Life on the Edmond cult compound must be boring as hell at times when it comes to dating. Where are they going to go other than the barn yard, the nearby fields or the Armstrong Auditorium for Bible Study. Maybe some celtic dancing, too.
At least those who attended Pasadena could walk into Pasadena or to numerous restaurants nearby. Not so much with the Edmond compound crowd. It's not kosher to mix with the unwashed heathens of the world unless Flurry and crew have courted them for their money for the concert series.
Especially for turnabout or more formal occasions, you can add some cheer by creatively requesting the pleasure of their company via:
- Presenting her a punny poster: (e.g. draw a music staff and start your message with, “I’ve been thinking of a clef-er way to ask you …”).
- Placing a note in a balloon with confetti and asking the recipient to pop it.
- Writing it in sidewalk chalk. (If the date is long-distance, take a photo and e-mail it.)
- Giving him a hammer and a note in a small block of ice that says, “Now that the ice is broken, will you be my turnabout date?”
Speaking from experience
Here are some tips from singles on how to have a great dating experience.
- Step out of your comfort zone.
- Be mindful of your date’s schedule, and be willing to be flexible.
- Sometimes less is more.
- Keep the group smaller. This makes it more of a date and less of a party.
- Embrace whatever activity you are participating in.
- Don’t overthink it: It’s purpose is just to serve and get to know each other better.
Date Ideas
Have fun with food
- Do a video call from a café
- Make dinner with your date
- Host a themed dinner or potluck
- Picnic at the park or beach
- Host a progressive dinner
- Make your own Chopped challenge
- Host a barbecue
- Host a fondue night (savory and/or sweet)
Get active
- Learn a new sport together
- Go on a scavenger hunt at a park
- Fly a kite (try making your own)
- Go roller-blading
- Go fishing
- Try geocaching
- Make your own disc golf course
- Hit the go-kart track
- Cycle around the city
- Plan a treasure hunt
- Create an obstacle course
- Visit a botanical garden, zoo or aquarium
- Hike a trail
- Go canoeing
- Go horseback riding
- Go bowling
- Try an Amazing Race challenge
Use the music
- Have a music-themed video call
- Sing karaoke
- Attend a college or high school musical
- Have a lip-sync battle
- Go to an outdoor concert
Game on
- Play Catch Phrase
- Compete in Minute to Win It challenges
- Have a Lego-making contest
- Plan a Whose Line Is It Anyway challenge
- Play tabletop games with snacks
- Have a trivia night
Try something new
- Draw or paint together
- Watch a local sports team
- Watch an outdoor movie
- Tour a museum or gallery
- Attend an outdoor festival
- Play mini golf
Where's the time machine?!?!? I didn't want THIS! Yecch! I wanna go back to 2016.
ReplyDeleteActually, most of the activities in the "Get Active" section, I have done on dates. That part seems unfettered by timelines or trends, as these are activities which are always in style.
ReplyDeleteIt is surprising that apparently live music plays no part in these dating activities. Rock, Blues, and Country artists that enjoy the status of being national acts often put on awesome, uplifting concerts, and also there is local talent in any major city playing their hearts out in smaller venues just about any night of the week.
They seem to have left out any sort of auto racing, which is always an adrenalin rush. Classic car shows, too. Apparently, motorcycles are still not held in very high regard amongst the COGgers, and I don't see going to the firing range and practicing Second Amendment Rights listed. That is always a real kick in the pants!
It would be nice if they had listed cross-cultural events, like attending a Cinco de Mayo festival or a Martin Luther King Day celebration. Maybe a Bob Marley memorial reggae festival! From what we can tell, apparently these PCG folks' cultural lives are even limited by British Israelism! (In addition to Victorian thinking)
Oh well. This further illustrates why freedom and real zest for life are just so awesome! PCG: 2BAD4U!
BB
Why don't they just go out and screw like normal teenagers and young adults?
DeleteFrom my church experiences, all these 'date ideas' are 'pearls before swine' when it comes to church women. They are only interested in activities where the men are required to spent large amounts of money. Yes I've heard the odd woman say that men don't have to spend much on a date, but I have rarely seem it. The church woman are spoilt silly, they know that men can't date outsiders, so they demand that men pay through the nose, to date them. And when then men refuse their extortion, they run to the ministers, expecting them to intimidate the men into dating them. Like the ministers, they live in a fantasy world. I would love them to date in the 'real world' and see what life is really like. Come to think about it, who would ask them out with their privileged, queen of Sheba mindset. And if asked out, the men would demand sex in exchange for the big money spent. Spoilt silly brats. They even make Elisha Elijah Bob look good.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree partially with the anon from 1:46 - Generally these ideas, while nice don't work on a lot of the women in the church. However, they're there because a majority of young males in the church (who I was once upon a time) had little to no spending cash because of the ludicrous tithing you have to do and limited job options.
ReplyDeleteI don't see anything wrong with the ideas but in my experience at the HQ compound it was quite difficult to find anything both affordable and mentally stimulating enough to enjoy while on a date. The ideas listed here only work for certain individuals and get boring pretty damn fast.
OKC does have a drag strip but it's too far away for most students and on top of that two underclassmen of the opposite sex cannot be outside of campus together (from what I can remember) without a third wheel or more.
They need to leave that f____g church, grow some brains and think independently. Why in hell would normal adolescents or full-grown adults allow some "church" to tell them what to do, whom to date, or how to live their lives. It's insanity. Thanks Buddah or some Goddess of good sense, I never belonged to one of these Abrahamic religions and especially not to one of the authoritarian, fundamentalist ones.
DeleteA series of naive dating ideas apparently written with young people from the 1950's in mind.
ReplyDeleteThere is only a slight problem with this and that is apart from the handful of kids harvested to HWAC annually there really aren't all that many datable people left in the PCG.
As Brian Davis recently commented, median age of the average PCG field congregations are around the 50+ mark, with some even older. Further as anon 2:04 PM said, most of the single guys that do exist are broke, and not just because of poor employment opportunities, but due simply to the fact that many are just too old to be in the workforce, at least in a competitive sense.
Although he is not listed as the author, the whole article reeks of Joel Hilliker's absurd prescriptive mindset. The penmanship of someone who has never really experienced life at all.
Well, this is an interesting thing. When I was a student at AC, one activity that was expected was that students would artificially make themselves older. Part of this process involved eschewing current trends and styles, and hearkening back to many of the activities in which previous generations had been immersed during less "perverted" times. Don't pick Led Zeppelin or Grateful Dead songs as your favorites, instead go for barbershop quartet music, and songs like "That Old Lamplighter". No hip clothing! 1940s styles were the apex in style and good taste. Red Mustang? Heck no. A Rambler would be much more practical, and would bespeak of stability. And, always remember Brylcream or Alberto VO5!
ReplyDeleteThese things are what ultra conservative people do! They want one boring but "reliable" set that never changes, never shakes things up or provides a sense of renewal. As Josephus eulogized righteous rulers, "made no innovations".
It's good to have some things that are rock solid, things upon which all of us can base a stable life. But, the extent to which Armstrongism went in over-defining these things made for a totally Kafkaesque existence. This is the sort of thinking that once led James Malm to observe that society began to go down hill at about the time that people largely quit wearing hats.
BB
Hmm...fedoras,bad sweaters,rootbeer floats,and dapper-dan marketing ideas?
ReplyDeleteSince we're talkin' about the crazed PCG, don't forget about the elitist "squat cobbler".
ReplyDeleteThey left out "Smoke a joint"
ReplyDeleteAbout "spoilt women". Keep in mind that many women in cogs do have a 1950's mindset. Men are expected to be head of household and the main provider. Spending on such a woman sends signals about the type of provider you will be. I don't say that this is right but women who are stuck in that mindset will be looking for a generous provider.
ReplyDeleteThis post echos back to my youthful Worldwide Church of God experience. I left the cult at age 20, but because I still harbored many of the beliefs inside of me for many years beyond my exit including (but not limited) dating outside the Church which was prohibited. Besides, internally I felt too weird and different to date anyone outside the Armstrong religion.
ReplyDeleteSo how does a person who grew up in the Worldwide Church of God, leaves at age 20, whose siblings all married within the Church finds a mate in this society?
The answer is I didn't until much latter in life. And this is most troubling aspect of the Armstrong experience for me personally. I didn't have a "wife of my youth" to rejoice in. Then there is the children that I didn't have. I spent most of my adult life single and alone. Thanks Mr. Armstrong!
Richard
Yeh, 6:43, theirs is one sad case, extreme enough to where one could almost recommend that as good therapy for perhaps a couple years. It'd alter their minds from the legalistic, almost inhuman view.
ReplyDeleteBB
Never forget, brethren, classic, vintage American culture is what the first century apostles were raised with.
ReplyDeleteThe apostles only watched shows like Father In Heaven Knows Best, or Leave it to Jesus on their Bedrock-style stone television sets. No Euripides or Shakespeare.
The apostles only listened to Big Band or classical music. None of those Elizabethan brothel jigs or modern rock-n-roll.
The apostles only wore suits, ties, button-down shirts, and leather-soled shoes. None of those pagan togas, or foppish breeches and hosiery.
None of the apostles wore hipster beards or 19th-century burnsides, powdered wigs, colonial-style ponytails or medieval pageboy haircuts, no sir! They were all cleanshaven with short-cropped haircuts, just like Jesus!
If one must wear glasses, spectacles or hornrims are always appropriate. Don't go for those rectangular, demonic, Eurotrash lenses.
This will be the culture and style of the kingdom of god, brethren! Better get used to it. Everything that came earlier is of the devil, and everything that came later is also of the devil.
Looking at these photos, that generation had a very distinctive dress personality. Every 10 years or so, music, hair, dress styles are noticeably different. Every generation wants to feel different in some ways to previous generations. Consider how Americas founding fathers dressed. This has to be from God. Yet the WCG demanded members be stuck in the 1940s or 1950s fashion wise, the same generation as Herbie or Rod. The home, sweet home look. Perhaps they would have church members watch Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movies.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous at 11:31
ReplyDeleteNice ad-hom there kiddo.
Amy Flurry gave me a stern lecture when I baked cookies for a male friend several States away. She said that was a form of dating and very inappropriate. She advised me to counsel a minister immediately!
ReplyDeleteFugg! The mindset of these people!
Here at HQs you have people that whore around and are promiscuous and no one says anything. Then you have those that are prude and they get sent to the ministry!
The longer I live, the more I agree with the fictional guy saved from a planetary colony on Star Trek who said that you just put two young people in close proximity and lat nature take its course. I would add that a little moral guidance, prucent sex education and caution would be good too. We humans seem determined to compicate everything. Allen C. Dexter
ReplyDelete7.15 AM Mickey, you are referring to a man courting a woman for marriage. I agree with you there. There's the old adage that a tight purse is ugly in courting.
ReplyDeleteBut that's not what I was referring to in my first post. Most dating in the church isn't courting, but simply socialising. This is almost unique. In free society, if a man asks a woman out, it's because he likes the woman and sees a potential mate. In the church this typically isn't the case, since there is a limited number of singles. Because of this, I question whether the man should pay at all. In many congregations, men outnumbered woman. The result was that the woman could ignore their date, or even abuse them and still be asked out. This was a common complaint. For many woman, the church was a social gold mine. Woman that would rarely, if ever be asked out in the real world, were socially booked out weeks in advance. Spoilt brats, as I said.
Most doctrines of all major religions apply to DNA.
ReplyDeleteHindu are right on the molecular and atomic level.
Christians are right on the level that Man is the Carier or Vessel of the Sacred in himself (that is DNA).
Strict adherence to Islam and Catholic doctrine ensures the survival of DNA and I am not even talking about the Mormons.
All social interaction and social adhesion serves the purposes of Maslowian comfort and the procreation of that that is inherent in the vessel of man. (dna)
DNR was a big thing in early Armstrongism. He was half right. It should have been DNA.
If Elon Musk gets its way. DNA is soon going to start claiming its inheritance among the stars, starting at planet Mars.
nck
nck What are you smoking?
ReplyDeleteOops 2:12 should be at the Jelly thread.
ReplyDeletenck
It seems we all had different experiences after we left the WCG and Ambassador dating scene. My sympathies with you Richard from the Lake of Fire cog. Perhaps if I had known you back when you were 20 we could have had some fun. I left when I was 21, and my first achievements were to make up for lost time. Within a few weeks I had had sex with several worldly men (I am a woman heterosexual). They were reasonably nice but thought I was troubled. I also tried several different types of drugs..... As one of those early boyfriends pointed out, most girls go thru years of flirting, kissing, almost doing it before they take the plunge so to speak -- I was somehow missing all that preliminary stuff.
ReplyDeleteYears later I met a few of the young guys who were in the local church back then (this was the 1970's so a totally different time and church men were almost normal). They told me what a lot of fun they had with the church girls, and you know what they say about catholic girls, the same was true they said. It sounds like todays church men are not much fun at all. Nobody needs to pay when you are sitting in the back of a car smoking a joint, then lying on the beach together......
It always helps if the man has a car........no matter who you are.
anonymous @9:43
ReplyDeleteDon't use your choice to remain in a cult at a young age as an excuse for you being a slut/druggie when you decided to finally break free. You did all that of your own accord and no one forced you to do that.
Your self worth isn't determined by others but by what standard you hold yourself to.
Do you feel better about yourself now that you've ridden the cock carousel?
anonymous 9:43. All I can say is I am very happy not to have been a virgin my whole life. Are there any people who never experienced any of these pleasures because of that screwed up church. Definitely the leaders had more than their fill and didn't miss any earthly pleasures.
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't so much my choice to be in a cult because I grew up in it -- I was brainwashed no doubt. When I went to AC and saw how the leaders lived and how GTA acted around the female students I wasn't too innocent to understand what was going on.
Yes those early years of freedom after I left were wonderful, and probably the church made it more exciting to taste forbidden fruit. None of us knows what we would have done if we hadn't had the influence of WCG, this is especially so for those of us who were children in the cult.........
and anonymous 9:06, I do not regret my sexual experiences 40 years ago at all. In fact I am very happy that I had sex with more people than just one or none, perhaps it was the best part of my life. I did make a point of avoiding men who were angry and had chips on their shoulder and called women sluts.
ReplyDeleteAnon at 7:17: Nicely put. And closing with an excellent zinger at 7:42. You sound like a woman worth knowing.
ReplyDeleteI"m not flirting with you. I'm happily and irrevocably married, even after 44 years. I just mean it's fun to be around people with the kind of joie de vivre you express.
That was the one good thing about the WCG, they didn't teach that sex is dirty.
ReplyDeleteI can't help noticing that the people who are promiscuous, just about always have a poor character.
Sex is not dirty? It is if you're doing it right.
ReplyDelete(Apologies to Woody Allen)
Talking of sex, one in five people has herpes. And that's a generalisation. Within the permissive segment, it would be close to 100%. Seeing that there is no cure, and that the medications that supress the symptoms cause long term health problems, you are nuts if you screw around. Keep it in the pants guys.
ReplyDeleteThere a advertisement video on a $50 quake cure for herpes (it's good to get a dissident viewpoint) and as it says, herpes is a real relationship killer.
"Hello, I've got herpes."
7:42 pm said:"very happy that I had sex with more people than just one or none,"
ReplyDelete"..one or none"?
a freudian slip or did you mean rather than being a nun?
They are! Right under the noises of the ministry?
ReplyDeleteActually, what is a slut or a druggie? In Armstrongism, one or two illicit experiences pretty much branded you, if they were known. I knew people who honestly believed that if you had ever been married, and if the marriage ended in divorce, you could never truly be in love again. And then, of course, they found themselves divorced and ultimately falling in love with a new person. There were a fortunate few others who found something close to a soul mate right off the bat. And, then there were marriages that would never have happened, were it not for many of us regarding "1975" as the quintessential event horizon. When that didn't happen, snapping the fetters unleashed some risky and dangerous behavior, at least for a while, until a new sense of equillibrium was reached. Some were fearless. After being scared crapless about the Germans for decades, anything else that could possibly happen seemed almost tame.
ReplyDeleteBB
I think Byker Bob has done a good job of explaining the situation back in the 70's. One of my fears was that I might end this life as a virgin. Of course I was going to be made into God, but spirit beings didn't have sex. Ministers (all married and had families) assured me that the wonders of being God would be so much greater than having sex.......but I still felt somewhat robbed. Plus I wanted to have children.
ReplyDeleteSome ministers were even mentioning us (the single young people) in sermons. Ranting on about giving up eternal life for sex like Esau trading his birthright for a bowl of soup, and then there were the venereal disease warnings.
We didn't go to doctors back then either, so I used to wonder if someone did get an STD would they get annointed, or would they go to the doctor and get antibiotics? Many of these situations were solved by our wonderful leaders who decided to allow divorce and remarriage, and medical care when THEY needed it.
As for abortion, well that was another conumdrum. It was not ever mentioned because why would anyone in our church need one? In our local church an obese and fairly plain young woman suddenly had a baby. She was one of those girls who went completely unnoticed. In fact no one noticed she was pregnant. The story was that she was raped by a man who jumped out of a bush as she was walking home and after that she didn't know she was pregnant. I didn't really believe that story, and I hope things worked out for her and her child, I can't remember seeing her after she had the baby.