I've known Luma for about 3 years now...I don't get to see her much, as she's always busy or travelling, or engaged in some new project...Luma is a very active woman...maybe a little too active, but I can understand where she's coming from...Luma keeps busy because she does not want to think about her life...so she drowns herself in one activity after another...
When I first met her, I felt she was too hyper for my taste, but then slowly we got to know one another and occasionally we would meet and she opened up one day and told me about her life...
I can tell that Luma trusts me, because when we are alone she does not need to pretend that all is fine...she does not need to pretend that her life is "fantastic", one of her favorite words in public...everything is "fantastic" when she's with other people...she could be feeling so low, almost suicidal, but everything was "fantastic"...Luma needs to keep that aura of being "totally fine", always...
One day we ended up alone in a coffee shop and I told her bluntly to cut the bullshit...she got very defensive at first and quite angry at me...then she finally conceded that it was bullshit and since that day, our relationship grew in quality even though we don't meet that often...
Had coffee with Luma this afternoon, today she was feeling particularly down...she just learned that a man she was crazy in love with (they broke up 2 years ago), finally got married (to someone else) and now he's also a daddy...
And even though Luma and that dude broke up some time ago, she still felt somehow betrayed and she added that all the men she had met, eventually got married but not to her...she felt there was something wrong with her...
I assured her that I found nothing wrong with her, she is a very attractive woman and quite smart, and maybe her not marrying them, was a blessing in disguise...
She was not convinced at all...so I asked her why the relationship ended with this guy and she told me briefly that he was constantly putting her down, snapping at her for no reason, humiliating her in public and in private, constantly criticizing her (her clothes, her body, her hairdo, her friends, her past...)
I stopped her short...
- and you feel sorry this guy did not marry you instead ?
- but I know that he loved me
- this guy is toxic woman, what's the matter with you ?!
- then how come another woman accepted him ?
- I don't know who or what this other woman is, but obviously she felt that she had to get married by hook or by crook, and she settled for this guy...frankly he's not worth a tear...
- And what about Ramez, he got married to someone else too !
So I asked her why she and Ramez parted, and she told me that Ramez took money from her all the time, money that he never returned, used her car and stuff as if they belonged to him, he even took her cell phone and called long distance to the US, to chat with a friend and he did not even offer to pay her for that call!
- and you feel sorry you did not marry Ramez ?!
- OK, OK...and remember I told you about Tamer, he got married too.
- frankly I don't remember much about Tamer, but why did you break up ?
- you know, I told you, Tamer was very handsome but also very conceited...everything was about him, always...he had to come first always, he was constantly flirting with other women, and he even cheated on me a couple of times, at least these are the ones I know about...
- and you feel sorry for not marrying Tamer ?! None of these guys you're telling me about are worth being married to...the fact that some other women accepted them, does not mean that they were worth it, it just means that these women were stupid, desperate, blind...enough to accept them with their major defects...
So I told Luma about my imaginary ruler. It's a ruler from 1-10, and I said to her, to me all these guys were a minus 5. In other words they got less than 5 out of 10.
Why would anyone cry over a minus 5? Had it been a 9, 8, 7 or even a 6.5, I'd understand...but frankly none of these guys are worth a tear...not even one.
I told Luma she's very lucky she did not end up with any of them, because in the long run, they would have taken her down to their level -- a minus 5 and then she would really have something to cry about...
Luma and I finally agreed that anything below a 6 is not worth a tear...
