A woman in the LDS Dating - Midsingles Facebook group posted something that clearly struck a nerve. She wanted to know why inactive men, with no intention of becoming active, keep reaching out to her when her profile explicitly states she's looking for active LDS members. The frustration built as she described the hypocrisy of men who claim to be active but then ask for nude pictures or clearly don't live the gospel. "I'm beyond frustrated," she wrote. "It's like I'm looking for something that doesn't exist."
The thread exploded. Over a hundred comments poured in, splitting predictably into camps. Men rushed to defend their gender. Women shared their own horror stories. Cynics declared the entire dating landscape irretrievably broken. One commenter theorized that inactive men pursue active women for "status," hoping involvement with a good member will somehow reactivate them. Another man earnestly insisted that "good, honorable men who will respect and honor you and our covenants exist. Quite a few of us around too."
The whole thing had the energy of people shouting past each other in a crowded room. Lots of heat. Very little light.
Scott and Laurie read through it twice. There's something important buried under all that frustration, and it's worth digging out.
The Label Is Not the Person
Scott
Here's the uncomfortable truth nobody in that thread wanted to say out loud: the word "active" on a dating profile means almost nothing.
It means someone checked a box. It means they attend church, or attended recently, or plan to attend again someday, or simply want you to believe they do. It's a marketing term. And like all marketing terms, it's doing a job. That job is to get your attention.
This isn't cynicism. It's just how profiles work. Nobody writes "I struggle with consistency" or "I'm hoping a relationship will motivate me to get my life together." They write the version of themselves they want to be. Sometimes that's aspirational. Sometimes it's delusional. Sometimes it's strategic.
The woman who posted this is frustrated because she believed the label should function as a filter. She thought being clear about what she wanted would attract people who wanted the same thing. And she's right that it should work that way. But it doesn't. Because people who want what you have will always try to get close to it, whether or not they're willing to do the work to deserve it.
Laurie
What Scott is saying is true, and I want to add something underneath it.
The frustration in that post isn't really about inactive men sending messages. It's about the exhaustion of being seen as a symbol instead of a person. When someone who isn't living the gospel pursues someone who is, they're often not pursuing the person. They're pursuing what she represents: stability, worthiness, a shortcut to feeling like they've got their life together.
That's a heavy thing to carry. It means every message requires an assessment. Is this person actually interested in me, or are they interested in what I symbolize? That's draining. And over time, it breeds the exact kind of bitterness and cynicism we saw in that thread.
The original poster is not wrong to feel frustrated. But the solution isn't going to come from better filters or clearer profile language. It's going to come from a different approach entirely.
The "Good Ones Exist" Deflection
Scott
I noticed a lot of men in that thread jumping in to say, "Not all of us are like that. Good men exist." And look, I get the impulse. When your gender is being characterized negatively, it's natural to want to defend it.
But here's the thing: that response doesn't actually help anyone.
The woman who posted wasn't saying good men don't exist. She was saying her experience hasn't surfaced them. Telling her they're out there, somewhere, is like telling someone lost in the desert that water exists. True, but not useful.
If you're a man reading this and your first instinct is to defend, I'd invite you to sit with the discomfort instead. The women in that thread are describing real experiences. The appropriate response isn't "not all men." It's "that sounds exhausting, and I'm sorry you're dealing with it."
Laurie
And for the women reading this who are bone-tired of hearing "the good ones are out there," I want to validate something.
You're allowed to be frustrated. You're allowed to feel like you've done everything right and it still isn't working. You don't have to pretend to be optimistic when you're not.
But I also want to gently challenge the framing I saw in that thread. The question "where are all the good men?" has a hidden assumption baked into it. It assumes the problem is location, like if you could just find the right app or the right ward or the right city, the right person would appear.
That's not usually how it works. The question that actually moves the needle is: "What patterns am I running that keep putting me in front of the wrong people?" That's not about blame. It's about agency. You can't control who messages you. But you can control how quickly you disengage from someone whose words and actions don't align.
The Status Seeker Problem
Laurie
One commenter offered a theory I think is worth examining. She said inactive men pursue active women because "they think being involved with a good member will reactivate them, and give them status."
There's real insight there. Some people are drawn to partners who embody qualities they wish they had, not because they want to develop those qualities themselves, but because proximity feels like enough. If I'm with someone who has their life together, maybe I'll absorb it by osmosis. Maybe her faith will rub off on me. Maybe I won't have to do the hard work of becoming that person myself.
This is what therapists sometimes call "borrowed functioning." It's when someone uses another person's stability or competence as a substitute for developing their own. It feels like connection, but it's actually dependency. And it almost always ends badly, because the person doing the borrowing isn't actually growing.
Scott
If you're someone who's been pursued this way, you probably felt it even if you couldn't name it. There's a certain flattery to being admired for your faith or your stability. But there's also a creeping sense that you're not being seen. You're being used as scaffolding.
The antidote is to pay less attention to what people say they want and more attention to what they're actually doing. Someone who is genuinely working on their faith doesn't need to borrow yours. They're in the process of building their own. You can tell by the questions they ask, the effort they put in, the consistency between their words and their behavior over time.
That kind of discernment takes longer than reading a profile. But it's the only thing that actually works.
The Dating App Trap
Scott
Several people in that thread declared online dating a complete waste of time. One man said he deleted Mutual after a few weeks because "the quality of women isn't what I'm looking for." A woman said the guys were "liars or not actually interested, just wanting to chat."
Here's what I think is actually happening. Dating apps create a specific kind of environment. It's high volume, low context, and optimized for quick judgments. You're evaluating people based on photos and a few sentences. They're doing the same to you. The whole system incentivizes surface-level presentation and snap decisions.
That's not a great environment for finding someone whose character matches their profile. Character reveals itself slowly, through repeated interactions, through how someone handles disappointment and conflict and boredom. Apps can't show you any of that.
So the question isn't whether to use apps. It's whether you're expecting them to do something they were never designed to do. An app can introduce you to people. It cannot vet them for you.
Laurie
And I'd add this: the exhaustion people feel with dating apps is often the exhaustion of performing. You're constantly curating a version of yourself. You're swiping through curated versions of others. It starts to feel like a second job.
If dating apps are burning you out, that's valuable information. It might mean you need a break. It might mean you need to change how you're using them. But it probably doesn't mean all the good people have vanished from the earth.
What You're Actually Looking For
Laurie
The original poster said she felt like she was "looking for something that doesn't exist." And I understand why it feels that way. When you've been let down enough times, hope starts to feel naive.
But here's what I want to leave you with.
You're not looking for a label. You're not looking for someone who checks the right boxes on a profile. You're looking for alignment. You're looking for someone whose values show up in their behavior, not just their words. You're looking for someone who is doing their own work, building their own faith, becoming their own person. Not borrowing yours.
That person exists. But you won't find them by scanning profiles more carefully. You'll find them by slowing down, paying attention to patterns, and trusting what people show you over time.
The frustration you're feeling is real. But it's not a sign that good people don't exist. It's a sign that the method you've been using isn't working. And that means there's something you can actually change.
And when you are ready to go deeper, we will be here.
- Scott & Laurie
Weighing in from the lowest tier of the Celestial Kingdom, where we learned that "active" is a verb, not a checkbox.