Things I've learned from my 2.5 years in East Mormonistan

1. Contrary to popular belief, Mormons are not really all that weird.  Though there are some around that are weird in a good way (and I've made friends with most of those, of course!) and a small group that are weird in a creepy way (I try to avoid those), the majority of Mormons are mind-numbingly, depressingly normal.  Mormonism may be a little strange at times for sure, but Mormons as people are usually just about as average and ordinary as humanly possible.  Mormon college students are exactly like non-Mormon college students, except with a lot less sex and drugs.  ...Usually.
2. I really like going on dates.  Before I came to SVU, I had never really been on a date at all.  Now, after just short of a dozen dates (yes, I've been counting), I can only say that I've never been on a bad date.  Even the ones where I had no real attraction to the person involved (blind dates or times where I was matched up with someone as part of some event where you had to have a date) the date itself was still fun.  Even the one that seemed like it was going to be terrible at first turned out good.  If if it was even remotely possible for me to go on a date with someone every week, I probably would.  Unfortunately...
3. ...I hate asking girls on dates.  Dates themselves are great.  Asking girls on dates is freaking torture.  It is literally the hardest thing I have ever tried to do, not even exaggerating.  It's almost like I'm just naturally set up in such a way that makes even attempting to ask someone on a date a long, drawn-out, and miserable experience 9 times out of 10.  There have been a few times where I actually had no difficulty (usually when asking someone I've already asked on a date before, though there was one exception), but every other time? It's really a pain.  First of all, I can't just instantly go out and do it the first moment that I get the thought of "hey, I actually kind of like her, maybe I should ask her on a date sometime."  Partly because I tend to have a really hard time actually finding the people I'm thinking of asking out when I first start to feel that way, but mostly because I just am not the sort of person who can rush into things like this.  I can't track someone down and immediately ask her on a date the first moment I start to feel something for her.  Usually one of two things happen: either I spend several days or a week or more trying to figure out how I would even attempt it (and what we'd do on the date), or I spend several days or a week or more wondering if it's really a good idea or if I'm just completely doomed and shouldn't even bother.  And then once I get beyond that point and get around to "actually thinking of asking her on a date the next time I have a chance," it usually takes a long time (often multiple attempts) to actually get around to the asking part.  The first time I asked someone on a date it took me three days.  It was almost four.  Three failed attempts to get so much as a single word out later, I basically broke down and spent several hours wandering around being miserable before I finally managed to calm down, sit under a tree out in the middle of nowhere, and try calling her and asking her on a date that way instead.  Which worked, and the date actually went really well, and I'm definitely glad I finally managed to pull it off, but... the three (almost four) days leading up to that were still torture.  Since then it hasn't been quite that bad again (no more three-failed-attempts-in-a-row experiences at least) but it's still pretty rough, and a lot of people just don't seem to understand how difficult it is for me.  Worse yet, a lot of people still have this warped idea that "guys always have to do the asking, girls should just sit around and wait for some guy to ask them" stuck in their heads, so of course I've never been lucky enough to have a girl ask me on a date.  Seriously, I'd probably even go on a date with someone I didn't really like at all if she actually asked me rather than the other way around.  I might even be okay with paying for food or something just as a "thank you" for taking the 50-ton weight of actually-asking-someone off my shoulders for once.
4. I need friends.  I didn't mind being alone so much when it was pretty much the only option (high school, most of the Dabney years.)  But now that I've actually had friends that I've gotten pretty close to, the loneliness that comes with not seeing them often is so much worse than it ever was before.  I don't know how I'd be able to handle going back home to Middle of Nowhere, VA where I almost never see anyone I know (seriously, bumping into two friends--and actually managing to fit in a decent conversation with both--over the last summer was pretty much the record back home.)  Even living here in Buena Vista has gotten way too lonely this semester, what with me being down in my apartment most of the time and only occasionally seeing friends.  I've found myself just wandering up on campus sometimes, hoping that I'll actually bump into someone (a few specific people in particular, but anyone I know decently well is a welcome sight.)  Sometimes that actually works, but usually I just end up kind of wandering around bored and lonely up there with nothing much to do.
5. I actually really like talking to people.  I used to consider myself kind of a quiet person.  Back home I didn't really have many people I could talk to (and basically nobody that I could talk to about just about anything; my sister was probably the only person I knew back home that I could bring a lot of things up with and not worry about weird reactions.)  After actually having friends that I see and talk to on a regular basis, though, I've found out that I was never really been a quiet person... I just never had anyone to talk to before.  Now I can sit down and just talk to someone for an hour or two without any problems, assuming nothing comes up that stops me (like if I or the other person has to go off and do something else.)  I basically don't ever run out of things to talk about if I'm talking to someone I like talking to.  Conversations can drag on a little bit if the other person isn't really saying much (don't just sit there and listen, say something! I don't want to feel like I'm just talking to a wall, that's why I don't ever pray), but usually even that doesn't get to the point where I just don't feel like talking anymore.  I've gotten a whole lot better about talking to people I don't know as well since I've been here, too.  Now I have a much easier time getting to know new people (so long as it's just me and one or two new people, no crowdy situations), and sometimes I even find myself talking to random people in the checkout line at the store and stuff like that, which is something I haven't been able to do since my age was in the single digits.
6. "Stealth assholes" are everywhere.  There's no type of asshole I hate more than "stealth assholes," the kind who can be completely horrible normally but then disguise themselves as a decent person the moment anyone they don't want to know about their horribleness happens to come around.  Worse, this disguise is so convincing to the majority of people (who don't really pay close attention) that they end up thinking that this asshole is actually a great person who has all these positive qualities and whatnot.  They buddy up with school principals and other authority figures and manage to get away with everything, they convince the girls they're dating (who probably should be able to see through it if they're around them so often... but no, unfortunately liking someone tends to cloud your judgment when it comes to whether or not that person is actually worth liking) that they're such great guys, and meanwhile those of us who can see through their act are just sitting back shaking our heads and wishing we could punch them so hard they'd forget they were ever assholes in the first place.  Not all of them are guys, of course (I have definitely run into female "stealth assholes" before!), but society does encourage "stealth asshole-like" behavior in guys a lot more strongly than it does for girls (the whole thing where guys think they have to be "overconfident macho moron" one second, then switching over to "gentleman" the next, depending on whether it's just guys or if there are girls around)... so it seems to pop up more often in those who carry around a Y chromosome.  But yeah... though high school was the first (and for a while, only) place I encountered them, they're definitely not just in high schools.  "Stealth assholes" are everywhere.  You've definitely encountered them on the Internet, people who might seem nice in their day-to-day lives but then come online and suddenly transform into rampaging trolls and other sorts of horrible Internet-monsters.  You probably know at least a few in real life too, whether you've been able to see them for what they really are yet or not.  You might be related to one.  Your school (either past or present) probably has at least one among its administrative staff.  You may even be dating one.  Beware!
7. I actually am capable of... I guess you could call it a "jealous" reaction, when I suspect someone else might like the same girl(s) I do.  I don't know if "jealous" is technically the right word for this situation, but eh, I don't really know how to put it into words.  Anyway... this is a pretty recent development.  I never really had this sort of thing happen to me before last year, and I didn't think I was capable of feeling that way before.  But yeah... when I actually like someone, sometimes I will get abnormally worried and nervous if I suspect that someone else also likes the same person and that there's a chance they might end up dating or something.  Surprisingly, it's actually not so bad when I just find out later that someone I was starting to like suddenly has a boyfriend.  Unless that boyfriend is a moron or just not that great of a person, anyway, but in that case it's more of a "she deserves better" sort of thing rather than me having a problem with the concept of the girl I liked dating someone in general--if I found out someone I liked was dating one of my male friends who I consider to be a good person, I don't think it would bother me much if at all.  But when I just sort of suspect something might be going on, that's the worst.  It happened once last semester when a friend hinted that I knew the girl he liked.  I really should've known who he was referring to (and actually, it turned out that my first guess was the girl he was actually talking about)... but then I ended up thinking of all of the people that both me and the other guy knew, which at the time was a pretty short list.  And then the thought popped into my mind that he might've been referring to someone else, who I had liked for a really long time, and I started to kind of freak out.  More recently, this has happened again, though since it's not really common knowledge that I like this girl (...I didn't even know it until a few weeks ago!), I won't describe the situation here. (This is not the same person I was referring to above, of course... I think pretty much everyone knows I like her by this point.  Except that she herself might not. I really don't know. XD)
8. Online dating sites are basically worthless.  Yeah, this one's completely unrelated to me being at SVU, but I figured I'd go ahead and throw it in.  I'm still on OKCupid, but I haven't actually heard from anyone on there (aside from spam messages trying to get me to click on their links, which will inevitably either send me to a porn site or try to steal my credit card number) in months and after nearly a year (I joined sometime around last March if I'm remembering right) of having a profile on there, regularly answering their questions, and that sort of thing I still haven't managed to actually meet anyone in person.  My profile's "weekly visitors" count had dropped down from the mid-teens or even low-twenties sometimes all the way to something like 7 the last time I checked, so... basically nobody's even giving me a first look, let alone a second.  There've been a few people I've talked to on the site, and one that I ended up connecting with on Skype and actually getting to know a bit (...before she suddenly disappeared from the Internet for months without any warning ahead of time), but nobody I've found on there actually seems to have been interested in meeting me and going on a date or something.  There's been a few  that kind of creeped me out and a few that suddenly stopped sending more messages to me after I presumably said something that scared them off (mentioning my crowd-freakout issue seems to have done it one time; now I have it mentioned in my profile to weed out those who can't deal with the thought that someone might not be comfortable when surrounded by a faceless swarm of strangers.)  And that's the site I've had the most luck with--I've had even less luck with the sites I've tried in the past, and most of the others out there seem to either be way too narrowly focused on a specific type of person... or they're the "pay to do anything significant" kind, and I'm not wasting such a huge chunk of money every month on a dating site when I know that it's going to take many, many months to actually find anyone (if it ever happens at all.)  Sometimes I feel like online dating sites are only worth it for people who have no trouble with "offline dating" in the first place.  In other words, the people who least need any extra help.  It probably doesn't help that I'd rather communicate in-person than online in the first place...
9. I can actually cook stuff.  Yeah, weird right? In a matter of less than a year, I went from "can't cook much of anything that isn't microwavable or pasta" to "can cook fajitas, stir-fry noodles, pancakes, and all sorts of other stuff without help or recipes."  And of course, the pasta-related stuff I've been making has gotten a bit fancier since then too (sometimes it's just tomato sauce, other times I sort of make my own "sauce" with soy sauce, spices, Tabasco, veggies, etc...)  I guess living alone in a place with a kitchen does that.
10. I actually really like cooking stuff, either for myself or for other people.  Even weirder than me finding out that I can cook, I've found that I really enjoy having friends over and cooking them some food.  It hasn't happened many times so far, but it's always turned out really well when it has (both in terms of the food coming out good and the overall experience.)   Which also ties into a couple things I mentioned above--I can never run out of ideas for a date as long as "come to my apartment and I'll cook you food!" is still an option.  Not that I've actually been on any dates within the past year, but still, it's nice to know that if by some freakish streak of luck it ends up happening again I'll be able to come up with something to do that won't empty my wallet nearly as fast as going out to eat would.