Monday, March 18, 2013

Life among the FLDS (2 of 2): Life Outside the FLDS.


From Lost Boy, by Brent W. Jeffs, with Maia Szalavitz (2009; pp. 149-150):

About a year after I’d moved in with my brothers [who left the FLDS]... I got a lot better at meeting girls and hanging out with them.

In fact, I found that girls really loved lost boys.  Unlike many men our age, most of us actually wanted commitment.  We looked for frequent contact and connection.  We didn’t want casual sex.  We didn’t play games.  We even wanted to know their families.  Lost boys didn’t complain about hanging out with Mom and Dad or going to family functions.  Indeed, we actively sought them out.  We were unlike any other boyfriends they had ever had.  Fear of settling down was definitely not our main issue.

A lot of women also liked the idea of rescuing someone.  So many of the guys I knew who left... actually got engaged very quickly after leaving the church.

Of course, we were awkward at social functions at first – and as a result, some guys got engaged to pretty much the first woman who would go out with them.  But unlike other men, they were happy to hang out with the in-laws and aunts and cousins – in part, I think, because they wanted to replace the big families they had grown up in.

. . .

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