Wise young man of the year

A friend of mine -- who, thanks to my having forgotten to ask until after I left the party, has not explicitly given me permission to blog this story and therefore shall remain nameless for the present even though I'm 99% sure he won't mind -- almost got himself disastrously married a few years ago. The girl in question is, like my friend, from the Middle East, and she is pretty much flawlessly gorgeous: her soft, intoxicatingly luxurious black hair; the tips of her delicate, shapely feet; plus absolutely everything in between.

Unfortunately she knows it, and she has a sense of entitlement that is, if possible, even more transcendent than is her beauty.

So my friend and this girl, whom I'll call Fred and Jasmine respectively, are in the final stages of getting engaged and the subject of logistics has come up, and Jasmine begins to set out for Fred her expectations between now and the wedding night. According to Fred, Jasmine informs him that any ring that isn't worth at least $10,000 to $15,000 will not be acceptable. Also he will have to pay for the wedding ceremonies that will be held in the States. Also he will have to pay for the second, and more lavish, set of traditional Arab wedding ceremonies that will be held back home. (Having sent Dessie to the Tunisian wedding of a good friend years ago, which wedding lasted a week with a different rented wedding gown every night, I have a decent idea of how much that would have set Fred back.) And then there's the honeymoon...

Fred interrupts at about this point, having done some rapid math in his head. "Now, wait a minute -- you're saying it's going to cost me, like, $45,000 just to marry you?"

Jasmine is insulted that he would be so crass as to raise budgetary objections, and she decides to remind him of just how fortunate he is. "Fred, you know perfectly well how beautiful I am; there isn't a prince in Egypt or Jordan or Syria or Arabia who wouldn't say yes to me."

Fred puts an end to discussion and engagement alike in one fell swoop, with the following immortal words:

"Well, I'm not a prince, and I'm saying no."