As Michael Jackson once performed, “It’s the falling in love that’s making me high, it’s the being in love that makes me cry, cry cry.” I don’t think he has ever spoken truer words. Falling in love is fun. It’s exciting. But being in love? Man, it’s tough. Staying in love? Man, even tougher. Keeping the same sparks you had when you met? Damn near impossible if you have a house, kids, bills, and a job. So actually, impossible. It’s my wife’s birthday today. I decided to write today as sort of a present to her. No, I’m not a cheap bastard. This is sort of like the icing on top of the cake. But she digs it when I write, so today is perfect.

The single question that people ask me most is how I met my wife. And it’s the one question that almost embarrasses me because we didn’t meet in the most romantic, or exciting kind of way. It was really a mistake that we actually met in the first place. Let me explain.

My once good friend Patrick Gutierrez, PJ for the rest of this entry, was the type of guy who could go clubbin’ once or twice a week. And I think he knew that I hated it, but figured I could be his club buddy. I would be the guy who would hang out with him and pull in the nice chicks for him. Actually, I don’t think he saw it that way, but I kept telling myself that’s why he wanted me to go with him all the time. I wouldn’t go as much as he would, but I’d go every other weekend, so like twice a month. PJ was the type of guy who thought more than 50% of the girls were hot (as he would say), while I thought maybe 5-10% were. So you see how our tastes differed. He loved the Asian persuasion, as he liked to call it. His ex-girlfriend (who was supposedly hot and much older than he) pretty much soured his entire dating life because she was single, had her own place, was a teacher, and was too much for him. They broke up probably because he was living with his parents (actually last time I saw him about a year ago, he was still living with his parents), had a curfew (dude was like 23 already), and was still a student. He used to fantasize about the times that he rebelled against his parents and slept over her house as a big middle finger to his parents for giving him a curfew. I think that was only once. My question to him was, why didn’t you move out? Nah, he liked living at home. So basically, every girl that he saw at the club reminded him of his ex-girlfriend, Christina. After hearing his story about her time after time again, I started to think this chick was simply a fantasy, but to not hurt his feelings, I went along.

On this one particular night, he wanted me to go this club called Planet X in downtown San Jose. Deciding to go out with him was probably one of the best decisions in my life to this date, but at that time, I was actually not really looking forward to it. I mean, I could’ve been playing more Madden on my Playstation, but I relented at his arm twisting and went. The club was your basic downtown San Jose, high energy, semi-ghetto club. It was actually pretty big and I think there was some ham and egg Bay Area singer performing that night. So as PJ and I walked in the club, I was actually kind of wishing I had a Playstation controller in my hand. I didn’t think I was going to have a good time at all. But low and behold, PJ says to me, “There’s Christina! I can’t believe she’s here.” Now, he did this at every club we went to. For some reason, he was so in love with this girl, that any Asian girl looked like Christina to him. So as I took a closer look at the girl he was ogling, I noticed that she was Mexican, and not Asian. I told him, “Dude, that’s not her, she’s not even Asian, she’s Mexican.” But the truthfulness in my voice must’ve got stuck in his waxy ears or something because he then says, “I’m going to go up to her.” And he was off like a bolt of lightening. As he walked closer and closer to her, he turns to me and says, “Dude, that’s not Christina.” I didn’t say, “I told you so”. I simply gave him a sorrowful look. But that didn’t deter him from walking closer. PJ wasn’t much into Mexican girls. If you ask him what his nationality was, he would say Spanish. But if people asked me what he was, I would say White, or Caucasian, because other than his last name, he didn’t have a Spanish bone in his body, and that was the case with Latin women as well. He just simply wasn’t attracted. I was very alarmed that he continued to walk closer and closer to this girl. And then he tells me, “Look, she has a friend.”. And as I look, I see this skinny girl in a white jacket who I was very impressed with. She had a nice smile and was very attractive. PJ then goes up to this Mexican girl, who at first glance supposedly looked like this fantasy Asian girlfriend that he once had and asks her to dance. I’m so glad that I’m paired up with the skinny girl, because to me, she was 10 times prettier than this supposed Asian looking Mexican girl. (Actually it was always like that. If PJ and I went out together, he always picked the ugly girl for some reason, or maybe the ugly girl picked him.)

As we’re dancing, I can barely hear this girl talk. Trying to strike up small talk while you’re dancing in a very loud club is one of the hardest and most uncomfortable things to do. On one hand, you’re totally digging this girl and you want to continue dancing, but on the other hand, you almost wish you could go somewhere and talk. But I was becoming totally mesmerized watching this girl dance. Now I’m no Michael Jackson on the dance floor, hell I’m not even Freddie Jackson, or Freddy Krueger for that matter on the dance floor, but I think I did ok. She was an awesome dancer and was hard to keep up with. I did make out her name and we did get to chit chat for a little bit. We talked about the new Julia Roberts movie, My Best Friend’s Wedding that I had just taken my sister to see. I think we danced for like 45 minutes straight. And for someone who dances like Freddie Jackson instead of Michael Jackson, 45 minutes could seem like days. But with this girl, it didn’t even seem like 45 seconds. After we stopped dancing we went our separate ways. But I wanted to at least talk to her once more before the night was over and maybe even get her phone number.

As the night went on, I think I met another girl that night, who was a very hardcore Mexican girl. She nearly forced me to give her my phone number. She basically scared it out of me. We hooked up because PJ was attracted to her almost suicidal friend. I honestly think her friend was high on something that night. Good old PJ has some great taste. PJ is very oblivious to stuff like that. He honestly thought the girl was digging him.

Near the end of the night, I sat next to the girl I was really interested in and soon there after, her friend gave me her phone number. She told me that the girl lived in LA, but was splitting up with her boyfriend and coming back to San Jose in the next couple months. I could try calling her mom’s house and hope to catch her there. While PJ had struck out about 4 times that night, I could only think about the girl that would eventually become my wife.

The funny part of this story is that I tried getting a hold of Carol a couple times to no avail and actually pretty much gave up on getting a hold of her until one night, PJ persuaded me to give her a call again. I talked to her mom and was told to page her as she was out. I thought that was a little odd because she wouldn’t notice the number and probably wouldn’t call back. But she did, and the rest was history. Although we weren’t a match made in heaven, we definitely have made it work and today, as it’s her 25th birthday, I can honestly say I love her more today, than I did yesterday.

As a side note, I know everyone wants to know where PJ is today. Honestly, we had a falling out as friends and I no longer speak to the guy. It’s not like I won’t take his call or anything, but I cancelled the email address that he had of mine and I don’t think he has my new number. He was a nice guy who was a thoughtful friend, but as our lives changed, we totally grew apart. Actually, the one main problem with our friendship is that he would never admit that Michael Jordan was better than Magic Johnson. He actually threw a fit one time and got all his buddies turned against me because they were Magic Johnson fans. Note to PJ. There’s something called defense that you have to play in the NBA. Mike Jordan was one of the greatest defenders in this history while Magic was about as tough as jello. The real MJ is better man. I’ll go to my grave reppin’ the real MJ.

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