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Show Coffee Drinkers Preferred Page 94 of 307 This was code language in my community for when people are worried if someone is gay. The fear of being thought of as gay will usually cause the target of such suspicions to fall amorously into the arms the first woman who looks at him. He will marry, have children and much like Ralph/David and Eaglescout/Joseph find a way to live his life underground. Or, in the vernacular of the seventies, in the closet. "Did she use the word tidy?" "Nephi, she just wants you to be happy. I want you to be happy." It had taken less than a minute and I was on the brink of losing it. I mouthed her next sentence with her, right in her face, "When are you going to get married?" The pressure to marry after a certain year into your twenties becomes almost unbearable. Procreation in my church is a duty. If you look like you will not be procreating in marriage, you risk being ridiculed, counseled, committed or even shunned. It is particularly hard for the women. Meg must feel like she is in purgatory. Not my problem. I am sure she does not want me to marry her so that she will no longer be a target for other people's pity, and yet this is what brings many people in my community together: desperation. "I'm taking a trip." |