One of my best friends, Saab, who I met while studying math at McGill, got married yesterday in Wisconsin. It was rather sudden in the sense that although I knew last fall that they wanted to get married at some point, they didn't want to actually do it until next July. Why did they do it yesterday? She's not pregnant, if that's what you might have been thinking.
Two years ago, he left Montreal to go to Egypt to teach math to bratty rich Egyptians. (What do you call a person from Cairo? Caironian?) His contract was for two years. He was amazed at the lack of interesting women he saw there until the end of his first year. I was shocked when I learned last summer that he was twitterpated, and that after a few months he was ready to pop the question. I put my institutional doubts aside, knowing that he is an eternal believer, and congratulated him.
Her contract finished after his first year, and she went back to Toronto. They've only been able to see each other a few times in the last year, but I had no doubt that it would work out for them. This past spring, she landed a teaching job in Manila. Since he was engaged to her by this time, and had no job at the end of June, he went along. However, in the Philippines, men and women cannot live together unless they are married. So, they had to push the wedding up a year. They got married with another couple that they had met in Egypt. Neither of them are from Wisconsin; they got married there because it seemed to be a focal point for the expats they met in Egypt. The grand event os actually taking place next July. Big party, the works. And who am I to pooh pooh a good party thrown by the best party-thrower I know?
As for me, I think I understand a little more what the purpose of relationships are for someone like me. It's not so much about love; I am relatively independent socially and emotionally. It's about a Life together. Being able to build something together that is better than what either of you could do alone. It's about getting out of a crappy apartment and into a nice one, and eventually a house. Going on trips. Visiting family. Helping in each other's careers. Supporting each other's passions. Love is an obvious (although not absolutely required, I've seen) ingredient much like milk is to dairy products. But there is so much more to it. Mathematically speaking, it's as though love is a scalar quantity, like "120 km/h". What relationships need are directions. You need vectors. "120 km/h, north on the 15, for 60 km, then..." otherwise you end up in Ste-Jude, and what the hell are you going to do there?
Seems so obvious when you say it that way (well, maybe not that way), but sometimes life diverts you from your path. Sometimes things happen that make you forget why you are on that highway, doing what you do. Life has been tough recently for Rose and I, and it has resulted in a disconnect. We need to fix that. I was completely cut off this weekend, and I couldn't figure out why until last night. It's a negative reaction to a lot of relationship stress. I fucking hate most stress, I want to banish it. A constant state of stress may be normal for some people, but not for me. So I need to work on eliminating it, or at least minimizing it. But the strangest thing just happened, which I'll cover in another entry.
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