Losing Sanity

One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different result every single time you do the exact same thing. The biggest thing is how does one break the cycle.

In anthropology, there are specific phases of life that allow one to be considered an adult by the social culture in which they live. Childhood evolves into adolescence and then there is what is known as the liminal phase where the adolescent is thrown out of time, so to speak, preparing for the socially accepted rite of passage. Once successfully completed, this rite of passage marks the entrance to adulthood. If one never successfully completes the rite of passage, one is never allowed to leave the liminal phase or allowed back into the proper flow of time--one is never seen as an adult or accepted back into society. In a sense, the caste system of Indian culture exists in all cultures. Those in this perpetual liminal phase are seen as pariah and never feel as if they fit or belong.

In the Mormon American sub-culture, 14 is the age at which the evolution to adolescence begins. Young men and women are allowed to go to church-sponsored dances and once a year, there is a Youth Conference where service activities are combined with spiritual speakers, food, and a dance. From the ages of 14-18, monthly dances and annual youth conferences in their specific geographic location are how they learn to socialize among their peers who have the same standards. At 16, group dating is encouraged while pairing off isn’t encouraged until after high school graduation.

For men and women, the college years between 18-25 are considered that liminal phase. From the ages 18-31, they graduate to an age group called Young Single Adults.  There are monthly church sponsored activities and annual YSA conferences. This is when one is expected to gain a higher education or vocational training, date, marry, and begin a family. If one hasn’t achieved this, the liminal phase continues.  The biggest question is what to do when you reach the age of 31 and haven’t successfully completed the rite of passage that is celebrated in the pageantry of a wedding reception. 

I have done a few calculations recently and realized that for approximately 18 years I have attended the same activities month-after-month, year-after-year in the hopes that I would make friends with people and, by so doing, meet someone of the opposite gender who would want me to share life. 18 years of doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result and the only thing I have achieved is a mild sense of insanity where the thought of dating is concerned.

I realized this recently when an acquaintance posted the information for a Singles Conference in Denmark and announced that she was going. WHY??? Why do we do this to ourselves? Is the potential for meeting friends and developing long-lasting relationships more likely because one is constantly meeting new people in geographic locations other than where one resides and works? Are the people one associates with on a regular basis so mundane and no longer worthwhile that one must constantly seek the new thrill of telling a stranger your name, hoping that they will be so impressed by you that they work to maintain a relationship with you?

I find this to be more work than maintaining the relationships with the people I already know. I know this is going to sound like I have unrealistic expectations of people or relationships, but I would like to believe that life should be closer to the fiction presented in the movie “Some Kind of Wonderful” by John Hughes. The main character, played by Erik Stoltz, has a female best friend whom he never really sees as a girl do to her tomboy-ish-ness. While he quietly crushes on the head cheerleader--who doesn’t really know he’s alive--his best friend can’t figure out why she’s good enough to talk to but not good enough for him to see as a desirable female. (Yes, I identify with this character a lot.)

In the end, the guy realizes that he’s not in love with the cheerleader and is in danger of losing the friendship of someone very special to him because of the idea that something better was out there. He comes to his senses and asks his best friend to share his future with him. And they walk down the road together. I think he realizes that he would rather spend his life with the person he already knows and loves than risk losing that for the possibility that he could achieve that same relationship with a stranger. 

Am I insane or just super-naive about this whole business??

The idea of a goldfish is more and more appealing and equally frustrating.