Mido and Jean Pierre are having a housewarming party for their new apartment in the communist suburb of Montreuil tomorrow; so, I spent the day with Mido shopping and cleaning in preparation. She wanted me to see the food section at Au Bon Marche, which she finds extraordinary. It is beautiful, with 20 euro bags of pasta and 400 different kinds of vinegar, but I am afraid I have seen it all before at Andronicos in Berkeley or Dean and Delucca's in New York. She bought 8 different kinds of bread for the party; I really hope people come. I am sure they will.
Jean Pierre has been in Chile for work for the past week, and Mido has been a little bored I guess. Last Friday night she went online to one of those "meeting sites" and had a wonderful conversation with a young man there. (She clearly indicated her age, that she is married and has a family in her profile.) He is a graphic designer, and she wants me to meet him, but that's not the main point here.
He recently broke up with a Russian girl. They had lived together in Russia for a year. She wanted to come to France to go to University here, so they moved to Paris. After a while of living here, she stopped coming home at night some of the time. After this had happened a few times, he confronted her about it. He said "If you have met someone else, that's fine. But you should move out and take your things with you." She responded by becoming violent, and she bit him. He showed Mido the scar on his forearm. What upset him most about the experience was that while he was sincerely in love with her, he now believes that she was only using him to get to western Europe.
I don't think that is entirely fair. Who knows what happened in her heart or mind. Why do people fall in love with eachother -- I am not certain that it has anything to do with anyone's soul. (Of course, I run the risk of upsetting some of my readers by talking about this issue. I was recently discussing it with Christian, and he sucked in his cheeks for a moment and said "are you saying you were never in love with my brother?!?" Believe me, I am not saying anything like that.) I just don't believe it is as simple as being struck by lightning. Sure, that's great, but it never lasts and what is really beautiful is compatability, which probably begins best with "falling in love", and probably when emotionally-healthy and -mature people fall in love it is because they see potential long-term compatability with the other person.
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