Still having flashbacks of Pink Shirt Dude as I write this, but if that bonehead did one good thing, he’s inspired a whole lot of discussion about what the cuss is wrong with BM/BW relationships. (By the way, Paul Carrick Brunson, the only sane one on the panel, is going to stop in here on Tuesday and give us some back story on the stinking turd of a show.)

Somebody on Facebook asked about something Pink Shirt Dude said in particular about having a house, car, going to work and some unfortunate woman having his baby, then ranted about if he has all that, why does he need a college degree?

“Annie” (changed her name) wrote this:

So the angry guy in the pink was going on about how he had a house and a car but that someone told him that he wasn’t good enough since he didn’t have a college degree. Even though I’d never tell someone to their face, but I don’t consider anyone without a college degree a potential life partner. Maybe a few dates…but forever? no. Let me say that I have both a BS and a doctorate and its not a “boougie” thing (I grew up quite poor actually) I just like knowing that someone went throught the experience. Some of my buddies agree, others ….don’t. What do you think. I’m just curious.

Hmmmm. If we take the sex out of it, marriage is at it’s core a spiritual commitment and contract. Tell me something. If Acme Soap Products was looking for their next CEO and wanted to promote within, who would they most likely consider–the person who works in the mail room, shipping center or customer service and diligently did his job and only his job, or the one who started in the mail room, went to school at night to get a B.S. in business, got promoted to middle management, then went back to school to get his MBA and is now in upper management?

Tell me, grasshoppers, what does it say about the character of each candidate? HOWEVER, my father was that first guy, who worked his job hard, but didn’t have much ambition other than to make enough money to support his family, save, and buy enough holy water to keep the credit card salesmen away.

So what I’m about to say might sound like I’m throwing dearly departed patriarch Russell under the bus: Before I went to college, I would have TOTALLY gone for Acme Guy Numero Uno. But when I was close to graduating, I increasingly found Acme Guy Numero Dos hawt like green Doritos. But the reason isn’t solely monetary (so you Trollpanians can just swallow that “gold digger reference along with that other bile) it’s that I started reading Newsweek, and learning about what a Corinthian column was and I’d grew bored of Jerome Dickey books.

In short, I had changed. And it more complicated than just the money.

So I asked my hoity-toity online friend and fellow blogger Carolyn Edgar about my facebook friend’s concerns. Figured she’s be the best source, since she graduated from Harvard law school and has some la-dee-da upper management position at Estee Lauder:

I married a guy without a college degree. He was plenty smart, so the degree isn’t why things didn’t work out. He admitted he felt like “less than a man” because I made so much more than he did, and I was the one with the high-status job. I might consider someone without a college degree as a potential life partner, but he’d have to have a lot more going on for him than just owning a house and a car. He would have to be self-educated, we’d have to have compatible interests (outside the bedroom) and values, and he’d have to not resent me for my educational and career achievements. In fact, he’d have to be 100% supportive of my career ambitions. This angry brother sounds like he wouldn’t fit the bill. He sounds like he’s too caught up in his own insecurities to be confident with a woman who was more educated and probably out-earns him. And the last thing a woman needs is a man who feels he has to assert his manhood over her in other ways because he can’t be the breadwinner in the relationship. That’s not exactly a soundbite, but those are my thoughts.

As for pink shirt brother’s complaint: Sir. You’ve got to bring a bit more to the table than I own a house, I own a car, I’m bringing the money home and I’m not cheating on you. That’s basic. That’s the minimum you’re supposed to do. And therein lies the problem. Men have been taught women should be satisfied as long as they’re doing the bare minimum.

What say you, BB&W Crew?

Here’s a radio show by Deborrah Cooper that brings this home:

Anyone, man or woman, who would like to further their education, may like to look into an online PhD.