gender puzzle

MJ’s parents are interesting. Her mother terrified me at one time, because she thought I was a predator. I had anxiety sometimes, about her reporting me to someone—the bishop?—and having charges filed against me for associating with her 17 year-old daughter. But that was before I knew what she knew—that MJ has had “crushes” on older females before, and that aside from being cruel to her, there was no way I was going to shake her off. She knew what she wanted and no one was getting in her way.

But that’s beside the point. My point is, when I’m getting to know someone and I’m interested in how that person works, it’s like I’m putting together a puzzle. But these puzzles have millions of pieces, and the task is not so much to fit them together to see the entire picture as it is to group a clump together, just to get an idea what the picture looks like. If I can see a shape here and a color there, I can pretty much see what it’s going to become even if I’m missing some pieces. When I wondered about MJ and why she was the way she was, I looked at her family. They appear to be a typical LDS family. There are two parents and five children. The parents married in the temple and they have family home evening every Sunday night. Everybody is active in the church. All of the older ones have temple marriages too. The boys went on missions. It’s just all very normal.

Except for one thing: MJ’s mom has some masculine qualities, and her dad is somewhat feminine. It’s not unusual for a wife to “wear the pants” in the family, and that’s the case here, but it seems unusual to me for the wife to like watching sports when the husband doesn’t really care. His favorite movie is Steel Magnolias. She works, which is also not that strange, but she has a management position at her place of business and he does not. He uses his vacation days to decorate the house. He actually takes a day off of work the day after Thanksgiving to decorate the house for Christmas. He also decorates for Valentine’s Day, Independence Day and Halloween. And I’m not just talking about a knick-knack or two on the mantel. It takes him all day to put it up, and all day to take it down. He enjoys it. She is the disciplinarian; he keeps quiet. She likes to play softball; and he’s a singer.

In the church, their roles are traditionally defined. He’s the priesthood holder; she’s the relief society president. He’s been a bishop. It’s just funny to me. And it makes me wonder if they each struggled with their orientation at all when they were young. Or if it was simply their opposite characteristics that attracted them to each other.

It also makes me wonder who I will end up with. Some unmarried girls in the church talk about being able to marry in the next life, hooking up with soldiers who died in battle or whatever. Maybe I'll get a guy who thought he was gay.