Dating & Relationships

Today is the beginning of Hanukkah, which means 8 wonderful days of celebration. I first wanted to thank my best friend in the whole world for exposing me to such a great holiday and opening my mind to a whole other world. Even though she’s only half Jewish (ethnically she is half Peruvian, quarter Austrian, and an eighth Polish and Russian), she still celebrates her heritage by celebrating anything and everything that her parents taught her. We have been best friends since I was in eighth grade, and all I can remember is I thought I would have an Asian best friend.

“You ought to write a book” Tina Su Cooper, my wife, and I were told many times. Our love story, of nearly fifty years of being in love, though separated for nineteen of them, has recently given birth to our book, Ting and I: A Memoir of Love, Courage and Devotion. It is an upbeat story of triumph over prejudice, separation, and life-changing, life-threatening illness. The National Multiple Sclerosis Society magazine, Momentum, has scheduled our article, “Undefeated,” about Tina, for its winter 2011 issue. She is an Asian American heroine.

One good reason to be at a university is the opportunity to meet, perhaps eventually marry, someone with whom you are compatible, somewhat similar to you, but different enough to be interesting. Even when this does not happen, dating is instructive.

In my book, "Ting and I", the dating and mating process was modeled as follows:

“It occurs to me that during the dating phase of our lives we get to know well, say, a dozen potential spouses, more or less. We hope to pick one and mate for life.

Two of the smartest women I’ve known have had one-syllable surnames: Tina Su and J.J. Wu. Tina was prettier, but J.J. was smarter, smarter than I. I married Tina, and I co-authored technical papers with J.J., who had a deep, eventual unhappy, romance with another Caucasian scientist.