Flaws of Attraction
Last weekend, I received a call from an old friend who I hadn’t heard from in a good couple of years. Hearing his voice brought back memories of some insane times; vicious nights, dehydrated mornings, politically incorrect attires, the feeling of the world owing us something when all we had for it was the finger, and a set of adorable parents that thought I was on drugs, which was very disturbing since I could’ve sworn that they didn’t have a clue.
Qasim and the rest had lost touch after he’d gotten married. He’d still come out, but it was nothing like it used to be. He had deadlines like he was 10 all over again, and even while he’d be out, his phone would ring every 15 minutes, upon which he’d get up and go to a secluded corner to talk in privacy. Eventually for his own sake, we stopped calling him, after which he stopped calling us.
With the phone decorum out of the way, we decided to meet at Coffee Bean and catch up on old times like a couple of losers. Around 8:40 pm, I got in my car to drive to the coffee shop hoping I’d make it there by 9, and that this time they wouldn’t fuck up my order. Along the way, I wondered where this reunion might be headed and that’s when I realized that I was actually more nervous than excited. The brief phone conversation I had with Qasim was so coated with formality that something had to be wrong. He might have been married with a child, tamed, but it was still not him.
I got a parking spot right in front of the coffee shop and I saw Qasim sitting at one of the tables in the outdoors section of the café. He tried looking inside my car, but probably couldn’t see through the reflection of the coffee shop’s lighted signboard on my windshield. As I pulled the hand break and turned the engine off, I noticed how different Qasim now looked. Oblivious to my arrival, he shook his left foot vigorously and there was a decaying stiffness in the rest of his body language. There was something wrong.
It didn’t take Qasim too long to tell me that he and his wife had separated just the week before. His marriage had started to head south in its first year, the kid was born in the second, a year after which they’d decided to end the marriage that they were once ready to battle the world for. At this point, the parents had become too involved and chances for reconciliation looked bleaker each passing day.
Qasim told me that he felt lonely and missing his daughter was driving him nuts. I sat there and mostly just listened because that’s what Qasim wanted from me. No advice, no sympathy, no petty stay positive bs, he just wanted me to listen.
Without pushing the envelope further on my friend’s privacy, I feel reminded of how much misapprehension the concept of marriage suffers and that too many people are marrying not so much as the wrong person, but just doing it for the wrong reasons. Men for example:
“She’s so hot, yo!”
“This lady here will most likely be the best incubator for my offspring.” (The Anals)
“My mom picked her.” (Also The ultimate excuse)
“She cooks.” (hmmmm)
“I’m 34, I need a wife..what is zisss!!??” (an arab guy I must un-know soon)
“Her dad is loaded, bro.” (The undignified influence of Ambition)
“I just love her, man.” (This type just breaks my heart, in a very wanting-to-kill-him kind of way.)
“She’s half Latino half Chinese.” “Dats wutam tawkin about Cuz!”(situation in the west)
“She’s half Saudi half Lebanese.” “Ya Sheikh! Minjidd!? Gul Wallah”(here)
“She’s so fair and laowely.” “No vays! Oh my gods!” (further east)
This petty crap du jour is what a lot of men base their family lives upon resulting in a pathetic compromise of a marriage played out for the sake of children that are psychological wrecks. The stunning stallion’s glistening six-pack that envied the bride’s girlfriends over coffee gossip eventually turns into just a big and sweaty, hairy and round one-pack as the man goes from relating to Bart to identifying with Homer. The coke-bottle figured seductress gradually expands to resemble the cylindrical gas bottle to be parked somewhere near the stove till the next monthly refill, feeling like just another chore around the house.
So why get married? What is it about us that makes us nest, foster, commit? And why some of us tend to dodge it or wiggle it off upon coming in the slightest contact with it?
One sleepless night with work in the morning would hardly be enough to cover the crap I’m getting my self into, but what I know of marriage is that it should be a process of mutual nourishment and development; emotional, financial and spiritual.
Emotional
Doesn’t necessarily mean that our spouses are to carry our psychological luggage. Our demons are for us to fight and defeat on our own. Spouses can lend a helping hand if they choose to, but out of their own sense of compassion, not as a marital obligation.
Married life, however, incites us to trust, share, help, protect, sacrifice, compromise, contribute, celebrate, mourn, feel. It is needless to say that these natural tendencies practiced with the right person in adequate amounts can work wonders for a person’s emotional health, while denying, misusing, or dislocating them can leave it in a condition most likely unfavorable, possibly catastrophic. Our emotions after all are what make us human. These covert insinuators are behind the grand fact that there are no limits, to how high we can ascend and how low we can stoop.
Financial
First of all, it is my utmost belief that the man is responsible for food, shelter and clothing. Whatever money is made by the woman is her money and her money only. Whether she shares her earnings is a matter of her own choice and any man who argues otherwise should hide back in his mother’s womb and reform until he’s developed a genuine set of balls. Albeit, anyone can marry a person for money as long as the transaction is honored with honesty and respect. Though marrying entirely for money is just…sad.
Moreover, with planning and moving towards a common objective, any double income household that’s not blessed with the proverbial silver spoon, can progress dramatically towards pecuniary advancements. Single income families are becoming an endangered species, even in relatively rich GCC countries. For the conventional types, women have always been the invisible agent of development anyway. With maids n drivers, even that has become a thing of the past. Careers are becoming more and more demanding and working hours have stretched. Long gone are the 20’s, when parents would proudly brag about their son being a clerk in the town’s post office. Cut throat competition lurks the corporate world and with any luck a man gets enough time to recuperate so he can perform his laps in the next day’s rat race. He wants to start some kind of business to break the vicious 9 to 7. He even does research and types up a business plan or two but his focus is disrupted by his day to day obligations like grocery shopping, getting the kids from school, taking them out and paying bills, all this while his wife is consoled by Dr. Phill in the living room. He’s got kids and an unemployed wife, so God forbid he’ll take the risk of quitting his job to dedicate himself entirely to the business he wants to start. So, he succumbs, to his hand to mouth/pay check to pay check routine, to one day be an old man with his old wife at the mercy of their grown children. The man pays for his elevated sense masculinity. The woman, well she tried, by trying to do the budgeting and cooking from time to time. The man did provide the basics while trying his best, so she can’t exactly blame him. Of course, there was always the chance of leaving him but that just depends from person to person.
Cmmon! Whatever happened to dream vacations, spoiling yourselves at a spa, candle light dinners where you know that no fish’s eggs, no muck in seashells, and no duck’s liver even with a French name is worth the money you’d pay, and that damned flame would be nothing but a fire hazard to your silky surroundings, but you’d cherish being there anyway, just because you know you’ve earned your spot in the circles of the prosperous and pretentious?
An early retirement can be enjoyed by both as they’d collect rent from the three houses they bought in their working years or the income coming from the schools, restaurants or clothes stores they started up with the consolidated savings and investments. In a nutshell, if you’re talking about something more than just survival for the less fortunate, two incomes are always better then one.
Spiritual
Being a student of Muslim science, I believe that the spirit is the part of us that bridges us to The Source. It is what’s behind it all and will ultimately be the only part of us that’ll truly matter. It belongs to The Creator and can be nourished by purifying our actions and beliefs. Without getting into too many details, I believe that the Muslim worship that’s performed at least five times a day (Salat) is a kind of meditation that spreads out its positivism through the entire day. You utter things that contain great power, and above all, you don’t chase your spirit around. Instead, you go straight to The Source. Instead of trying to know who/what you are, you approach The Creator and tell him who you’d want to be. Faith then starts to revive the ‘oneness of your body, mind and soul’ and arms your warrior angels to fight your demons of all sizes and shapes.
Though not as a must have kind of requirement, marriage plays a role in this area by facilitating our chronic need for sex and companionship. With the basics out of the way, a not so horny one can focus on his spiritual endeavors, or even others for that matter. We could take the short cut by simply dating, but that doesn’t quite cut it all the time, does it? Maybe that’s just a little too uncertain for the purpose, or rather counterproductive? Men, I must admit would give up their inner peace for their outer piece without thinking once. With women, only if I knew, but we all know that for them it goes way beyond just sex.
Massive environmental pollution, blood sucking banking gimmicks, the pharmaceutical industry, the nuclear bomb, all hide in a protective shade under the dubious umbrella of ‘our needs’, which may be significant, but are fulfilled by actions hardly dignified. These actions are rather lousy, irresponsible and callous to say the least.
Qasim and the rest had lost touch after he’d gotten married. He’d still come out, but it was nothing like it used to be. He had deadlines like he was 10 all over again, and even while he’d be out, his phone would ring every 15 minutes, upon which he’d get up and go to a secluded corner to talk in privacy. Eventually for his own sake, we stopped calling him, after which he stopped calling us.
With the phone decorum out of the way, we decided to meet at Coffee Bean and catch up on old times like a couple of losers. Around 8:40 pm, I got in my car to drive to the coffee shop hoping I’d make it there by 9, and that this time they wouldn’t fuck up my order. Along the way, I wondered where this reunion might be headed and that’s when I realized that I was actually more nervous than excited. The brief phone conversation I had with Qasim was so coated with formality that something had to be wrong. He might have been married with a child, tamed, but it was still not him.
I got a parking spot right in front of the coffee shop and I saw Qasim sitting at one of the tables in the outdoors section of the café. He tried looking inside my car, but probably couldn’t see through the reflection of the coffee shop’s lighted signboard on my windshield. As I pulled the hand break and turned the engine off, I noticed how different Qasim now looked. Oblivious to my arrival, he shook his left foot vigorously and there was a decaying stiffness in the rest of his body language. There was something wrong.
It didn’t take Qasim too long to tell me that he and his wife had separated just the week before. His marriage had started to head south in its first year, the kid was born in the second, a year after which they’d decided to end the marriage that they were once ready to battle the world for. At this point, the parents had become too involved and chances for reconciliation looked bleaker each passing day.
Qasim told me that he felt lonely and missing his daughter was driving him nuts. I sat there and mostly just listened because that’s what Qasim wanted from me. No advice, no sympathy, no petty stay positive bs, he just wanted me to listen.
Without pushing the envelope further on my friend’s privacy, I feel reminded of how much misapprehension the concept of marriage suffers and that too many people are marrying not so much as the wrong person, but just doing it for the wrong reasons. Men for example:
“She’s so hot, yo!”
“This lady here will most likely be the best incubator for my offspring.” (The Anals)
“My mom picked her.” (Also The ultimate excuse)
“She cooks.” (hmmmm)
“I’m 34, I need a wife..what is zisss!!??” (an arab guy I must un-know soon)
“Her dad is loaded, bro.” (The undignified influence of Ambition)
“I just love her, man.” (This type just breaks my heart, in a very wanting-to-kill-him kind of way.)
“She’s half Latino half Chinese.” “Dats wutam tawkin about Cuz!”(situation in the west)
“She’s half Saudi half Lebanese.” “Ya Sheikh! Minjidd!? Gul Wallah”(here)
“She’s so fair and laowely.” “No vays! Oh my gods!” (further east)
This petty crap du jour is what a lot of men base their family lives upon resulting in a pathetic compromise of a marriage played out for the sake of children that are psychological wrecks. The stunning stallion’s glistening six-pack that envied the bride’s girlfriends over coffee gossip eventually turns into just a big and sweaty, hairy and round one-pack as the man goes from relating to Bart to identifying with Homer. The coke-bottle figured seductress gradually expands to resemble the cylindrical gas bottle to be parked somewhere near the stove till the next monthly refill, feeling like just another chore around the house.
So why get married? What is it about us that makes us nest, foster, commit? And why some of us tend to dodge it or wiggle it off upon coming in the slightest contact with it?
One sleepless night with work in the morning would hardly be enough to cover the crap I’m getting my self into, but what I know of marriage is that it should be a process of mutual nourishment and development; emotional, financial and spiritual.
Emotional
Doesn’t necessarily mean that our spouses are to carry our psychological luggage. Our demons are for us to fight and defeat on our own. Spouses can lend a helping hand if they choose to, but out of their own sense of compassion, not as a marital obligation.
Married life, however, incites us to trust, share, help, protect, sacrifice, compromise, contribute, celebrate, mourn, feel. It is needless to say that these natural tendencies practiced with the right person in adequate amounts can work wonders for a person’s emotional health, while denying, misusing, or dislocating them can leave it in a condition most likely unfavorable, possibly catastrophic. Our emotions after all are what make us human. These covert insinuators are behind the grand fact that there are no limits, to how high we can ascend and how low we can stoop.
Financial
First of all, it is my utmost belief that the man is responsible for food, shelter and clothing. Whatever money is made by the woman is her money and her money only. Whether she shares her earnings is a matter of her own choice and any man who argues otherwise should hide back in his mother’s womb and reform until he’s developed a genuine set of balls. Albeit, anyone can marry a person for money as long as the transaction is honored with honesty and respect. Though marrying entirely for money is just…sad.
Moreover, with planning and moving towards a common objective, any double income household that’s not blessed with the proverbial silver spoon, can progress dramatically towards pecuniary advancements. Single income families are becoming an endangered species, even in relatively rich GCC countries. For the conventional types, women have always been the invisible agent of development anyway. With maids n drivers, even that has become a thing of the past. Careers are becoming more and more demanding and working hours have stretched. Long gone are the 20’s, when parents would proudly brag about their son being a clerk in the town’s post office. Cut throat competition lurks the corporate world and with any luck a man gets enough time to recuperate so he can perform his laps in the next day’s rat race. He wants to start some kind of business to break the vicious 9 to 7. He even does research and types up a business plan or two but his focus is disrupted by his day to day obligations like grocery shopping, getting the kids from school, taking them out and paying bills, all this while his wife is consoled by Dr. Phill in the living room. He’s got kids and an unemployed wife, so God forbid he’ll take the risk of quitting his job to dedicate himself entirely to the business he wants to start. So, he succumbs, to his hand to mouth/pay check to pay check routine, to one day be an old man with his old wife at the mercy of their grown children. The man pays for his elevated sense masculinity. The woman, well she tried, by trying to do the budgeting and cooking from time to time. The man did provide the basics while trying his best, so she can’t exactly blame him. Of course, there was always the chance of leaving him but that just depends from person to person.
Cmmon! Whatever happened to dream vacations, spoiling yourselves at a spa, candle light dinners where you know that no fish’s eggs, no muck in seashells, and no duck’s liver even with a French name is worth the money you’d pay, and that damned flame would be nothing but a fire hazard to your silky surroundings, but you’d cherish being there anyway, just because you know you’ve earned your spot in the circles of the prosperous and pretentious?
An early retirement can be enjoyed by both as they’d collect rent from the three houses they bought in their working years or the income coming from the schools, restaurants or clothes stores they started up with the consolidated savings and investments. In a nutshell, if you’re talking about something more than just survival for the less fortunate, two incomes are always better then one.
Spiritual
Being a student of Muslim science, I believe that the spirit is the part of us that bridges us to The Source. It is what’s behind it all and will ultimately be the only part of us that’ll truly matter. It belongs to The Creator and can be nourished by purifying our actions and beliefs. Without getting into too many details, I believe that the Muslim worship that’s performed at least five times a day (Salat) is a kind of meditation that spreads out its positivism through the entire day. You utter things that contain great power, and above all, you don’t chase your spirit around. Instead, you go straight to The Source. Instead of trying to know who/what you are, you approach The Creator and tell him who you’d want to be. Faith then starts to revive the ‘oneness of your body, mind and soul’ and arms your warrior angels to fight your demons of all sizes and shapes.
Though not as a must have kind of requirement, marriage plays a role in this area by facilitating our chronic need for sex and companionship. With the basics out of the way, a not so horny one can focus on his spiritual endeavors, or even others for that matter. We could take the short cut by simply dating, but that doesn’t quite cut it all the time, does it? Maybe that’s just a little too uncertain for the purpose, or rather counterproductive? Men, I must admit would give up their inner peace for their outer piece without thinking once. With women, only if I knew, but we all know that for them it goes way beyond just sex.
Massive environmental pollution, blood sucking banking gimmicks, the pharmaceutical industry, the nuclear bomb, all hide in a protective shade under the dubious umbrella of ‘our needs’, which may be significant, but are fulfilled by actions hardly dignified. These actions are rather lousy, irresponsible and callous to say the least.
posted by V at 1:16 PM
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