Six Degrees Of Life and Love

Well by popular demand I will talk about marriage. More precisely I will talk about what led to my marriage.

In a previous post I implied that a lack of patience led to my failed marriage. That statement is true on numerous levels. Most have probably heard it said that we are all connected within six degrees of separation. Well I believe all disasters are connected by six facts that if any one of them had been different then the disaster would not have occurred. Even a disaster as monumental as the Titanic could have been pevented had just one thing been done differently.

Well I like to trace my disaster to one thing...UC Berkeley. I was admitted into that prestigiuous institution right out of high school, but unfortunately I really didn't know what I had. To me it was just the utmost of the weird. People with purple hair, all manner of alternative lifestyles, professors who just seemed weird. I mean you name it I saw it and frankly it bothered me. At that time I was ultraconservative. An ultraconservative black youngster...who woulda thought it. So I dropped out. Never really gave it a chance. At the start of the second term I just stopped going. That decision would ultimately lead to my disastrous marraige.

Now instead of being with the intellectual elite I found myself with the dregs of society...people with little ambition, intellect or morals...my kind of folks. I went a bit of the way down the path of degradation. Got myself a bachelor pad and had women flowing through all day and night (oops...I lapsed into fantasy there). Anyway, I did get caught up in some stuff. Not superbad, but definitely not the type of activities one would expect from someone like me. I wandered in and out of college several times, got kicked out of my parents' house a coupletimes, once for simply taking a trip to LA for a Raiders game.

So I digress. I ended up leading some semi-vagabond life of ill repute and next thing I know I felt the need to be "saved". Well I don't know how many of you know that terminology but it is usually associated with charismatic or evangelical Chistian movements and simply put refers to us being saved from Hell. So I joined a local church which coincidentally was attended by my sister. Boy did I immerse myself into it. It was pretty cool for a while. I was in the choir, hanging out w/ good, albeit dumb people, just being a positive citizen. Life was oh so grand...until I was disrespected by the white man.

Now those of you who know me (Han) know I have a problem with the white man. Well let's not say I have a problem, I just don't trust white people and really don't like them very much, although I am not opposed to the occasional hot white woman, also known as black man's kryptonite. Now some may say I am racist, but in America I contend black people cannot be racist. Racism equals prejudice plus power (African American Studies 101) and in the US black people lack the power to be racist. Now I may be somewhat prejudiced, but I prefer to consider myself just a wee bit wary. Once again I digress. In this instance I was totally humiliated as the pastor chose to chastise me in front of the entire congregation for disagreeing with him. Basically it was of the nature that the slaves do not dispute w/ massuh (now you know why I would never call Masaaki Massa @ OSU). So instead of pulling a Nat Turner and splitting his head open, I decidedto leave that church.

By the way did I mention that I had some delicious Peking Duck for dinner tonight?

So this woman I met at work invited me to try her church. Now this was an almost all black church and I instantly felt at home, instantly immersing myself in the goings on. Joined the choir, became the treasurer of the Men's group, became a teacher, just did it all. Now a young black man w/ a job and his own car was indeed a rarity in those circumstances and eventually I caught the eyes of the "mother's" of the church. These wise older women instantly set about the chore of getting me married. Now I was about 25 and my life plan had me getting married by 27 so I was pushing up against the barrier, but I really wasn't superconcerned about marriage, but I did want a woman. A good nice churchgoing woman.

So I started dating. Not as a player or anything, but there was some serial dating going down, but never women I really wanted, just women I thought I could get. You know the ghetto girl type w/ 2-3 kids who was looking for a baby daddy or those who had no education or desire to get any who wanted someone w/ a job and an apartment or those who just had equally dim outlooks on life. Yep those are the women I thought I could get. I was an overweight, uneducated (dropped out again), unattractive dude so I figured I couldn't get the women I wanted. So I picked from the dregs and eventually ended up with my wife.

This was indeed a relationship doomed from the start. On our first date I fell asleep. Our first kiss was less exciting than kissing my sister (no comments Han). Passion?? Non-existent. Love?? What was that. Basically we got married not cuz she was pregnant or she filled my thoughts. I mean to be honest I didn't even think she was cute. She didn't have a great body and often had a runny nose. But she was a good age. And she went to my church. She had similar views on kids and other aspects of life as me. But the coup de gras was the fact that my brother told me that God told him that she was to be my wife. OK, I will give you a moment to compose yourself. Get up off the floor and wipe your eyes.

Now I rushed that entire relationship. I ended it once when we had a seemingly unimportant argument, but I let one of those church mothers talk me in to taking her back. Now even though I didn't like her I told her of my plan to propose to her at some point. Well that is not so bad, but I told her this after maybe dating for a month and knowing full well that I didn't like her much less love her. But we had started down a road that I was in a rush to travel. So even though I told her I would propose to her after we had been together 6 months, I went shopping @ Costco one day and saw a nice set and picked up her ring (only $599!! What a bargain!!). Now since I had the ring I decided I might as well give it to her. No bended knee or anything. Just a "Hey I picked this up. You want to wear it now or wait a couple months?" Very romantic, eh?? So we ended up pushing our wedding date up like 6 months (we were in the church and at our church there was no sex outside of marriage. I am now an advocate of kicking the tires before you buy the car!!)

Anyway, that was the start of 4 1/2 lifeless loveless years of marriage. We stayed together because neither of us believed in divorce. Well I didn't believe in divorce...she was a broke untrained leech who had no marketable skills who flunked out of a preschool training course. On and on it dragged until finally I insisted she move back home with her mother. This happened as we ate pie at our favorite pie shop. Bet she didn't expect that.

But even with all that I can say there is a silver lining. Were I not so disgusted with my homelife I would never have sought a reason to stay away from home. That diversion happened to take me back to a community college then to SFSU where I finally completed my BS in what I like to call the 15 year degree program, and finally to OSU where I completed the MBA and met the connections that led to me posting here.

So I don't know how many degrees that is...it may have reached six. I know if I added all the little subtopics it would definitely reach six. So basically you all owe my presence to some weird purple haired dude from UC Berkeley in the mid-80's.

Yeah I know this was a long post. It speaks to my lack of a life. However if you read this entire post you really need to get a new hobby. Try knitting or something. Go borrow a life if you can't create one of your own.