The Girl You Propose To, but Never the One You Marry
on my three dream weddings, and what they taught me
Dear whomever,
Too Sweet by Hozier is playing on repeat. Though not necessarily my favorite by him, I’ve hyper-fixated on it ever since I reconnected with an old flame1. He asked if I had listened to the latest Hozier album (which, of course, I had) and excitedly announced that whenever he listened to Too Sweet, he thought of me.
I groaned at this, visibly, which took him aback (“Isn’t that a compliment!”), but I’ll give credit where credit is due - Too Sweet is a solid representation of what our relationship looked like for that brief moment in time. It was a correct interpretation, a sound comparison. But I just don’t like being the meek, overly positive character that Hozier sings about - maybe the reason it rubs me the wrong way is because in this idea, there exists some truth.
I listen to the song over and over and I can see it, oh so clearly: me, always smiling at the problems, assuring him we can fix the mess, and him, upset at my sweet, understanding, self. Him, just wanting me to let go, to let it fall apart.
After our time together, he texted me “You’re what a man imagines when he says, I want a good wife.”
We’re just friends.
life as a perfect bride hopeless romantic
I can easily divide my life into sections, each represented by which man I loved at the time. I rediscover myself through these relationships - I measure time with the people I’ve loved and lost. Each one serves as deep, introspective lesson for me. I am always analyzing and writing and studying my romances - always backtracking and trying to find out where the cracks were, and how they started.
In previous drafts of this very piece, I wrote a paragraph or two on how I felt a bit weird always speaking on exes and almost-lovers in my letters/essays/poems. I find that almost all of my writing explores romantic relationships... is that bad? I keep trying to write about things other than romantic love... but it remains the most intriguing thing to my brain, always producing the most words. This essay (which I quote below) gave me the kick I needed:
“Agnes views romantic relationships as the place where some of the most pressing philosophical problems surface in life, and she tries to “navigate the moral-opprobrium reflexes in the right way,” she said, so that people won’t dismiss the topic as unworthy of public discussion. “If you’re a real philosopher,” she once tweeted, “you don’t need privacy, because you’re a living embodiment of your theory at every moment, even in your sleep, even in your dreams.”
- Agnes Callard’s Marriage of the Minds2
Editors note: this piece made me consider if I am/would like to be a philosopher.
A few months ago my mother visited me - as you may already know - poorly timed as I was deep in the aftermath of a breakup, stuck in a loop of worrying if I’d been cursed in a past life to live this one forever alone. I spent a lot of time with my aunts then, who would regularly ask if I had anyone lined up. This is a question I’ve been asked often. One may grow accustomed to it - I know I have - but sometimes, even the cyclical, common things you’re so used to can hit a soft spot, and hurt.
I would feel targeted by these questions, and on more than one occasion I couldn’t help but cry, and at their confusion I would admit: I’m just scared - scared I’ll never find anyone to marry, and of course they would lament about “Oh who needs marriage, I hate my husband!” and I would argue, I do - I want a husband to hate! My very own annoying husband, please!
ليش يا أمل؟3
When I was 15 a boy took interest in me - the first to ever do so - and before we were even officially dating, he had planned our lives together: his parents were presented with my Instagram photos and informed that at 21 we would be engaged, and shortly after college we would be married. I accepted these propositions, this grand romantic idea, mostly intrigued by his obsession with little old me. With time I fell in love, or whatever love is at that young age, and the gory details don’t matter for this piece, but I often blame this relationship for my obsession with young marriage. It wasn’t my mom, or my aunts, or my teachers, as it all typically is, no - just this barely-through-puberty boy, promising me a whole life, and me, who really didn’t think she’d live past 18, deciding, Fine.
Our wedding would be a big one, with my first love, a grand celebration with hundreds of people, and all the necessary components for a first-born Arab son. The Zaffeh4, the sword down the cake, the kids running around, the awkward bride alongside the outgoing boy - he would sing to me, I imagined, and I would blush like the good girl I was, and we would go on some two week endeavor to Turkey or Egypt, and that would be that. We would have won against the High School Sweethearts statistics, we would have proved everyone wrong, the prize a gold ring on my finger, and a lifetime of not much.
Alas, five years after his initial proposal, I had no ring, just a myriad of arguments and hateful comments and breakups and depressive episodes, parents and friends entangled into it and all of them mad at us, everyone in the equation resenting one another, and a therapist, of course, who had to keep reminding me that I was not depressed because of him, an entire year later, but only still mourning the future I thought could be.
For so long after meeting him, I couldn’t imagine anything but that timeline he created in our youth. I knew nothing more, nothing outside of it, and spent my young life only reworking things to make it happen - at my cost, of course. I am almost 25, now, and the mourning is over, replaced with mostly-relief. But alone in my apartment, sometimes, I wonder - would I be any good at sharing? What would I look like, if I was his wife, like I had once planned for a good chunk of the time I’ve been alive?
You know, I never thought I’d live alone. I always believed, in my soul, that I’d be sharing for the rest of my life. I did not anticipate college dorms and a moving-out story - they weren’t my experiences to have. I’d live with my mother until I got married, then I would move in with a husband. That was the story I pictured for myself. And yet…
My last two years of university, after the breakup with my first boyfriend, were deeply confusing. What’s a girl who was sworn to be engaged at that time do with herself; a girl who had the baby names and the colors of her bedroom ready to go? What’s a girl meant to do after five, six years of only one man? Dates, where she discussed what her favorite color was? God, no. I had been imagining a shared home, furnished, split finances and two cars. So young, yes, but so solid, so easy. A lifetime of certainty. Instead, I was on my own, disgusted by most men and only intrigued by others, until the others disgusted me, too, and then it was all blank again.
I’ve always felt that the boys were often most attracted to an infantilized idea of me: she’s so cute, so sweet, I’ve never met a writer before, what a good girl. It heightened the stakes, always, when I was seeing people. Instead of dating me, they always ended up courting me - and why not? I was unrelenting unless it felt like a serious relationship; I knew no better. But no rational young man wants to be courting someone in their early twenties. They wanted to be having fun.
Love, in our age, must feel accidental. Something you fall into and decide you cannot leave.
Time progressed, the heartbreak faded, and I fell in love with that Old Flame I mentioned before because he was my best friend and a constant in my life. Who else? I, admittedly, liked his showcases of anger and toxic overprotection. I liked that, at the police station, he shouted about how this was “no place for a girl” and took me straight home, despite my arguments. I liked his romantic gestures, even if he claimed he was too drunk to remember them afterwards. I liked his broken-ness, his thrill for the darkness, his eagerness for the adrenaline that comes out of insane adventure, and, as he would say, the yin-and-yang of our friendship-relationship-situationship-whatever the fuck it was. I liked that when we went to parties, girls would ask me how long we’d been together, and I would say, Oh, no, he’s just my friend, and they would giggle and say: “Have you seen the way he looks at you?”
I liked, most of all, that he was already a familiar scent to me. An added bonus was that I believed him to be someone who could surely survive the traumatizing experience that is loving me - someone who would want to mold together, to enmesh, someone that would be as obsessed with me as I was with him. When I complained about men and my long lost dreams for getting married at 22, he’d say, If anything, I’ll marry you, before we get too old. You know, you’ve always felt like home.
That’s what got me. Of course.
I would marry him in my grandparents house; in the big garden with the little stone waterfall in the corner. He would wear the typical Jordanian attire - the headpiece, the black shoes, the shaved head. My uncles would love him, laugh with him, nod along to his words. It would be a party for the family, not for us, simply the show we’d have to put on in order to progress and settle down. It would feel more traditional, at first, the marriage, but we’d mend into it, love each other, truly, eventually, with time, our long term friendship holding it all up.
Alas, that’s a dreamy interpretation of what we truly were against each other - me, the girl in the song, sleeping and waking early, taking her meds, going to therapy, journaling. And him - drunk past midnight, driving fast, jumping through hoops to deny that he really said I love you, that one time.
*With Love, Amal will always be free, but you can support me further by upgrading to paid.
My second real relationship (and third love) also began with a proposal. Perhaps, I thought, Third time’s a charm. His friend told him I was a girl only for serious men, as are the rumors about me, always. Amal’s serious, they’d say, she’s sweet - you need to be serious with her! And he was, he must have decided, after some thinking. Perhaps too much so.
Admittedly the relationship was doomed from the beginning, considering the circumstances, but I had never respected someone as much as I did him, and that night as we laid in the dark of his bedroom together, reading each others’ minds (“What if we solve this conundrum by getting married?”), I decided the plunge was worth it, despite the rough beats of my heart and the distance that would separate us in four months when I moved across the world.
He was in, despite it all, an excited glint in his eyes, a note of certainty in his voice. He was a planner, my third love, and more than anything, I wanted someone dedicated to planning with me, for me, alongside me. I trusted his opinions, most of all. If he’s chosen me, I thought, then I am a good choice - then this is a good idea.
Though on paper it was but a few months time, I felt like I’d loved him for years and years. My third love was my first in many ways, someone I felt was a rare instance of a man, a strain of luck amongst all the toxic masculine’s that surrounded me. He was a driving force during the instability that was my life at that time, a reason to keep going; he was a warm body that stilled my heart instead of rushed it, an energy that would calm me so well it often put me straight to sleep (much to his dismay).
I understood, only then, the stupid, unbelievable stories of people knowing each other so briefly and still promising each other eternity, the ones that meet and get married in the span of only a few months.
I imagined a small wedding for us, in my sisters’ green backyard. I would wear a simple dress, with a pair of kitten heels, and we would leave not to a honeymoon but a small apartment that was ours, beautiful only because it was ours, and perhaps we would dance in the kitchen and he would cook me a dish I never liked until that one time he cooked it for me, on what was apparently our first date.
But simple things are always deceivingly so - it wasn’t a sound decision, that we made, that night in his bedroom, a mere 100 dollar bill5 between us, a text to his friends that She said yes! It was not rational, so unlike him, and too much like me, that it was bound to fall apart in the ways it highlighted our differences.
Him, the planner, and me, the girl who rarely planned a thing a day in her life - not even the novels she painstakingly wrote. I run on instinct, on passion, on drive. Him, tidy; me, messy - mostly-messy, at least. Him, a thinker, scheduling out our discussions in advance on his calendar, and me, an overthinker, always babbling as soon as she felt something, always requiring that problems were solved immediately. There was no joint understanding to come to, it seemed, as time progressed; Jupiter and Venus may create a conjunction once a year, yes, but they’re on wildly different paths.
three proposals, and zero marriages later
As my pre-fontal lobe concludes its development I can look at these stories and see how naively I walked into my relationships. While it makes a good poem, the young love, it does not make for a strong bond. Notably, the weddings were always the finish line, nothing clear beyond them, simply a daydream curated to suit the man I loved at the time. Being the Perfect Bride was an essential trait of the character I’ve learned to play - the character I believed men to prefer.
I realize, as I sit at the third engagement party of the year and imagine how I would act at my own, that the white dress and the gold jewelry represented nothing to me but Winning. It was all just a symbol of the relief I would feel when finally presenting my family with a man and, upon their acceptance, being freed from the shackles of Arab girlhood, from the constantly reiteratedعقبالك6.
I have explored this subject a lot. Really. I have always been interested in how young girls run towards marriage, in this country, and I know it’s because it offers freedom - freedom of sexuality and sensuality, freedom from whatever rules your parents have on you, freedom to, very simply, express love. To post your lover on Instagram, to hold his hand in public, to hug and touch him without fear. To explore. To travel. To live.
Parents love to say “you can do that when you’re married,” or “your husband can take you,” in my part of the world, and it’s often a running joke between us girls. Rare are girl trips, rare are late outings, rare is the freedom to have fun. Why would one risk it? It’s important to remain pure so you can be chosen as a bride, then you may live, if you don’t have kids too early, if you’re lucky.
But, see, I grew up mostly-American, these things were never said directly to me - I thought of this all from an outside vision, as a researcher, as an analyzer, as someone who was passionate to explore Arab women and their lives - a spokesperson, perhaps, who had a enough Arab to understand, and enough American to speak freely about it. I thought of it as a case-study, a subject I’d explore through my cousins and friends and aunts and acquaintances, something I’d write poems about.
I didn’t realize I was one of them - one of the girls that was running towards the finish line, rushing towards the freedom marriage offered to me. I live alone now, yes, but I face the consequences of it daily. If not simply the discomfort, then the questions (and these are only a few among them): Why aren’t you living with your uncle? You shouldn’t live alone, it’s not right for a girl. Why don’t you just get married (As if it’s so simple!), what are you hiding? Did you come back for a boy? Where is he! Bring him! Your mother must be so stressed, so disappointed…
At family gatherings I feel like the ugly duckling, sitting in my little corner of shame, living a life no girl would ever dare to, a life no Arab parent would accept for theirs. There is no man policing my actions - how dare I? - no father, or brother, or husband. Worse, I don’t live alone for a degree, for a year-long abroad experience. No, I am in the homeland, against all tradition and all standards, here, for the unidentifiable future. The people around me don’t know what to do with me, they don’t know how to explain my situation to an outsider… “This is my niece, Amal, she didn’t like America, so… she’s here, I guess.”
The stranger’s eyes would widen, and she would glance to my aunt, and ask, “Who does she live with?” And my aunt’s face would go all white, and she’ll give me a look, and say, “With her uncle, of course.”
Rebellious only in some parts, the lies I must uphold at family weddings and gatherings and engagements grow heavy on me. It doesn’t fill me with any pride to lie to the old lady, or to see the disappointment in my mom’s cousin or aunt or whoever’s face. Sometimes I think it would be easier to pick a man and be done with it, but then I leave the confines of public culture and tradition, I retire to my bedroom, cool and dark and only-mine, and I relish in my aloneness. It feels nice - different, surprising, unplanned for, but nice.
I live alone, the first of my kind, and that fact shocks me to the core with every alarm that wakes me, but at least I get to have this period of life my mother and her mother and her mother never experienced themselves: figuring it out myself before I figure it out with someone else. As hard as it is. As painful as it may be.
Maybe I wasn’t cursed in a past life to live forever alone, like I’d thought, but blessed to not repeat the mistakes of my elders, blessed to never have a husband I hate, but one I’m partnered to, and love, deeply.
Sure, fine, I’m that girl: overly positive, waking up for the sunrise, Too Sweet to handle. I guess it’s true. So be it. Here I am, then, for now, no lover, no guardian, just me, and my thoughts, and my king sized bed that is fluffy and white and vanilla-scented and all this space that is, oh, all mine, all mine, all mine.
Until next time,
Amal
PS: don’t forget to write back, xoxo
Just a prettier way to say “Situationship”
I only came across this piece through an author named
and her piece “What is partnership for?” (Perfect timing, truly).Translation: “Why, Amal?”
"Zaffeh" refers to a traditional Arabic wedding procession. It usually involves a lively parade with music, drums, singing, and dancing as the bride and groom are escorted to their wedding venue. The zaffeh is meant to celebrate the couple and announce their union to the community with joy and festivity.
The 100-bill was a joke - that it was my mahr, quickly pulled out of his wallet as proof. A cheeky story, I find this. Mahr is a mandatory gift or payment that a Muslim groom gives to his bride as part of the marriage contract (nikah). It is a fundamental aspect of Islamic marriage and represents a symbolic gesture of the groom's commitment and responsibility towards his wife.
"عقبالك" (pronounced ‘uqbālak for males or ‘uqbālik for females) is an Arabic expression used to wish someone the same happiness or good fortune that the speaker has experienced. It can be translated to "May it be your turn next" or "I wish the same for you."
Alright, I've a lot and half to say to this essay but it will have to wait. I need sleep and essay-length comments are best suited for laptop keyboards.
What I will say now is this: your writing style is so smooth. It's quiet and confident. It has wit and humor but it retains this consistent feel, a feeling of an indoor voice that doesn't ever jump to higher octave, like pouring engine oil into a funnel. I dunno if that made any sense but that's how I perceived it.
Very well penned. And quite a long essay too. Good imagery and movement as well, with the different dreamed up weddings and bringing things back, like the bit about escaping having a husband you hate. I love it when writing builds on and alludes to itself. It creates for richness and mixed layering of ideas like a marble cake.
Time to sleep. Bye.
Oh and that drumming hype up as the groom is introduced is so lit! Saw it at the first Syrian wedding I attended (the most segregated wedding too, boys and girls had completely different venues in neighboring cities/districts). Us brown folks, the tablighi jamat kind at least, don't know how to have any fun at a wedding. A funeral and walimah feel the same. Imma have to hire some Arabs to bring the hype when I get married haha.
This is so beautifully written and is just so..raw and vulnerable. As a hopeless romantic myself who plans weddings for every guy I remotely like I can understand this so well. I've also lived in Saudi for 10 years so a lot of the atmosphere you described was so real and felt familiar. I love this so much and I'm hoping the best for you. You know how to articulate your thoughts into writing perfectly and that's a gift no man can compare to. Thank you for this ♡