"I love you, Joana!"

It has been a crazy week, both professional and personal wise.
Has everyone gone mad or it s me who already went out of this world and didn t manage to come back to earth?! Something is just not right.
It seems I m in the marrying market of Cairo but I m the only one who doesnt know it!
Hmm...not the first time others presume they can plan and write down on their agendas what I WILL WANT and DO for myself. It seems very common to have men deciding for women, over here. Weird...weird...I couldn t get used to so many things in Egypt yet and I guess I never will.

One day after one more of the 10000th indecent proposals from a "pasha" (how do they manage to find me just puzzles me...the pimps of my environment must be damn efficient!) to whom I will dedicate the video of my next post "Mein herr" from the musical "Cabaret",
I didn t have time to recover from the nerve reck and there were two singers proposing marriage to me. Not one, but two almost at the same time. And both singers! What s going on?

The most surprising thing is how little these "husbands" REALLY know me. Both of them have watched me on stage, performing as a dancer and have exhanged the occasional "hi, how are you?" with me but not more than that.
Ah, but sure they told me all about their homework and it seems that both of them knew stories about me that I didn t know myself (everything is possible in this 5th dimension)...

They ask around about me before they propose to me, they both explained as if this justified the absurd marriage proposals.
Apparently, I had been married with some of my bosses or just been their girlfriend (depending on which version of the story we wish to focus on) and I had been seen with men I ve never even met.
Besides those funny romantic stories (none of them true), they could gather a big deal of information about my moral conduct and they were so happy with it (strange that all my supposed romances and marriages didn t discourage them or gave them a bad idea about my moral behaviour) and my high standards of EVERYTHING. This they had in common, both of my potencial future husbands.

The second "husband" caught me in the middle of a ride to a work meeting in order to throw at me: "Joana, I love you!" (consider it with a side of potatoes and an expression full of exaggerated romantic feeling).

- Yeah, yeah, I love you too. You re like my brother. - I answered, in a classical egyptian way to distance myself from a man (calling him a brother or father always seem to me like the perfect way to send his intentions to the gutter but reality shows me they re much more stubborn and resistant than that).

-No. Not like a brother. I love you and I want to marry you.- This was his answer, still lingering on me with his melting eyes, expecting for me to fall on his arms in a dramatic manner, like in the old silent movies.

Ups!
Stop the traffic, stop the children from running in the streets of Cairo, stop the clouds to move around, stop the sun to shine. Just for a while...
One more of those classical Egypt s moments when my logic doesn t match other people s logic and my mind - flexible as it may already be due to intensive training over here - cannot follow up and process the information.

-But you don t even know ME. How can you love me and want to marry me? And I don t even know you too. That is absurd. - This I said, as a crying for gelp gesture to which nobody would answer.

-Love doesn t have logic. It is like this. I love you since the day I saw you for the first time and...and...and...blah, blah, blah, blah- He continued while I mentally disconnected from my current reality in order not to explode into a million pieces and spread myself all over Egypt as it seems to have happened to a famous Ancient God.

When reality becomes too much to bare, my brain just shuts down as a survival tactic. I let it happen as if I was not in the scene, watching the whole madness from an outside window I create with my imagination and desperation.

What followed was the same conversation I heard many times from egyptian and arab men. They seem to pick the girl, write her down as future wife/lover/cocubine/prostitute of the moment on their agendas and she will follow on his lap by a step of magic.

"See you later, aligator!" - This is all I can say to someone like this.

My brain is too exhausted from IMPORTANT things I am doing and want to do in the near future in order to waste its energy on lunatic conversation.

I shut my ears and my mind, smile and nod in a silly way and let him speak, make the plans, assume the deal is on its way to be done never asking me if I m even interested until...

- Do you love me too? (He asks me while I offer him my worst poker face ever).
- How can I love you if I don t even know you?!

And this is where my perception of reality collides with common mentality in Egypt.
LOVE doesn t seem to be a matter of the heart and the soul but a very practical arrangement that will sustain the sacred institution of marriage and procriacion. So it is sexual appetite.

So many people think that "love" (or whatever they presume that is) will come, eventually, with time and marriage itself. Both men and women avaluate the "qualities" of a potential spouse as if they were avaluating a house they wish to buy (its pillars are strong and well done? Its structure is safe? Does it have beautiful rooms? Is it comfortable and quiet, etc?) and consider the sexual attraction itself as "passionate love".

A plus to the whole practical transaction or, very often, the main reason for the marriage proposal.
What a mess!

Get me out of this movie, PLEASEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE........

- I am not interested in marrying you. I m sorry but I don t want to give you any hopes on something that will never happen. - I tried to conclude the conversation, yet forgetting about egyptian men s self confidence and persistence.

- This is what you say right now but, if you only give me a chance to be close to you every day and let you know me, you will change your mind. - He said, with the confidence I wish I always had.

-No, it doesn t work that way because you re just a friend to me and I don t want to be with you every day or to get to know you better.- I finished the conversation, presuming this would be enough to make him quit.

And then came the puppy eyes, the tears ready to explode and the victim s face which was intended to make me feel guilty and rethink my position.
Instead of getting smoother, I got even colder and more aggressive.

-Oh, I see you re not feeling too well. Maybe we could meet this people for work another day and you ll go home to rest.
-No. I m fine. Just want to ask you to give me the chance to be part of your life, closer to you. I want to be around you every day and just look at you.

O.k.

This was the sour champagne bottle exploding! I didn t have any gentle way of putting an end to this craziness and I couldn t take the risk of having a lunatic by my door, waiting on my every step just because he put in his head that he loves me and I love him too, but I don t know it yet.

I asked to leave the car and invented another meeting I had forgotten, just to get rid of this nightmare. While I was getting into a new taxi, my potential husband was already calling me on my mobile.

Not only I did not answer, as I erased his number from my mobile and pray that he doesn t have the "confidence" to follow me around as others have done.

I am asking with a heartfelt plea: "God, give me a break!"