Transitions can be difficult and after being married for five years I can’t imagine how difficult it is for those who are married twenty years.

I sat down at Max’s in Walnut Creek and in three hours I took my list of five criteria and expanded it to 125. I broke it out into categories of what are absolutely necessary or definitely intolerable. I created the list with a rating system of 1 to 5 ratings system. I covered every area from education, family, friends, attire, appearance and even social habits.

I handed out my list to several of my single friends and they had a great time with it. They had never thought about making a list of what they wanted and all agreed, both male and female alike, the physical attraction was the main criteria they used in getting involved in a relationship.

The also agreed it was the last criteria they should have used to create a long term relationship. But they had never thought to question the habits of those they dated. It never occurred to them they might have choices rather than a mutual physical attraction.

They would report back to me and confirm their dating became more interesting and fun.

I was married for five years, during the Viet Nam era and there was no chance the marriage could survive the trauma of that skirmish. I still can’t imagine how anyone recovered from the emotional devastation of that incident.

So after 3 years of trying to become better to eliminate the difficulties of being married to someone who would never learn to relax or trust anyone the rest of his life, I finally made the choice to go solo.

This was one of the challenging times of my life. I didn’t have any idea how to cope with being single when nearly everyone I knew by this time was married.

I had an amazing boss in Chico and he finally insisted I go out to dinner with one of the men he knew. Rick was amazingly kind and gentle. He did everything he could to break the bad influence of my marriage. He made me open up and talk about my experiences and especially all the things I didn’t want to talk about.

Then six months later he moved to Tempe for a teaching job.

A few months later I was turned down to buy a house (way before women were allowed the same courtesy as men at banks) so I took my money to Laguna Seca Raceway near Monterey and purchased an auto cross car after they let me drive the track.

I replaced dating with racing, for awhile anyway.