25 June 2008 -- 1 July 2008: Provo, Utah

The Provo Challenge: Overview

If I had to sum up the Provo Challenge in one word, it would be "unprecedented." So many things made my time in Provo unprecedented compared to all my other adventures around the country, and most will probably never be topped:

1) Seven days in one town-- the longest stay prior to Provo was four days in Austin and five days on two trips through Boulder.

2) Six nights in the same place-- with a few exceptions, I usually don't stay more than one night in any one place, and it's never more than two or three.

3) Zero trips to the bar-- I maybe, MAYBE, spent five barless nights in all my adventures prior to Provo.

Those were the three big things, and I would say there's a 5% chance at most that any one of those three will ever be matched in any of the other towns that I do this in-- certainly none of the previous towns have even come close.

And that's what made the Provo Challenge so interesting for me-- not to mention why I felt a need to stay an entire week in the first place. 95% of college town nightlife is the bar scene, and with good reason. Even if you aren't drinking, in every college town across the country that's where you have to go to find people after 11:00 at night.

And so, just about every night during my adventures around this country I've ended up at the bar; not because I want to get drunk every night, and not even because I want to drink every night, but because otherwise I'm going to be lonely and bored. And the routine is the same pretty much every time-- meet whoever you meet and go back to their place. Or to a park if you don't.

But since no one goes to bars in Provo, the post-11:00 nightlife is at the Creamery or, later, at Denny's. And while that might not be as exciting as the bar, it sure as hell is more interesting because you actually get to talk to BYU students and find out what it's all about.

Not to mention that it's pretty nice waking up every morning for a week straight feeling good. It's a bit of an aberration during my travels.

I'll never spend a week in one college town again because a week in Santa Barbara would have been nice, but it wouldn't have been any more or less interesting than a week in Tempe or a week in Boulder. Because, though they're all cool towns, I'd be at the bar every night for a week in all three.

But in Provo, well, you never know. I'll admit that going to Denny's every night is more or less the same idea as going to the bar every night, in that it's the same scene, but it's an entirely different dynamic. Obviously.

Now, as far as the Provo Challenge, I only decided to call it that when I sat down to write about the first day. I was only planning on staying in Provo for a few days-- just long enough to get a feel for the campus-- so I had no preconceived notions of staying as long as I did, or of having my time in Provo define my entire trip. Which it did.

But, truth be told, I realized that I couldn't get the entire feel for the campus in only a few days-- even when you throw out all the activities and dances and barbeques I found myself invited to over the course of the week, at a school like BYU you absolutely have to at least stay for a Sunday.

And so, as I kept staying one more day after one more day, I realized that the Provo Challenge was spending a week in Mormon culture-- with Mormon friends and Mormon fun-- and still having fun. Hell, "and not leaving" would have been a challenge enough.

Now, as you can imagine, it wasn't a challenge at all. I had a hell of a time in Provo-- arguably the most fun I've had in any of the college towns I've been to, and definitely the most fun when you factor in the uniqueness of the fun that I had. But, as per the BYU Honor Code and the rules of the Provo Challenge, that meant no sex, drugs, alcohol, smoking, or cheating.

Let's skip right past "no cheating" without trying to think of a clever way in which I cheated while in Provo. Not worth my time.

"No smoking" wasn't an issue, since I like my lungs, and "no drugs" is pretty much a rule of mine while I'm on the road since I like to at least keep some sort of bearings about me. No problems there.

I passed "no sex" with flying colors, although some of the stuff with Lenora might have been considered risque were I a BYU student too. Still, though, no sex.

So that leaves us with "no alcohol," which I suppose is where I messed up because of the one night at Drew's friend's place. Had I come up with the idea of the Provo Challenge by that point, I probably wouldn't have had anything to drink that night, for the sake of truly acing all five aspects. But, even though I had a few beers, what's more important to me in terms of the "no alcohol" policy-- at least as far as how it relates to the Provo Challenge-- is that no alcohol is just a way of saying no going to the bar. If the Provo Challenge is about my having fun in Provo without the typical college town things, then going to the bar is more of an issue than having a beer at someone's house because going to the bar is how you meet people at a "typical college town." If I had not had those beers with Drew I would have still been at the same place with the same people-- the alcohol wasn't a means for me to meet people or find a place to crash.

Anyway, if those are the parameters for the Provo Challenge, I'd say I passed at least four and, in my opinion, all five. But, man, were there so many things to note about my week in Provo.

Without a doubt, the most important aspect of my time at BYU were Lenora and Nerina. It says everything in the world that I actually stayed at their house for six nights, and it says twice as much that nothing more than a Mormon make out and Mormon hook up happened during the entire time. Pretty inconsequential, really.

I stayed twice as long with the twins than I have with anyone else partly because of how nice they were and partly because of how much fun they were. Starting with my first night in town, when Nerina was so excited about my hanging out with them-- little did anyone know it would be for as long as it was-- and continuing throughout the whole week with the other dance and the movies and the water park and the picnic and, well, Church. I normally like to head out on my own when I'm in a new town and see the place for myself, but not once did I feel strained about being with the twins nearly 24/7. I never felt antsy to break away because they were the perfect guides around town and it was nothing but fun. I can't possibly say enough about them.

I can't say enough about them, but one thing that I absolutely MUST say is that they risked getting expelled by letting me stay with them. I didn't know this when I went back to their place the first night-- had I known I would have found somewhere else-- but letting a person of the opposite sex spend the night in your house breaks the Honor Code and is grounds for expulsion. I mean, that's huge. And they still let me spend six nights at their house.

Another thing, even more incredible, is that I was the only person sleeping in their house on Sunday night. The twins were sleeping at Deborah's house, but they left the key in the mailbox and said I could sleep there anyway. They left the key in the mailbox every night because I went to Denny's, but on Sunday night I was literally the only person in their house. I don't know if I've ever met people so trusting.

I really could spend hours talking about the twins, they were such incredible people, but I think something Nerina said on Thursday sums it up perfectly. That was the day that Deborah first came over and the twins didn't want her to see me. Since I figured I wouldn't be able to sleep there that night, I texted Nerina while I was hiding in Lenora's room and I asked if I could at least leave my pack at the house for the night and then pick it up in the morning. Nerina's reply was "That would be fine :-) It's still your home."

The main thing that I noticed about BYU students is that, when it comes to alcohol, 95% of them are as close-minded as could be. You might find an exception like Rachel, who was considering trying it, or Garrett, who hit it on the head with his analysis of BYU students, but 95% of the kids that go to school there have no idea that there's a middle ground between stone-cold sobriety and drunken belligerence. Countless times someone would qualify the things they do at night in Provo with "It's more fun than not remembering what you did the night before every time you wake up." And that's even some of the cooler kids, like T-O-Double D and Connor's crowd.

To most BYU students, if you drink then you're an alcoholic. They don't understand that it's possible to go out on a Monday and have two drinks or even that it's possible to go out on a Saturday and have five drinks-- and still be completely sober. And the majority of BYU studnets think that if you do have two drinks on a Monday or five drinks on a Saturday then you're scum.

Like Garrett said, even if you don't drink you still have to be comfortable seeing other people drink because, like it or not, it's going to happen. Even if you don't drink you're still going to find yourself at a bar, or in a drinking situation, from time to time. But when I asked some of the kids what they would do if down the line they went to a bar with friends, if they would be able to not have a drink even in that situation, most of them, I'm not even kidding, said "Well, I'm not going to have friends who go to the bars." Really? I mean, how close-minded can you be? Not everyone who drinks is an alcoholic, and not everyone who drinks is an asshole. If these kids really do limit their friends to those who never go out to a bar they're going to have a VERY small circle of friends.

Another thing about BYU students is that, in addition to not being at all comfortable with drinkers, they're not really that comfortable with random people. BYU Mormons are nearly all incredibly nice, don't get me wrong, but the whole approaching-people-and-talking-to-them thing is so out of the ordinary that it's nearly impossible for it to not work-- at least, I mean for it to not introduce you to whomever you're talking to.

A perfect example of this is the day I discovered the Creamery. Everyone that I met on campus was incredibly helpful about pointing me to where I could meet people, but not a single one of them was actually willing to hang out. In group settings they're great at inviting-- as per the two bbq-dance party invitations-- but they're absolutely terrible at being invited. You'll convince a hermit to hang out with you before you could convince a Mormon.

So when you approach a group of BYU students at Denny's or the Creamery, you'll get one of two responses: either the people will be so caught off guard that they're interested and intrigued or you'll be so unwelcome that they totally ignore you. I had both experiences.

But even if they're put off, if you can get through the first ten minutes you're as welcome as can be. Probably because it is Provo, and the students who go to school there don't do anything even remotely like what I do, most of them are pretty interested in hearing about it. It's just breaking through that outer shell of apprehension that's the tricky part.

But the biggest thing I learned is what I would call the sad truth of the Provo Challenge-- and that would be what Lenora told me on Tuesday afternoon.

"Maybe it's because I like you but can't. You're not here, and I won't be either. I promised myself not to like a guy like that until after my mission."

From Day One Mormon kids are told about the all-importance of marriage and family, and once they get to BYU the administration beats it into their heads relentlessly. I mean, that's all some of these kids-- especially the girls-- think about.

More than that, it's ingrained in them that pre-marital sex is bad, and even pre-marital fooling around is something to be ashamed of.

So what we're left with is kids who wouldn't dare hook up before marriage, but who are pressured to marry early-- and, for the girls, that pressure is huge. But while marrying early would at least get you laid sooner, that's an awful lot of pressure: finding someone at age 20 who you want to spend your life with.

As far as I can tell, that leaves a lot of unhappy people growing up, a lot of unhappy people once they start scrambling for a husband or wife, and potentially a lot of unhappy people when they realize they married the wrong person.

But the worst part is, that also means that a lot of people are going to meet someone they like "but can't." As though it's not bad enough evaluating people of the opposite sex only in terms of long-term-marrying-potential, to be upset and have to be ashamed of your feelings for someone because the situation of two years down the line affects the situation of today is really pretty terrible.

And when you throw in the effect of going on a mission, and having two years of your life essentially taken away-- well, losing two years of your life to a mission is unfortunate for many reasons, and this thing about "forbidden love" is certainly one of them. It's just a sad situation all the way around.

Anyway, that's that. I had a hell of a time in Provo, and the whole experience was seriously some of the funniest shit I've seen during my weeks and weeks on the road. I will say, though, that Mormons found at most 3% of my Provo stories funny. To hell with them.

I accomplished pretty much everything I hoped to when I decided to go to Provo, which isn't much considering that I wasn't expecting much when I made that decision. However, there was one goal I didn't accomplish that I REALLY wanted to. I didn't give a Mormon girl a hickey. That's it. My goal wasn't to hook up with a Mormon girl, because I realized even before I got there that if I did hook up with a Mormon girl it would be a huge no-no. All I wanted was to give one of them a hickey. Something completely harmless, but boy would that be a badge of shame to be walking around with. That was my only goal. Next time.



"I can't begin to thank you two enough. The fact that you risked expulsion to let me stay here wasn't lost on me, nor was the amount of effort you put into making sure the cat didn't kill me. My staying here for a week says all you need to know about how much fun I had with you two.

Nerina-- Thanks for your enthusiasm, soulmate. You're the only reason that I was even here to begin with.

Lenora-- You're truly one of a kind. Pretty ironic for a twin, no?

I'm sure I'll see you both very soon.

Cheers.
Zach"