Nashwa fell in love with a young man who was her distant cousin. She turned 18 a month ago and girls of that age love passionately. Love then is violent and wild. Girls of that age are unaware of life’s hard realities. Imagination takes them to sublime heights. Death seems sweeter to them than a life without love. The problems of practical life never bother them. It is also very easy for them to fall in love. A girl decides the first young man she meets is Prince Charming.
“I loved him so madly that no words can describe it. I tried to be with him whenever I got a chance. Unfortunately, he did not respond to my love. I was not disappointed. I declared my love to him again and again. I told him that I could not live without him, but he laughed at me and spurned my love in a cruel fashion. I was shocked. I felt my heart being cut into pieces. I wept bitterly for days,” Nashwa wrote to me. The letter was stained with tears.
“He told me in clear terms that he had no love for me, that he considered me his friend and nothing else. He humiliated me further by telling everyone that I was running after him and trying to trap him. This made me realize that you cannot trust anyone. On second thoughts, I think that I should have been more discreet and patient. My only relief is to weep thinking of my wretched plight. I am so frustrated that the whole world is dark and on the brink of doom. I hate everyone. I trust no one anymore.”
She added that she had lost her appetite. She went to a doctor who prescribed tranquilizers. “I did not stick to the small dose of half a tablet a day. Instead, I took four tablets making me fall into blissful oblivion for the whole day.” She ended the letter with a request to prescribe some medicine which would make her hate her lover and forget him.
I replied that I was not a doctor and knew no medicine to induce forgetfulness nor did I have any potion to make people hate or love. But one thing I did tell her: Conscious attempts to forget will only make you more aware of him. What you must do is adopt a reasonable attitude to the problem. It is not very difficult. Just imagine your present reality — a woman in the bloom of youth wasting her future just because she was disappointed in a silly love affair. Should you kill yourself for such a trifling cause? Why should you hate him? Wasn’t the youth honest when he told you he didn’t love you? Did he attempt to cheat or deceive you with false declarations of love? Was he not telling the truth when he said you were running after him? How could you behave in such an undignified manner? It is normal for young men to brag about girls falling in love with them. There is nothing unusual there. In my opinion, you don’t need tranquilizers or antidepressants. What you need is to regain your dignity and self-respect with a little will-power. Think of your own and your family’s honor. If you are a student, concentrate on your studies. It will gradually take you away from the pits of self-pity and frustration.
***
LOVE is sometimes a sweet but impregnable prison from which a woman cannot escape. Sometimes she is blinded by a man’s dazzling exterior and falls in love. It may be too late to discover that she is being drowned in the quicksand of a deceptive love if the lover is an unscrupulous man.
Maha, the heroine of our story, is a secretary to the manager of a leading bank. She deals with a number of important customers who came to see her boss everyday. She is a graduate in accounting and comes from a good family. Her father was a famous accountant. When she was in college, she never took love seriously. Since she is beautiful and modest, several young men tried to win her heart. But she took none of them seriously.
Maha wrote to me, “My emotional freedom did not last long. One day a handsome and well-dressed man came to my office as well as to my heart. Karim was a friend of my boss. He looked about 50 but was always smiling and joking; he had a pleasant relaxed manner and called me by my first name. Something in my heart told me that Karim was the right man for me. He lived in Paris for 23 years and had a French wife who refused to come with him to his country. He said he had bought an apartment here.”
She continued: “He became very close to me. He used to consult me on his deposits, current account, and currency exchange. He also asked me what color I preferred for the curtains in his apartment, the type of carpet I liked, kitchenware etc. He allowed me to pay for these from his account. He gave me blank checks and I withdrew the cash and bought the furniture. I imagined that I was furnishing my own apartment — or our apartment as though we were going to marry. He telephoned me often, saying how indispensable I was to him and that he felt he was young when he was with me. In the beginning I resisted his overtures. I tried to pretend that I was only dealing with a friendly customer.”
Then one day he left for Paris and Maha felt very jealous. He called her everyday, telling her that she was in his heart and he wanted her to be by his side physically. Later, she began to suspect that Karim was using her to get a large overdraft. He did not repay the overdraft and asked her to cover it up by whatever means. Her conscience would not allow her to do anything illegal and so she paid the money from her own savings. She was blinded by her love. When he returned, he apologized and said that he had financial problems. He said that he had no other choice but to transfer his money to Paris. Many of his statements no longer seemed true.
Maha gradually realized that her dreams were being shattered. She did not know what to do. The only thing she knew for sure was that she loved him. She was under his spell. She was within a prison she had built. She wrote at the end of the letter that she did not have the means to pay back the large sum he borrowed from the bank with her as guarantor and failed to repay. She also confessed her deep and uncritical love for him.
I wrote to her in strong terms to get out of the prison which she had made of his love as quickly as possible. If she did not, she might well end up in a real prison. I also advised her to confide in her father or boss and arrange for a transfer to another place where she will be far from Karim’s influence.
