I spent more than a year cursing the guy who decided mixing root beer with vanilla ice cream was a good idea and wishing I could kick him in the shins. After the kick, which I’m sure would have made me feel better, I would have drafted a letter to every Church singles group from there to Mississippi, letting them know the root-beer-float ship had sailed in 1982 and for all that was good and holy could they please make brownies or something?

I landed in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, pretty much over it. Over all of it.

Was I still young enough to attend singles activities?

I was twenty-five, so technically . . . yes. But who wanted to dwell on technicalities? Definitely not me. Not with root beer on the menu.

By the end of my second Sunday in Chapel Hill, I was already lined up to start teaching Sunday School to seven-year-olds in the “not for singles” family congregation, which sounded positively amazing. Before I moved in, I’d kinda hoped family-style church would be my only option, but Chapel Hill was a college town surrounded by other college towns. Three major universities and half a dozen smaller ones fed into the same body of Mormon singles, including UNC, Duke, and NC State, which made for a pretty impressive gathering. Impressive enough to warrant giving the singles their own meeting time free from hovering grandparents or noisy children. I’d felt momentarily lured to the idea of singles church when a well-intentioned woman sharing my pew had given me a flyer for the following day’s singles mingle.

“My daughter is head of the social planning committee in the singles group, and they do all kinds of fun things,” she’d told me. “Plus, there are lots of grad students. If you’re worried about being too old, don’t be. You’ll fit right in.”

I’d ignored the rub of her tactless observation—I hadn’t said anything about feeling too old, which meant I just looked it—and considered the possibility of grad students. But then I’d taken a quick glance at the flyer.

Board games and . . . wait for it . . . root beer floats.

Yeah. There couldn’t have been a clearer sign. I’d crumpled the flyer on my way out the door and chucked it into the trash can at the end of the hall.

Seven-year-olds? Here I come.