This song has a lot of emotional baggage attached to it. When I first learned it, I was trying to get over the fact that the woman I thought I wanted marry had different plans...and they didn't include me.
At that time, someone new came into my life. We met at the health club where we both had memberships. She was an exchange student from Japan and she asked me to help her with writing assignments because she wasn't confident her English was strong enough. While proofreading her work, I fell for her charm and beauty. Things went well for a few months, then out of the blue, she said she couldn't continue because her family wouldn't approve.
In both cases, I was left on my own because both women were more attracted to White men. The first woman told me, "You're everything I could've ever wanted in a man. I'm sure you'd make me very happy. It's, it's, it's just that you're not White." She had grown up dating other Filipino-American guys with disasterous results. There was nothing I could say or do to convince her that I was "different" than the others. The other woman, I later found out, was looking for someone to marry here in the U.S. so that she wouldn't have to go back to Japan. I guess she did me a favor and saved me a future break up.
In between these two women, I had dated a few other women while in college. But, as time has revealed, I kept finding myself on my own. That made me wonder: Did nature intend for me to have a solitary existence? I hope not.
Recently, I've started playing this song again. With good reason. I never thought I could shed the shackles of the past. My first true love has the happy life she deserves and I can't spend the rest of my life in envy of it. My best therapy is to just move on. I've found new inspiration and new life. So this song brings me happiness again. I used to play it over and over again as punishment for not being good enough, or tall enough, or rich enough, or handsome enough, and most unfairly not "White" enough. No more. And, even if I spend the rest of my life as a bachelor, I know I will have lifelong friends to uplift me.
