My Date with a Prophet

The same week a viral essay came out announcing the apocalypse of modern dating, I went on a date with a man who might have been a prophet.

In the New York Times Magazine, Jean Garnett diagnosed men today with a series of erotic deficiencies—sexual passivity, an ambivalence toward relationships, and a terminal lack of desire—that had left her feeling “bruised” and “bleak.” She applied the term “heterofatalism” not just to her own experience but the future of heterosexual romance at large. I toggled between the essay and text messages from my dating apps, feeling torn: Was the problem men’s lack of desire, or something else—a deeper confusion about what justifies commitment and what relationships are even for? Garnett seemed uncertain herself. In nearly five thousand words, she could barely name a reason to partner with a man besides regular access to a penis. It was hard not to see this lack of vision as a self-fulfilling prophecy.

My date asked me to meet him at an Equinox in Washington, D.C. He was a member in another city and would let me use his guest pass. I grabbed my car keys to head to yet another first date. Were it not for my family modeling a more constructive view of marriage, I might have yielded by now to Garnett’s cynicism. Growing up Mormon, I often heard a phrase, “You can’t progress alone,” to justify committed partnership. Even though the dream of a temple marriage now felt distant and opaque, I still smuggled hope onto dates for a glimpse of some holier future and signs that a relationship with a man might transform me.

Our date began with a tour. In the lobby, I noticed a poster: a woman lay in her underwear on a bed of nails, a laser device pointing at her stomach, a red-light therapy mask covering her face. Commit to something, the poster read. In the hall of treadmills, we stopped at a wall of gadgets and fitness aids I’d never seen before. He whacked the battle ropes against the ground while I massaged my calves with a Thera-gun. At his goading, I tried the vibration plate. I balanced on the eerie device like a skateboard as it sent fierce micro-shakes throughout my body.

“Will this give me brain damage?” I yelled, half-serious.

“It’s good for you!” he grinned, avoiding my question. “I do it all the time!”

“If this doesn’t bring enlightenment, it’s not worth it!”

“Don’t I seem enlightened to you?”

I laughed. The first few dates are usually easy. All that’s asked for is presence, playfulness, and receptivity to whatever the man shares. It’s later on that I become like the dithering, indecisive men Garnett bemoans in her essay. It’s not that I hadn’t dated any decent men—I had. But so far, no bell had rung signaling now was my time for transformation and this was the man worth committing to. I worried that the Equinox poster was correct—that long-term commitment would require an act of sheer exertion, like strapping myself to one of the gym’s cold, metal fitness devices.

As my date showed me the upstairs yoga studio, he told me that he’d abandoned his medical career to help build a livable future for humanity. He now helps families who, disenchanted with modern American life, seek to immigrate to foreign countries. He pulled up a website where I could apply to join a geographically boundless, digital tribe.

“Wow, you’re not just a millennial with a career trajectory,” I joked as I foam-rolled my left hip. “You’re like a prophet of a new dispensation.”

“You said it, not me,” he beamed.

I felt like I had said the Shahada. I saw that spark in his eyes—the kind that Garnett assumes has gone extinct—when a man thinks, I found her. Whether or not he was really a prophet, my praise had made him into one: our future together was unfolding privately in his imagination.

He suggested we grab smoothies before using the sauna. We sipped in the sun and I peppered my date with questions about his offbeat profession: What is the ideal political system? What is the purpose of marriage? Of sex? How do you know this “prophet” thing isn’t just ego? Does your family support you? What do you do for fun? He had answers for everything, like a science fiction writer reciting plot points from an unreleased novel.

The more I listened, the more he seemed to simultaneously glow and retreat, like a lantern submerged in fog. The thought of us together felt both sweet and ludicrous—a taciturn man nearing forty, burdened with a solitary calling, seeking a woman to come along. Was this my chance to be transformed?

As I sat alone in the women’s sauna, my heart beating rapidly in the heat, I thought about what might constitute a sign. As a Mormon, I had wrestled with this through one of my faith’s central questions: How does one recognize a prophet? Jesus taught, “By their fruits ye shall know them.” But fruits take time to ripen. Nearly two centuries after Joseph Smith’s death, millions believe that he was a prophet while countless others believe he was a fraud. Moreover, some will say that Mormonism is a silly religion but its fruits are oddly good—high birth rates, happy marriages, health and longevity, volunteerism and a love of local community. I had come to believe that this was a feature, not a bug, of Mormonism’s ability to compel belief in a secular age: would-be believers had to reckon from the start with the prospect of a lonely faith and the risk that others would find the choice absurd. If a prophet could come in a silly form, perhaps a husband could too.

I thought of how Garnett mocked the men she went out with, the ones who anxiously avoid her. At one point, she goes so far as to suggest that male subjectivity is itself repulsive: her ideal man “tends to signal, in various ways, his exemption from the tainted category of ‘men.’” Yet how easily this diagnosis can harden into destiny! Like Garnett, I have often found it difficult to give the men I’m dating the benefit of the doubt, to take that leap of faith. Believing in men can feel embarrassing. Men are often clumsy, insufficiently doting, poor communicators, pathetic relative to their pretenses—but also, for many heterosexual women, quite frankly necessary for their romantic futures.

The only escape from heterofatalism—being condemned to desire what you despise—was to grant men the dignity of possibility. In the absence of a sign from heaven, maybe what commitment requires isn’t certainty but respect—a bridge between flickering belief in a person and the future they might make possible.

After showering, I paused at my locker to check my phone. Regular life flooded in. Parties this weekend. Jobs to apply to. Articles to read. The endless babble of friends. My life suddenly felt like an amusement park. So much to see and do. For a moment, I caught sight of what was causing my own heterofatalism: profound inertia. Nothing to force a choice. Even if I understood the mechanics of commitment, it never seemed like the right time. Soon, I knew, even the truth of my own avoidance would recede from view as I was absorbed back into my daily routines.

Back in the lobby, I saw the poster again. Commit to something. I had already made my decision: I wasn’t up for transformation today.

As my date walked me to my car, he asked if we could go out again. Typical evasions came to mind: my mental health, job uncertainty, an aversion to long-distance dating. But I knew, as Garnett points out, that behind every I can’t lies a harsher truth: I don’t want to.

“I’ve never been on a date with a prophet,“ I began. “Ultimately, I’d rather keep living in this world”—I gestured to the gray street, the traffic light blinking red—“than help to build a new one.”

“I didn’t say I was a prophet—you did,” he said curtly. The future flickered out with a hiss.