What's a game of chance to you in this world? To him is one of real skill

DC Will is a teacher in my elder’s quorum; he’s a good guy. Will's lessons usually start out with ideas strewn all over the place while he tries to make analogies and object lessons to bring in the day’s topic. I think he could make improvement by condensing a few things, but regardless, he does better than most.

Sunday’s topic was Elder Holland’s general conference talk. Eventually, we hit on, “how we can see who we really are.” EFY mentions things like scripture study and personal prayer to keep ourselves in a less worldly perspective consequently better comprehending our worth.

Not wanting the lesson to turn on the “we can all be happy by being happy” road. I responded, “I agree that scripture study is important to our understanding of ourselves, but people do well to devote a half hour a day to it. For the other 12 hours of the day, girls are around us, and no matter how hard they study, guys are not going to pay more or less attention to them. And sadly, many of them have self-esteems that hinge that attention. When we’re talking about a girl we just met, I would guess that 19 times out of 20 the comment starts, ‘I just met this girl, and she IS hot…’ Girls know we say this. As far as us guys go, I think we’re all fine; Elder Holland’s talk was not directed towards us. It was directed to the young women of the church. I think we should be talking more about how we can show women that we care about more than just how they look.”

Looking back I think I should have done my wording differently (for several reasons). Will gets this look in his face, and I knew he wasn’t quite ready for that one. He starts, “Well, I’ve got a few points to make about what you said. You said that, ‘all of us are fine.’ I don’t know that that’s true. *He looks down and pats his stomach* Now, I obviously I could be doing a little better here, and I think the world puts a lot of stress on men too. I think it’s something we DO need to talk about. The amount of men getting plastic surgery today is higher than ever….” We never got back to his second point.

I felt kinda bad and later apologized for coming across so forcefully. Will is cool, and I don’t think I made him cry too much. I have the opinion that “Men are men." By definition (and by "definition," I mean my definition), they don’t worry about self-image and esteem. They do their thing because they want to or feel it is right and don’t much care about the rest of the world. I forget that my thoughts are rarely held by the majority, even a group as self-selected as a BYU elder’s quorum.

I think Will was right to apply Elder Holland’s talk directly to us, but still, I feel our discussion barely touched why a talk given to the young women needed to be discussed in a room full of dudes.