August 14, 2007

• Boyfriend Requirements.

  So this past weekend I was talking with some people about a mutual friend and how my goal is to get him a girl within the next year.  I singled out a certain quality of his that I think needs a little pruning before he would be considered more attractive to wahines, which led me to start thinking about what kinds of requirements wahines have in order for men to be considered BF candidates.

  I remember one particular patient encounter (details not completely accurate to ensure patient confidentiality) back when I was a resident where the guy I was working up deferred certain questions I was asking.  “Ask my girlfriend,” he said.  “She would know the answer.”  GIRLFRIEND?  Here was this guy who had an active substance abuse disorder, was unemployed and missing a leg and he had a girlfriend while I, all 6’1″-chubby-but-sort-of-smart-and-not-too-handsome-but-kind-of-funny of me, was single.  Here’s a breakdown of me vs. him that day:

  	Him	F.Bunch
  Occupation	Unemployed	M.D. (poor and enslaved)
  # of legs	1	2
  Drug screen	Positive	Negative, except for diet pepsi
  Height	5’7”	6’1”
  Body Mass Index	37	29
  Looks	Not Brad Pitt	Definitely not Brad Pitt
  Girlfriend	Yes	No

   

   

   

   

   

  Don’t get me wrong, people who have substance abuse disorders, are unemployed, and missing one out of 4 limbs deserve love just as much as you or I (thank goodness for unconditional love from above), but what was I doing wrong?  Is there something not right in a world where a man with a peg leg and no job gets more aloha than me?

  Each of these in and of themselves aren’t necessarily bad (well, except drugs).  A war veteran who loses a limb serving our country certainly deserves more love and respect than I do and someone who loses a limb in an accident shouldn’t have it held against them, but it got me thinking about what do we need?  Why do we love?  And is what we need dependent upon who we love (or is it the other way around)?

  You know how the sayings go…Different strokes for different folks, birds of a feather flock together, Taiwanese men are the best…but does any one rule apply to everyone?  Even if you take out the Billy Joel Factor, you will still find couples where one person obviously outshines the other in one area of attraction, whether it be looks, body type, sense of humor, or passion.  This suggests that the checklists we keep on paper not only neglect to list certain qualities we look for, but perhaps also that tangible checklists are incapable of capturing something that is intangible yet pervades throughout our whole being.

  I once wrote about how we always leave a piece of our hearts with those that we love, and how after losing a relationship I found myself with a hole in my heart and I yearned for that person to return because I thought that if I got that piece back I would be complete again.  But then I realized that in order to become whole again what I needed was not that piece of my heart back, but rather the heart of another to fill the hole in mine.  (Funny how when you say them out loud, “whole” and “hole” are almost the same thing, eh?  It’s easy for us to confuse what we need and what we want.)  In the same way, I think we come up with checklists all the time about what we need other people to have in order to fill our needs, but do not spend enough time thinking about how we can fill the needs of others.  Instead of wondering why that man was capable of having a GF despite all of his “faults,” I should have been wondering how I could be able to love like that woman, who loved her man despite all of his faults.  

  You see, my friends, there is something right in a world where a man with a peg leg and no job can get more aloha than me. 

  For all you single peeps out there, I’m not going to tell you that you shouldn’t keep a checklist the next time you go out hunting for a mate, but I would recommend that you also keep a checklist of how you can love others better.  Maybe then you can understand what it is to be whole.

  ———

  I’ve been watching that Human Weapon show where they travel the world to learn different fighting styles.  It’s the bomb diggity and like a dork I’ve been practicing those moves in my living room.  In honor of my homeland  here’s the song BJ Penn used when he walked into the arena to destroy Jens Pulver (it’s a combo of two songs, ”Hawaii ’78″ and “E Ala E”).

  ——–

  And for those of you who are Hawaii football fans stranded on the mainland like me, I found a great site that keeps tabs on our beloved Warriors past and present… 

  Edit: Speaking of Hawaii…stay safe with the hurricane!  Prayers and thoughts are with you back home…and don’t forget…spam never spoils!

  Have a great week! 

  • 9:38 am
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