Monday, July 25, 2005

More Adventures in Billboard Dating...

He's 31 and still single? Whatever shall we do? We must rescue him from this horrible fate of loneliness...let's get ourselves a billboard! Stat! And we'll fill it with clever verbiage!
"I'm Lance, Let's go out!" reads the billboard on an interstate near Lindon, about 40 miles south of Salt Lake City.
Given, it's in Utah, so maybe NYC's big advertising firms are too busy to provide this guy with slogans, but still...
...So why the concern over Archibald's marital status? As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, whose members typically marry in their early 20s, the 31-year-Archibald is approaching the male-equivalent of an "old maid."
There's a male equivalent of an old maid? I love it. Finally, some equity. But how does Archie feel about the attention? Is he excited by his friends' efforts? Mortified by the publicity? Or completely and utterly the Mormon equivalent of pareve on the matter?
"I'm not overly concerned about (marriage). I'm pretty happy right now," Archibald said. "I'd like to get married, but it's not a concern."
He seems pretty "laid-back and easy-going." I bet he also likes to work hard and play hard. Maybe he should try JDate? Nah, he's "not overly concerned." In the big city, we like to call that "not overly interested in commitment." Not that there's anything wrong with that. I'm just sayin', like the old adage goes, if'n you're not looking to meet someone, don't put up a billboard.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Now I'm starting to wonder if that's Utah-code for gay.

Anonymous said...

Hellow! I ama a Jewish guy!

Esther Kustanowitz said...

Jennifer, I was actually wondering the same thing. But he's Mormon, which is like similar to Orthodox Judaism in accepting gay members of the tribe...I hope he's just a commitmentphobe.

SemGirl said...

"If you arent looking to meet someone, why put up a b board"

Maybe because you can't even be honest with yourself, his peers are pressuring him to appear like he wants to.

SemGirl said...

"If you arent looking to meet someone, why put up a b board"

Maybe because you can't even be honest with yourself, his peers are pressuring him to appear like he wants to.

Treifalicious said...

I hear that amongst the Mormons, teenage girls get snapped up for marriage by men in their 30s and 40s, leaving teenage boys without girls to date. I think there was recently a case where a bunch of teenage boys were literally thrown out of town so as to decrease comnpetition with the older guys for females.

Maybe he is still single because there aren't enough single Mormon women in his age group. It's basically a marriage oligarchy, where a relative few men who are older and more powerful each have like 3 and 4 wives and other men (usually younger and weaker) have none.

Shaun Eli said...

I think this whole thing is a publicity stunt for his company-- a billboard for a logo design company would get no attention. This obviously did.

As a marketing guy, I'm okay with it (despite its lack of originality). And if Lance meets the woman of his dreams, good for him.

BUT-- the website says that his co-workers did this without his permission, and the website also says that their company is a great place to work. Hey, if my co-workers put up a "Date Shaun" billboard on a major highway, well, you know those office shootings you're always hearing about...
(okay, I would probably use a super-soaker, but still they would understand my rage)

-Ann said...

In Ireland, the male equivalent of an old maid is a "bachelor uncle". Because in the pre-1970s days, families were huge (8 to 14 kids were not uncommon), everyone seems to have one of these bachelor uncles. They're men who, for whatever reason, just never ended up getting married. They live alone, sometimes in small "granny flats", or they live with their mothers and take care of them. I think with the new prosperity here (i.e. more people can afford to get married and have families) and the trend toward smaller families, that bachelor uncles will probably become more of a rarity.