Scott Turing and Laurie Pascal, Unchaperoned Life
In March 2026, someone in the LDS Dating - Midsingles group asked members to describe their current dating life using an 80s song title. The post got 361 reactions and 360 comments. It was the single most engaged post of the entire month in a group of 35,300 people.
The songs people chose: "Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For." "Waiting for a Girl Like You." "Faithfully." "Another One Bites the Dust." "Comfortably Numb."
Nobody had to say "I'm lonely." Nobody had to say "I've been at this for years and I'm losing hope." The song did it for them. The joke did it for them. The nostalgia did it for them.
And that right there - the fact that a music game generated more honest emotion than any of the serious posts that month - tells you almost everything you need to know about this community.
We've been watching this group for a while. The debates about what men want. The questions about who should text first. The moral stands, the righteous indignation, the self-deprecating humor, the quiet desperate hope underneath all of it. In March alone, the group generated over 1,000 comments across its most engaged posts.
We noticed something in all of it. And once we saw it, we couldn't unsee it. There is one thing - one specific thing - that every single person in every single one of those conversations is actually looking for. And almost nobody will say it out loud.
We're going to say it. But first, let's look at what's actually happening.
The Debates That Aren't Really About What They're About
Scott
Take the post defending Christlike character over physical appearance. On the surface it's a debate about values. Spiritual depth versus shallow attraction. Good men versus bad ones. It pulled 337 reactions and 202 comments, and the energy in the thread was real.
But read the comments underneath. What are people actually saying?
Women saying "thank you for standing up for us." Men saying "not all of us are like that." People rallying, validating, expressing relief that someone finally said what needed to be said.
That's not a debate about values. That's a group of people reassuring each other that they are good enough. That their worth hasn't expired. That someone out there is still going to see them.
Then there's the post asking whether texting first makes a woman look desperate. 199 comments. Suggestions, rules, personal anecdotes, encouragement, gentle warnings. And only 39 reactions - meaning people weren't just "liking" it. They were compelled to respond. Because the question touched something they all feel but rarely ask directly.
Then there's the post about divorce, alimony, and child support. 323 comments. Raw, detailed, personal. People sharing their financial devastation, their sense of betrayal, their fury at a system they feel failed them.
Three completely different topics. Three completely different emotional tones. And underneath all three, the same conversation.
Laurie
And then there's the 80s song post. Which is, in its own way, the most honest post of all.
Because nobody chose "Walking on Sunshine." Nobody chose "Don't Stop Believin'" - or if they did, it was ironic. The songs people reached for were the aching ones. The searching ones. The ones about waiting and not finding and learning to live with disappointment.
"Comfortably Numb" was one of them. Someone shared it with the caption "let your heart open... use the negative energy for something good." And that caption is doing a lot of work. That's someone who knows they're in pain and is trying very hard to make it mean something.
The music game worked because it gave people permission to tell the truth without having to say it plainly. And the truth they told - in song after song - was longing. Deep, sustained, patient, slightly exhausted longing.
That's what's underneath the debates. That's what's underneath the rules. That's what's underneath the anger about the opposite sex and the political posts and the moral stands.
The Thing Nobody Will Say
Scott
Here it is. The thing that every post, every comment, every debate in that group is really about:
Every single person in that group is hoping - desperately, quietly - that someone will choose them and be safe.
That's it. That's the whole thing.
Choose them. And be safe. Both parts matter equally.
"Choose them" - because after everything, after the divorce or the years of waiting or the faith crisis or the loneliness, they still want to be wanted. They still want someone to look at them and say, "Yes. You. I want to build something with you."
"Be safe" - because they've been hurt. Most of them have been significantly hurt. They've been chosen before and then abandoned, or shamed, or betrayed, or slowly worn down. They've been in relationships that looked right from the outside and felt like a slow leak on the inside.
So they want to be chosen. And they're terrified of being chosen wrong again.
Laurie
And here's why nobody says it: because wanting to be chosen feels weak.
In a culture that spent decades telling you that your worth comes from your righteousness, your service, your faithfulness - admitting that you just want someone to want you feels embarrassingly human. Almost petty.
For women especially, wanting to be chosen activates everything they were taught to be ashamed of. Neediness. Desperation. Lack of self-sufficiency. "You should be complete in Christ before you need a man." "Work on yourself first." "Be the person you want to attract."
All of that is true. And none of it touches the actual ache.
For men, it's different but equally hard to say. Men in this group are not supposed to admit they're lonely. They're supposed to have standards and lead and pursue. Admitting that you're scared of being chosen wrong again - or never chosen at all - feels like it violates the very thing that makes you worth choosing.
So instead, we debate character versus looks. We make rules about texting. We get furious about alimony. We defend virtue online. We pick 80s songs. We do everything except say the actual thing.
Why the Church Made This Harder, Not Easier
Laurie
This is delicate, and I want to say it carefully. Because this isn't about blaming anyone's faith. It's about understanding how a particular framework shaped the way a whole community experiences desire and fear.
The LDS model of courtship and marriage is built around worthiness. You become worthy, you find a worthy partner, you marry in a temple that requires a worthiness interview, you build a worthy family. The premise is that if you do everything right - keep the commandments, serve faithfully, prepare yourself - you will be protected from the worst outcomes.
That's a beautiful promise. And for a lot of people, it didn't hold.
They did everything right and got divorced anyway. Or they waited faithfully and never found anyone. Or they found someone, built the eternal family, and then their spouse left the church, left the marriage, left them standing in the rubble of everything they thought they'd been promised.
What that does psychologically is create what therapists call anxious attachment - a term for the low-grade, constant hum of fear that you are one wrong move away from losing the love or belonging you need. When the promise was "do this and you'll be safe" and the safety didn't materialize, the nervous system keeps scanning for threat. It keeps asking: what did I do wrong? What am I doing wrong now? What do I need to be to finally be safe?
And so the group keeps searching for the rule that will finally make them safe. The right way to text. The right qualities to look for. The right standards to hold. The right way to show up so that this time, it works.
Scott
And here's what makes it worse: the group's most engaging content actively reinforces the loop.
The controversy posts give people permission to be angry - at superficial men, at gold-digging women, at the culture, at the apps. And anger feels better than grief. It feels more empowering. It feels like doing something. But it's not doing something. It's just recycling the same emotional chemistry over and over, which keeps people exactly where they are.
The rule-seeking posts give people the illusion of progress. If I can just find the right rule, I'll be safe. But no rule has ever made anyone truly safe in love. Safety in love comes from inside first - from knowing that rejection doesn't confirm your worst fears about yourself. That knowledge cannot be crowdsourced from 191 strangers. It has to be built.
And the music game - as beautiful as it was - is the community's most honest moment and also its most heartbreaking one. Because the people choosing "Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" are telling the truth about their longing. But they're telling it sideways, through Bono, because saying it plainly still feels too exposed.
What Would Actually Help
Scott
Here's what I want to say to everyone in that group - whether you're the one defending virtue online, the one asking for the rules, the one making the jokes, or the one cheering everyone else on:
The thing you're looking for isn't in the comments section.
The safety you're hoping someone else will provide - the assurance that you're enough, that you're worth choosing, that you won't be hurt again - cannot be sourced from 191 strangers, or from a post that gets 337 likes, or from the community rallying around your virtue.
It has to come from inside first. Not because that's a spiritual platitude. But because until it does, you will keep dating from a place of "please choose me and please be safe" - and that energy is impossible to hide. People feel it. It makes you cling when you should be curious. It makes you perform when you should be present. It makes you settle when you should be selective.
Matthew Hussey, whose work on midlife dating is some of the best out there, puts it this way: true confidence isn't hoping the other person is a good one. It's knowing you'll be okay regardless of who they are.
That's not a rule about texting. It's not a list of qualities to look for. It's an internal orientation that changes everything.
Laurie
And here's the good news - the part I really want you to hear.
The fact that you still want this? The fact that you're still posting, still asking, still choosing the aching songs in the music game? That's not a problem to fix. That's the best thing about you.
You haven't given up. After everything, you still believe that real connection is possible. You still believe there are good people out there. You still believe you deserve something real.
You're right on all three counts.
The work isn't to stop wanting to be chosen. The work is to get to a place where being chosen by the right person matters deeply, and being passed over by the wrong one is just useful information.
That shift - from "please want me" to "let me find out if I want you" - is not small. It's not quick. But it is possible. And the people who make it find that dating stops being a terrifying audition and starts being something that's actually kind of interesting.
You were brave enough to keep showing up. Now let's make sure you're showing up as yourself - not as the most acceptable version of yourself. That version never gets chosen anyway. Only the real one does.
And when you're ready to do that work for real, we will be here.
-- Scott & Laurie
Weighing in from the lowest tier of the Celestial Kingdom, where we finally stopped auditioning and started just showing up - and discovered that was the only thing that ever worked anyway.