Admittedly, there was a time when I loved stake dances. They were fun when I was a Mia Maid. I had a boyfriend who was not really my boyfriend because we weren’t sixteen. He lived across town, so the only time we got to see each other was at the stake dances.
Once a month, I would apply an even greater amount of eyeliner and mascara than normal, don a horribly ugly floral rayon dress, and go to the dance, where I would dance every single slow dance with my non-boyfriend.
It was magical.
On the night that 1999 turned into 2000, I was dancing to Lady in Red with my non-boyfriend (“our” song!) when an adult came up and shoved a Book of Mormon in between us.
“You guys are dancing way too close,” he said. If I remember correctly, the dancing distance cop was a single adult, probably a tragically virginal 30-something, and his surliness was surely born of jealousy.
“No, we’re not,” I said, and grabbed the Book of Mormon and flipped it up vertically. “See? Plenty of room.”
Brother McSexuallyFrustrated was not amused. We were told to leave a little room for the Holy Spirit at least four or five other times that night.
I’ve said this before, but seriously, I don’t know why anybody was surprised by my eventual slide into apostasy. The signs were all there. I even held hands with my non-boyfriend before we were sixteen, and let him kiss my cheek. That’s totally what started me down the path to having premarital sex six years later.
