In the past week alone, I’ve received four wedding invitations/announcements, which sets a new personal record for the number received in a single week. Three of those four were from mission friends/companions, while one was for my cousin’s wedding later this month.
On the topic of the social life here at BYU, I haven’t yet decided if I want to stay in the same ward next fall. I’ve signed a contract at Mt. Vista after successfully negotiating myself out of a rent increase, but one of the guys who I was hoping would move in wasn’t able to come up with the deposit in time. Because our apartment complex is at the very edge of our ward boundaries, the social scene is pretty quiet. Since it doesn’t look like I’ll be having a sociable roommate (my current ones are great, don’t get me wrong, they’re just somewhat antisocial), I may want to find a different complex where there’s a bit more going on in that aspect. The problem is, at 24, I’m hesitant to move into a ward where the average age is 21 or 22. My current ward, while geographically abstruse, is wonderful in the fact that the average age (for males) is 24-25. Plus there’s the economic factor. I could afford a nicer apartment, but those complexes typically cater to a more, dare I say, snobbish clique. It would be foolish to move to a new ward/complex in hopes of a better social scene with the foreknowledge that I would have little in common with the majority of the ward. It’s my personal belief that relationships usually have a better chance of success when the two parties have similar socioeconomic backgrounds.
To summarize, were I to look for a new apartment and ward, these would be my criteria:
- Social roommates. Not party roommates, just social ones.
- A nice apartment. I don’t care how nice the roommates are if the place is a dump. I do have to live there, even if only on nights and weekends.
- An older ward. Sorry, but I have to admit that in most cases maturity is directly correlated with age.
- Peers from middle to upper middle class families. I’m not trying to hate on either end of the spectrum, there are some amazing people who don’t fit inside that range, but if your dad bought you a car that’s worth as much as my first house will be, something is wrong.
- Within walking distance to campus. Even if I never have to walk to campus again, it’d be nice to be close enough that I could do so should the need arise.
I lived close enough to walk all four years (I moved every year), and I LOVED walking to school. And yes, maturity is correlated with age.
Right now my walk to school is about 15 minutes, which I don’t terribly mind, but it would be nice to live a little bit closer — in other words, within walking distance for more reasonable people.