desperately wants that, such that he proposes marriage to every single sister who may be able to go to the temple with him. One sister stopped attending the ward because of him. A sister who was also a neighbor, who never left the house because she had congestive heart failure, asked me to make sure he never came back to her home. It was just insulting that he was only proposing because he wanted the sealing and showed no actual care for the woman. Such “revelations” as you describe also show no interest in the woman’s feelings or ability to make her own choices.
This reminds me of something I think I’d blocked out. For a while I was in a large inner-city singles ward. There was at that time a magazine about the singles scene in that city, and once an enterprising reporter came to sacrament meeting and stayed for a linger-longer. Some time after that, the magazine featured an article talking about how these 200 unmarried young men and woman got together on a regular basis (church!), and featured a picture of one of the women in the ward looking earnestly and soulfully in wide-eyed manner at one of the men in the ward. There were many many odd men who showed up after that. Then there was the older gent who was baptized in another part of town altogether but decided he need to be in our YSA ward. I first encountered him at a dinner club activity, where he spent much of the evening describing with what seemd to be great familiarity different kinds of sexual assaults and the associated penalties. It was gross. He was really interested in a petite blonde and used to sit outside her apartment building. She took out a restraining order against him but when her complaint made it to the stake president, he said that as a baptized member of the church the fellow was welcome in any ward. Fortunately the bishopric did a better job of listening to her, and others who were bothered by him, and dealt with the problem. Then there was the man who lived well outside of our ward boundaries but said that God had told him he belonged in our ward, and that God had also told him that he was going to marry somebody in our ward so it was all right for him to be there, and that if God told him it was all right to marry a fifteen year old girl, that would make it also all right for him to do.
Fun times.
As a young woman I moved from rural Idaho to Washington D.C.. Arriving at my new job I was given a lecture on safety I never forgot, I was told it’s better to hurt someone’s feelings than compromise on safety. That advice has served me well.
Isn’t it ironic that Lex De Azevedo, who wrote Saturday’s Warrior, is also the father of Julie Hanks, who is the amazing therapist trying to combat these harmful ideas?
I’d never heard of Saturday’s Warrior until I was a teenager, watched it once at a seminary party and … wow. So bad.
Also ironic: once on vacation, I was approached by a man who sat next to me on a beach and then tried to kiss me. He backed off when I pushed him away, and then I sat there wondering how long I should stay so I didn’t seem rude. Then Matt Lauer’s voice, of all people (he had not yet been outed as a sex pest, but he knew what he was and still said this), popped into my head; in “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” he said, “I’m always amazed at what women will do because they’re afraid of being rude.”
There is currently, and has been for 30 plus years, a creeper to me, in my ward. He’s an old guy, married, but always manages to sidel up to me and give me a rub on the back or take my arm for a handshake. For years, I’ve pulled away before the gestures but finally had to tell him not to touch me. He was offended, oh well. ( i’m single and in my 70’s! He’s like 85 plus now… ick.
My mistake is I went out with the creeper. I should have gotten a clue on him when on our first date he ‘joked’ he was driving to Reno to get married. I told him if he didn’t turn the car around I was going to jump out. Some time went by when he left to work at Yellowstone. He came back and told me God told him I was to be his wife. Me, “Uh, what?” He told those at my Institute the same thing. The problem was I didn’t get that same revelation. He stalked me at work and on my college campus. I was so freaked out that I asked my guy friends if they’d walk me to and from classes. I asked my stake president if that creeper was right and he asked me, “Did you get a similar revelation?” Me, “No.” My stake president told me that revelation didn’t work the way creeper said and no, I didn’t have to marry him. Much later, my younger sister shared that her friend was pregnant by that same creeper guy. He told me it was my fault because he would never have gotten that girl pregnant if I’d done what God told me to do. So glad when I went to BYU and didn’t have to worry about him. But yes, that was the scariest experience I had.
I had a close friend who was on the male side of this. At Christmas Break, he confided in my that God had heard his prayers and revealed to him the woman in his congregation who was to be his wife. At that time they had a nodding acquaintances but he had plans for when he returned to school the next semester.
He returned that January and tried to woo this young woman to no availe, no reaction to the revelation that God had revealed to him, their intended marriage.. She politely and definitely shut his offers and pleaded down as kindly as possible. My friend , awash is hurt and resentment towards God sank into depression and barely managed to save the semester.
When he returned he was distant and one day talking to his mother said to me,”We’ve talked to our church leader and come to find out, this often happens to young men at Oral Robert’s University. Not just us ….