Do you want to come back to my place?

Switchback once commented that every time she appears on my blog, she looks stupider. So in deference to her, I will change her name in this next story.

I have a friend. We'll call her Twitchback. When I first saw a picture of her, I thought, "She's either going to be really dorky or really cool." And she was really cool. And somewhat dorky. Just a little. (She still sings church hymns in Italian during Sacrament meeting, which I have suggested may be The Reason she's not married yet, but she doesn't seem to think so.) Twitchback lives in California where she's going to school. And Twitchback, well, has always given me the impression of being an informed woman of the world. She's got it together.

But not always, really.

I have to make a note of the fact before I proceed that Twitchback has never lived in Utah and she's never really come off as the sheltered type.

So several months ago, Twitchback and I were talking on the phone and she was telling me about a date she went on with a guy who she met through work. He was not LDS. Twitchback is LDS. As she was telling me about the date, she said that at the end of the date, she asked him if he wanted to come back to her apartment. He said yes. And then he thought about it a little and said no, actually, he should go home.

"Twitchback," I said. "You asked him back to your apartment??"

"Yes..." said Twitchback.

"Look, Twitchback. I've never not been Mormon. But from what I gather from movies and television, 'Do you want to come back to my place' means sex."

"No!" she cried.

"Yes! Sex! You invited him back to your apartment for sex! He said yes initially and then thought about it and decided not to have sex with you on your first date."

"No!"

"Yes! Look, in Mormon culture, 'Do you want to come back to my place' means brownies or cookies or some sort of refreshment. But I'm pretty sure in the real world it means sex."

Poor, poor Twitchback. She consulted other sources and found out that yes, of course, in the real world, "Do you want to come back to my place" doesn't actually mean "Let's eat brownies and watch The Princess Bride."