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I Feel Giddy When I am on the News!

Last night Emily Maynard of ABC's Bachelorette began her journey to find true love.  After the premiere, Emily Clark and the good people over at ABC in Salt Lake City decided to do a story on Kent's journey as well.  Thanks ABC - we love you!!!

And on Good Morning America as well!!!

Why Facebook Can Virtually Ruin Our Relationships...

Every relationship requires hard work.  My most rewarding ones have been those that have come with painstaking work - for those that know me best they know I am highly impatient and always want things to fall in place quickly and easily.  But when that happens I am usually over it soon anyway.

Recently I put my Facebook account on freeze. I did this because I once again disobeyed my cardinal rule about not making my personal relationships public on Facebook. I did it anyway because I was so excited and couldn't hold back.  Plus I am what you would call a "Facebook Addict" even though my account is now deactivated and I have been cured for almost a month now.  I also made it public because I was dating several people when I met the man I publicly displayed in photos all over my wall and I just wanted them to get the hint without having to tell each one.  I hate that crucial conversation and unfortunately was really good at casual dating but not at the real deal.  Then I got an e-mail that reinforced the decision I made to cut ties from the relationship-connecting-and-then-destroying machine we call FB. Here's the jist...

While on my mission I met a beautiful couple with three gorgeous children.  They were active members of the Mormon Church which is obviously how I knew them and they we're wonderful to me.  We became close and kept in touch through Christmas cards, e-mails, and once I had a Facebook account, through occasional wall posts.  The e-mail I received, however, was not of the "here's all the great things our family has been doing lately." variety. It was from the husband explaining to me that he hoped he wouldn't lose my friendship but he had fallen out of love with his wife and was moving to a different country to find himself.  He told me vague details about the reasoning behind it and asked that I remain his friend.  Saddened by this news I responded and told him how sorry I was to hear about the divorce and that my heart broke for him, his wife and their children.  Of course I would always be a friend, but I urged him to have faith in Heavenly Father and try to fix whatever he could to restore peace in his life and in theirs.  I didn't hear back and time went on.

A few short months later I sent out a Christmas e-mail to everyone in my personal contact book through Gmail. I didn't go through each address as there were hundreds, and subsequently didn't notice that their old family e-mail was on the list that his wife was now monitoring.  She wrote me back and with regretful tone also told me about what had happened and wasn't sure if I knew but that her husband had developed a Facebook romance with a woman in a foreign country and that he decided to end their marriage and leave their family to go meet a woman he had never known in person - simply through Facebook messages and chat sessions.   Now I have had my heart broken before and I know what it feels like to not have an appetite and cry yourself to sleep until miraculously you just feel better one day, but I have to tell you, it felt like my heart was breaking 5 times all at once.  For the husband, the now ex-wife, the three children, and the Facebook mistress that was about to receive a man into her arms with no character or resolve to work at a relationship after the newness wears off.  It hurt SO bad and I wasn't even directly involved.  But then I remembered a few things...

I have been cheated on 8 times and 5 of those started with a Facebook interaction. It is an easy place for people to be shady because there are lots of mutual friends to start connecting with and it seems really innocent - nothing "actually" happens from flirting with a virtual person right?  In reality it can be highly destructive to foster online romances even when there is no initial intention to cheat.  People engage in these romances to get outside of the pressures of real life and real work in real relationships.  It is easy with an online love interest.  It is new and exciting and unpredictable.  You can live the first stage of a relationship again without the guilt.  But I see several things wrong with this and here are just two. 1 - when you are getting your flirt on with someone online you start neglecting the person you are really with and they often start feeling, lonely and rejected within their own relationship.  2 - when the real relationship starts feeling less and less exciting because you are putting all the romantic efforts into virtual people, that starts to become your reality and you start to think that the grass is greener on the Facebook side of the hill.


This post has been far too long already - I try to keep it short but I just feel so strongly about this stuff.  I used to think that Facebook would make my social life better and there were many great things that happened.  I connected with people I forgot I had ever met - including friends I had in Kindergarten.  But I think Facebook can also make you extremely lonely - if you only have virtual friends, or if you sabotage your real life relationships in favor of Facebook ones.  I will be back on Facebook soon because I love it - but I will be more careful this time:).

Like Kent said... also inspired by Adam Levine

Sometimes I wonder why I am such a glutton for punishment!  I fill my life with so many things that I am too busy to have any sort of down time.  But then something great happens like Kent Tuttle's blog post today Hater Nation and I am so glad that I am involved in The Mormon Bachelor, and all the million other things I do every day.

I am fiercely loyal to my friends and I have a lot of people in my life that I consider close friends.  In a sense I am a hater when it comes to defending them - I hate it when people tear them down and try to hold them back from shining and being the best they can be.  On the first Sunday on my mission in New Zealand the Sunday School teacher taught a lesson called Tall Poppy Syndrome. I had never heard of this before but apparently it is a huge problem over there.  Any time someone accomplished something great they were made fun of it and looked down upon if they were excited about their achievement.  The result was a lot of talented people that never quite reached their potential because they were too worried about being ridiculed by friends or in public. How sad that people waste their time holding themselves and others back from greatness.

I should not have been surprised that people made fun of The Mormon Bachelorette when we first started it in the Fall of 2010 with Aubrey Messick.  We decided to do something outside the box to date and help Aubrey find true love.  We knew it was risky - we also knew it would be a lot of fun and that we would hopefully meet a ton of new people to become friends with, date, and hopefully marry (which Aubrey did when she found Matt Laidlaw, Date #5:).  I am so glad we didn't pay attention to the negative comments.  We even moderated all the comments on the blog and didn't let the negative ones through because we didn't want our site to become a breeding ground for debate and negativity even though we were doing something controversial.  That wasn't the point.

The reason I loved Kent's blog so much today is because I hear all the background buzz on Kent and The Mormon Bachelor - good and bad.  Here's my take on it - no matter what you do people will always hate or love it.  There will also be a lot of in between.  The most important thing is to always feel good about what you do and keep your eyes on the prize.  In the end that is what really matters anyway.  And I can't tell you how many people that hated on the first season of TMB have come around to apologize and even applied to be on the show.  It has happened a lot.


Today as I drove up the 405 a song came on that I LOVE now... Payphone by Maroon 5.  I am pretty sure it has to be a response to the fact that Adam Levine's stunning Victoria's Secret supermodel girlfriend Anne V publicly broke up with him by leaking their separation to the press.  I only thought it appropriate to dedicate it today to all the haters out there about how I feel about them and their internet hatred:).  And also I invite you to comment freely, whether good or bad (hear that Al and Geoff - no screening!!) - seriously, give me your best shot.  And then listen to Adam Levine's sweet words (clean version of course - I don't cuss)...

Commitment... Aughhhhhhh!!!

When I interview most of the candidates for The Mormon Bachelor/ette I ask them why their last relationship didn't work out.  8 times out of 10 the answer is "everything seemed great on paper, I just felt a lot of anxiety when I thought about marrying the person".

I have mixed thoughts on this answer.  Several years ago I would have said that the anxiety is a feeling from God letting you know that you shouldn't move forward with the marriage.  I would say that because it happened to me several times, starting with my first love at BYU.  I just couldn't move forward with him no matter how hard I tried.  Every time I thought about marriage I was gripped with this fear and I felt immobilized.  What was wrong with him or our relationship?  Absolutely nothing!  We got along better than any best friends do, the chemistry was undeniable and we were both strong in the gospel.  I was physically attracted to him, I loved his family and he loved mine.  But I broke off our wedding because I just felt so anxious when I thought about looking at him across the alter.  I loved that man and he was my best friend, but I was so scared that I got in my own way of our eternal marriage.  I was 22 years old.  Since then I have had a series of relationships with wonderful men.  They are all different in their own way - and I have fallen in love many times but have always felt that hint of anxiety when commitment came up.

When I was 29 years old I finally understood what I was feeling.  I had a serious boyfriend and every time we started talking future I would freak out.  It was then that I realized my fear of commitment had more to do with anxiety than it did with any kind of reality.  He was a great guy - all the boxes were checked.  Again, I let my anxiety get in the way.  I decided to push through it instead of letting it get in my way of having a family and children - the things I wanted more than anything in my life.  After 18 months of pushing through I figured it out.  I didn't have anxiety about commitment anymore because I stayed to fight instead of running away.  We didn't end up getting married for more fundamental reasons but I can honestly say for the first time in my life that anxiety wasn't a part of it.  Thank goodness.

LDS Living published an article entitled "I'm Anxious, So Let's Break Up" in April 2011.  I think it is important for everyone to read because the reality is, sometimes we get in our own way while heading toward eternal marriage, but we don't have to.  Don't let anxiety ever be a reason for a break up.  Find out the real reasons why a relationship isn't working out - how you are treated, the goals that you have together and the simple things you do together everyday that bring you joy.  If fundamental things are a problem then seriously consider moving on.  But don't let anxiety be a reason to end a relationship.  It was my excuse for years and that's all it was - an excuse.  Fear overshadows faith - move forward in faith knowing that it will go away if everything else is in place.  You are worth it - your future husband/wife is worth it - your eternal marriage is worth it.  At least that is my hope one day:)

Something about love...

In the single’s LDS world we are so focused on eternal families that we often try to figure out whether or not someone is our future husband/wife in the first few dates.  For some reason I thought that was completely normal even though a serious boyfriend I had last year was back and forth where he was never sure, I was always insecure, and we never knew whether or not we were right for each other.  According to the subconscious belief that “the one” is out there and I would just know when it hit me, I should have never spent so much time (2 years) trying to figure things out.  Yet I stayed in with an iron resolution that our love could conquer all… Until we broke up because we just couldn't do it anymore.  I moved on by default because well, I just had to.

Running The Mormon Bachelor has been a really interesting and educational experience for me.  I watch people make very quick judgments in dating situations, think they know exactly what they want, and fall in love quickly.  They also fall out of love quickly when they realize that the person they are crazy about isn’t a good personality match, doesn’t have the same goals, or is just not the right fit.  This isn’t surprising since we are somewhat conditioned to figure things out very quickly.  If it doesn’t come together easily and quickly we think there must be something wrong. 

I have learned something about the process of falling in love through what I have seen with participants of The Mormon Bachelor/ette in past seasons.  You may fall head over heels for a person very quickly because you have unspoken chemistry, you think they are extremely attractive and it feels good when you kiss.  You may even have the occasional deep conversation, but most of what you talk about is how good you feel when you are with the other person and how you want to build a life with them.  They check all the boxes on your list of the perfect match for you – you are so excited for the future and have no doubt they are “the one”.  Then a funny thing happens – life settles in.  You get to know them better and all the sudden the love doesn’t seem to quite fill all the needs in your relationship.  Simple things like communicating, enduring the road bumps and finding joy in every day things becomes difficult.  Why?  I’m not sure I have all the answers but I think it’s mostly because you just don’t know them.  You verbally pledge your life away at the beginning because the butterflies are rampant but when those die down for a season you don’t know if you really want to hang around.  Butterflies aren’t a substitute for a concrete foundation of trust and loyalty.  They are awesome but they aren’t always meant to be a constant part of any relationship.

I have been accused of wanting every Bachelor/ette on our show to get married at the end of the show - no questions asked.  I’m not going to lie, if every season ended with an Aubrey and Matt I would be thrilled.  But more than anything I just want people to have fun, make good connections, and hopefully find the person with which they can start to build a foundation for a happy marriage and life. Fast love is fun for a season, but it can be filled with empty promises and checks that can’t be cashed unless you spend time getting to know the person that you love without worrying about the eternal future.  Go through the appropriate stages so that at the right time when you can start making decisions about marriage, you can do it knowing that you love the person for who they are, not because they fit your checklist on a first, second, third or even fifth date.

Through my own trial and errors in love and relationships I have learned that true love is the enduring kind.  I have been so blessed to have had many experiences of different kinds of love in my life and although it doesn’t always happen the way I intend, it has often been deep, true and has withstood the most difficult trials.  To me, that’s what love is all about and although there will still be road bumps along the way, at the end I hope that my husband and I will be grateful we have each other and know that we made it through the rough times, and we won’t ever give up.

After joining so many journey’s on the way to engagement and temple marriage, and after experiencing my own along the way I can honestly say that lasting relationships can be born out of any situation.  However, at some point, whether before or after marriage (if you do it fast-track style) you have to get the know the person and love them for who they are, completely.  Stick it out, remember that true love is a marathon, not a sprint (I hate it when people say that but have learned it is so true), and apply to date Kent on The Mormon Bachelor – shameless plug I KNOW!!!  True love is only a season of TMB away – and then some time to get to know each otherJ!

The 3 F's of my life...

Facebook and Fancy Free!!!

It is time for me to say goodbye to Facebook!  Not because I don't love updating my status every 10 minutes, but because I am simplifying my life.  We have had a good run and I am not saying that I won't be back... but it has been 3 days and already I feel so FREE!!!  But I will miss it in a weird and twisted missing a clingy ex-boyfriend kind of way.

So with that off my chest, I am determined to blog more... There is so much going on - every day I meet more amazing women trying to win Kent Tuttle's heart this season of The Mormon Bachelor.  The hardest part about being behind the scenes of TMB is that I want everyone to have a chance at love and it is such a difficult task to choose only 12 of these amazing women to date Kent!  So I decided yesterday I needed to start posting their videos on the site so people will get to know them the way that I have.  We started today with Brittany Phillips, a single mom in Oregon.  She is AMAZING and BEAUTIFUL and TALENTED and I am so excited she decided to apply.

On another note, I can't say enough good things about Kent Tuttle, our next Mormon Bachelor.  People often accuse me of choosing him because he is so handsome but seriously, there is SO MUCH MORE BEHIND THE PRETTY FACE!!!  I can say this objectively because I have my heart fully invested with another equally handsome man in my eyes:).  Kent is ready to fall in love with the right girl, he thinks this is the right time (and I can tell he is serious), and he is making this a matter of prayer.  I have never seen someone approach finding an eternal companion with this kind of focus - and I am determined to find her so we can have another success story on our hands (I love you Aubrey and Matt:).

*Photo edited by CameraBag 2

If you want to follow Kent along his journey to TRUE MORMON LOVE follow him for live Twitter updates @kentclarke21 and add him on Facebook!  This is going to be a fun journey of love and I am excited to be running the show.  I promise behind-the-scenes updates as often as I can!

Meanwhile if you need to reach me without my Facebook shackles, my e-mail is erinnicoleelton@gmail.com and I am still on Twitter @erinelton.

Peace out Facebook suckas!!!