Single, intelligent, and female

I tracked down a friend from college a week ago, and we met up for lunch and had a good talk.

My college friend looked very good. She is single, thin and toned, with long blond hair. She is beautiful and brilliant, with a PhD from Harvard. She is also a Mormon.

From the conversation, I gathered that my friend loves her job. She loves her life. She has excellent career prospects and looks forward to the future. She also wishes she could find an equal partner to share her future with. But she is losing hope.

The tricky part is the Mormon part, I think. She told me that many of the Mormon men she has dated tend to think that the reason she is so successful in her career is because they were not in the picture before. Once they become part of the picture, naturally she will give up everything else to be their servant. In fact, she has had multiple relationships end with the male quoting the Family Proclamation to her. Not the bit about loving and caring for one another, and not the bit about helping one another as equal partners, but the bit just before that about fathers presiding and mothers nurturing. Apparently they interpret this as meaning that if the relationship continues, they get to start making all her career decisions from now on. And Dude! Can't wait to put her in the kitchen!

So, for some reason, my beautiful talented intelligent friend doesn't think that's a good idea. Nor does she agree with their selective reading of certain proclamations.

I hope you're sitting down, because I'm about to make a confession here. I don't agree with their selective reading either! I think they're totally out of line. And the thing that bugs me the most is the implication that my friend is somehow righteously-impaired because she doesn't agree with them.

Hey Mister Uber-faithful, who do you think gave my friend her impressive talents anyway? Who did sin, my friend, or her parents, that she was born talented? I think neither my friend nor her parents did sin, that she was born talented, but that the works of God should be made manifest through her. Naturally, she must give up all these talents and scrub your shower with a toothbrush, to prove to God that she is faithful. Or maybe, just maybe, you can cough up $12 per hour to get yourself a housekeeper, so that she doesn't have to bury her talents in the ground. Maybe.

Of course, if you did stick with my friend, you run the serious risk that she might, um, have some different opinions than you. You might have stimulating conversations that sometimes border on disagreement. You might even *gasp* learn to respect a woman!

Now, when I back up and put my reality glasses back on, it does occur to me that these men with these issues are probably not spending time here at the Clown and Poker. And frankly, I suspect my friend doesn't really want them back. A heavy handed misquote or two from a family proclamation pretty much dooms a relationship in a hurry.

But every time I think about our conversation I get annoyed. Not that I'm particularly bothered by the self-righteousness of morons. I am, however, bothered that my attractive friend is still single when she wishes not to be -- that she hasn't found someone as bright and diligent and faithful as herself to share her dreams with.

So anyway, if any of you happen to know any intelligent, thoughtful, religious, single man -- age about late 20's to mid 30's -- who wants to share his life with a friend and an equal rather than just win a lifetime of free housekeeping, I know a really great single woman who is still looking. Let him apply.