I'LL PRY IF I WANT TO

The other day I was asked to help move some furniture at work. No big deal. While moving the furniture, one of the administrators of the company (with whom I have only spoken two or three times in the nine months I have worked under him) asked me to assist him with a couch in a separate room. Alone, he asked me how my family has been doing lately. Assuming he was just making small talk, I said, "We're doing alright." His next question, however, was about as far away from small talk as humanly possible. He asked, "So, how did your dad die?"

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "What an insensitive thing to just ask someone you barely know." What you need to keep in mind, however, is that the only reason you are thinking this is because you are probably a fairly normal person with a healthy, respectful view of interpersonal boundaries. The kind of boundaries which allow you to be comfortable with letting sleeping dogs lie, or at the very least, not stirring the pot unnecessarily. This, among other things, is precisely why you will never fully understand Mormons. 

You see, Mormons have a knack for intrusion. They literally think they are doing you a favor by prying into your life. Sure, you've seen the young men (and women?) in shirts and ties going around your neighborhood, knocking on doors so they can tell you that your whole worldview is false and they are there to set you straight with all their 18 years of experience and intensive study into Mormonism exclusively. But their propensity for intrusion reaches far beyond that most arrogant of propositions.

They don't think twice about asking someone about a dark time in their life, or a personal tragedy, because, and this is important, they view every bad thing in life as a tribute to god's plan for you. When they ask you about your recently deceased loved one, what they really mean is to invite you to express your gratitude to god for allowing you to taste the bitter so you can appreciate the sweet. They fully expect you to say, "He's in a better place," "God needed another angel," and "I take comfort in the fact that we will be joined together again in heaven (as long as I don't masturbate too much)." Really, this is for your own good, you see, as such spiritual check ups can keep someone from asking too many questions. 

This mentality spills over into their daily lives as well. Mormons have what they call Home Teachers and Visiting Teachers, which are men and women who meet with other members of the same congregation to give a prepared spiritual lesson and help them with things in their personal lives as needed. Sounds good on the surface, like many aspects of Mormonism. But the primary purpose of these teachers is, again, to perform another spiritual check up. To Mormons, the "Straight and Narrow" is more literal than metaphorical.

They also have a Fast and Testimony Meeting once a month prior to which they refrain from eating for 24 hours and gather together to share their personal testimonies about the church, which inevitably turns into a 200 person group therapy session. The purpose of these meetings is to volunteer yourself to a public self check in. It's as mind-numbing as it sounds. Seriously, even as a believer, I hated Fast and Testimony Meeting with the fury of a thousand suppressed libidos.

They also meet with their local church leaders with some regularity to pronounce themselves worthy and relatively sin-free (again, as long as they don't masturbate too much), thus allowing themselves entrance into their super secret multi-million dollar mini-mansions, which is where the most important religious rituals are performed, without which, Mormons believe, one cannot enter into the highest echelons of heaven (which raises the question of whether or not it is moral for Mormons to withhold these rituals from others on the basis of paying membership fees in full, or for drinking coffee, or for any other reason, really). These interviews, much like an audit in the Church of Scientology, can be the most intrusive of all. The Bishop or Stake President will ask personal questions, not just about difficult situations you might be going through, but also about your sex life, your diet (as it pertains to Mormon prohibitions), and how much do you super duper love Joseph Smith and his snowballing church.

And in all of these self-exposing situations which allow others to pry into your life, Mormons are fully expected to bolster their collective faith in the church, without question and without apology.

In other words, Mormons don't think twice about asking another person, even one they don't know very well, about a difficult situation they might be going through. They don't understand that some people don't share their lack of personal boundaries. And they especially don't understand that not every normal looking person in Utah without piercings or tattoos or the perpetual smell of cigarette smoke is Mormon. 

I really need to move out of Utah...