Mad Bride Disease or MBD is a serious illness which strikes nearly every woman between the ages of 18 - 30. This illness strikes unexpectedly within two weeks to one month of becoming engaged. It is especially fatal to friendships and is characterized by the following symptoms:-

- Irritability and increased nervousness.
- Inability to remember life before engagement and/or speak of anything, but
obscenely white dresses, shoes and other wedding paraphernalia.
- Refusal to speak one sentence without mentioning fiancé.
- Complete and total abhorrence of food coupled with an undying devotion
to diet pills and Ex-lax.
- Increased sensitivity and/or awareness of colors. (Teal? Buttercup?
Eggplant??!! Uh, hello?? It's green, yellow and purple!!)

This is war. I am at war with an unseen enemy. It's called Mad Bride Disease and it is slowly, but surely, capturing every single one of my girlfriends. Two of my good friends will be married before the years' end and the disease is already ravaging their brains.
Marriage is a happy occasion and finding that one person that you are willing to spend the rest of your life with is a glorious thing. Hell, it's practically a miracle nowadays. So, while I'm exceedingly happy for my friends and the fact that they have found their 'special someone', I can't help but feel like I'm losing them. Don't underestimate the power of (MBD). It creeps up slowly and quietly, like a deadly viper or a stealth bomber….? (Fine, so I'm not that good at analogies, but you get my point. It's quiet and deadly and it creeps up on you.) Anyway, it starts with the occasional canceled lunch date. Then, it progresses to the apparent loss of your phone number as the Mad Brides' phone becomes incapable of dialing more than one phone number (That of her fiancé or as I like to call him… 'Mr. Mad Bride') and eventually it gets to the point where you only talk sporadically (love that word.) and when you do it's about what song she should walk down the aisle to or whether the wedding invitations should be dusty rose or peach.

Getting married is a huge deal to a girl. It's something we fantasize about from a very early age and I think you would be hard-pressed to find any girl/woman who does not have at least some idea of what her fantasy wedding would be like. I mean, I remember staying up late at night on the phone with this one girlfriend and talking endlessly about what her perfect wedding would be like. And what's sad is that I was always included in some way or another in that fantasy, either I was there to help pick out a wedding dress or veil or I was there on a spontaneous pre-wedding trip to the spa. But life doesn't always work out the way you think it will and when the actual event comes rolling around, the role that you played in it inevitably goes to a cousin, sister or member of Mr. Mad Brides family. I can understand that. I mean, weddings are traditionally a family affair and so those roles probably should go to someone whom you know will be around fifty years from now. And when this happens to you, you can't go to your friend and start complaining about how left out you feel because .. It's like come on! She's getting "married"!! She has more things to worry about than inadvertently distancing her friends. And so, you remain quiet and offer whatever assistance she needs and when the day comes around, you cry and hug her and tell her how beautiful she looks. Because, it's all true and when she walks down that aisle looking exactly as you and she had imagined she would, you realize that the only thing that stays the same is that everything changes. Friendship is one of those things, it changes and evolves and sometimes fades. And even though sometimes it feels like all you have left are the memories, you have to realize that one day it'll be you calling your friends only to update them on wedding details. It'll be you spending an entire dinner date gushing about your Mr. Mad Bride and yes, eventually you too will fall victim to Mad Bride Disease.
But I also can't help but wonder... Why is it that it seems like we (as an Arab nation) seem to be the only ones who fall victim to this disease. Being half american, I am well aware of the vital role that the brides' friends play in the wedding, in the form of bridesmaids and maids of honor. Plus, there's the bachelorette parties, then house warming parties and baby showers... I know Kuwaiti women have baby showers, but it seems like, in the states, the brides close friends are so much more involved in her life than they are here. My Kuwaiti girl-friends who have gotten married tell me that I don't understand what a hard transition it is and that I'll get it all when I get married. Well, that is freaking me out! Does my getting married automatically mean the end of 'Girls Night'? Will my future husband be such a greek god that I won't have the time to pick up the phone and check in on my girls? Will he expect me to sit around the house all day staring at him? Picking up after him? Wiping his a**?? 'cos I understand that a woman has to take care of her husband, but the only children I want to raise are the ones coming out of me!!

I guess my friends are right and I will understand all of this more later on when my turn comes around, but I refuse to believe that I will be that cavalier with my friendships, that I will find it that easy to just write off all my girlfriends and everything we've been through together just b/c I've found a man. Allah Kareem and I guess the moral of this is that life has a funny way of working itself out in the end. Learning when to fight and when to let things slide are just part of growing up. But holding on to what matters to you is also important, which is why I refuse to let my friends drift off into Mad Bride Land. I hold onto them, calling them even though I know that they're probably too busy to talk to me, constantly inviting them to parties even though I know that they're not going to come. My mom says I'm being unrealistic and that I should just surrender to the fact that eventually all of my friends' lives and mine will revolve around our respective partners. And maybe I am being unrealistic and maybe I do have a long way to go before I grow up and accept the harsher facts of life. For now, however, all I have to say is this. Mad Bride Disease, I ain't going down without a fight.
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If you live in Kuwait and feel like you've read this before maybe it's 'cos you have... I haven't been plagerizing any articles tho! I write in Bazaar magazine and sometimes I post some of my articles here so other people can read them! This one was published a few months ago, but I did a little bit of editing and added the paragraph before the last one. Oh, and by the way, MBD is still going strong!!

Keep it Krispy.

-Layla

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