June 25, 2006
Love etc…
My young Friend Rasha. was talking to me about her yet to show up charming prince, she spent her adolescence reading these passionate love stories and now they are so ingrained in her brain…she started feeling she is Cinderella, and truly believes her destiny will be like her, this is not trivial at all as most of the girls I have known were the same including myself!
…. I spent at least half of my life believing that there is one person for each one of us. I blame this idea that was planted in my head at an early age on a conversation I had at a very early age with a friend that I looked up to at that point of my life. This friend said once in a moment of lucidity that we only have one true friend and we only have one true love. Since I was gullible and easily impressionable, and the words came out of my mentor’s lips from all people, I lived years and years not only believing intensely in that idea, but fighting for proving it is right! Ironically this friend’s life has been the perfect example of the opposite extreme! His lifestyle is the proof that this nice idea is only a nice idea! He has been going out steadily with at least 3 “fiends” because he hates the term girl friend and these “friends” not only know about each other, but somehow they managed to become best friends! With time my friend stopped believe in marriage, he does not think that one person can satisfy all his needs…. But I won’t get into this today. This is worthy of a post on its own!
Couple of years ago, I was talking to a mathematician friend, and I was arguing passionately that we only have one true love, and this friend went into a calm logical explanation that this is mathematically impossible, as there are 6 billion people on this earth and the probability that we fall in love more than once is simply more than 1!!! And I had no other option but to see the error of my ways!
These three conversations came to my mind today in my trip from Aqaba to Amman where I spent it being amused by May Ziadeh’s confused love stories. May was in love with 3 different men. A German guy, with whom she had a brief thing, but he disappeared from her life at a later stage and she ended up going to Germany few times to find him.
Gibran Khalil Gibran, with whom she corresponded for more than 25 years. The stories say they have never met, although one rumour was that they met once, for one whole night, where they spent it talking على ذمة the person who came up with the rumour. Gibran on the other hand had a very busy love life that was characterized by a series of intense affaires with different partners. At the same time he was corresponding with May, sometimes very emotional and romantic letters, he was seriously dating a woman in Boston, having affaires left right and centre, with several girls and corresponding seriously with another lady!
So since their love story was only platonic it never crystallized into anything concrete, they loved each other without really loving each other. There was no passion, obviously since they never met and if the rumour was true they only spent one night together, that was not passionate enough because it never led to any other nights. There was also no commitment what so ever because of his bohemian lifestyle and her strict feminist views and belief that love must lead to marriage other wise it is not love at all. Beside the fact that they both were in love with other people. And whether in my idealistic phase or in my cynical one, the one thing that remains unchanged is that relationships without passion is not the kind of love I am talking about here.
The third man in her life was Abas Mahmoud il Aqad. A man that was the object of my fantasies since I was very young. His dark skin and good looks, his defiance to the school system that he never finished, yet managed to become Abas Mahmoud il Aqad, one of the most intelligent and intellectual men in our culture, all were elements that made me completely fancy Al Aqad, even if he is not a person in my life, yes the very same kind of feelings girls have for Enrique Iglesias, Orlando Bloom or that cute Egyptian actor il sa2a.. May and Al Aqad had a very flirty relationship, where they dated on weekly basis… he wrote her lots of beautiful poems, and she wrote him lots of naughty letters… however, their love died in the crib, because she called him once and the phone was answered by Sarah, a woman that he fancied!
I guess what I am trying to say here, is that love is something very volatile, it comes and goes, and maybe it is time for girls to move away from this Cinderella notion, because I promise human beings are too weak and curious to fall in love only once.
Comments(9)