I spent the evening in a French restaurant which sits on a cobble stone road. As the sun set over the city, the light danced on the old buildings, it was almost an absolutely perfect day.

The waiter brought over the first bottle of wine, and we three finished it before we even ordered. Not to say we gulped it down, but rather that the service was very "French".

What started as a business meeting, immediately turned into a gathering of friends; notes, reports, and documents all fell aside, forgotten with the second bottle of wine which was served and finished before even the entrees appeared.

Sometimes the strangest things happen at the most unexpected moments.

My dear friend had asked me to meet him for a meeting, while I was on route, and having met another of his friends, he changed plans to dinner. The evening was set before I even got there in my jeans, t-shirt and looking quite 'au naturel' (my poetic way of saying: I didnt really comb my hair, had virtually no make-up on, and really was of no appearance - to my standards, of having an elegant French dinner).

Yet there we were, introductions made, ordering wines and decadent delights.

My friend is scheduled to get married in 2 weeks. Background: he is 50 (a fine shape 50), very worldy, very kind, full of life, and extremely pleasant.

He is also very successful. Until now he has been unmarried. I have felt, since the day his marriage was announced that he is making a mistake, not because there is anything wrong with the girl, but simply because I just don't think she will bring him happiness. At least not the kind that will last a lifetime, or the kind that even makes ones day.

Sad, isn't it? I would go as far as tragic. Tragic because he thinks that maybe because he is 50, and because she is 38, he owes it to her to "just marry her" and have children, and settle down.

His family thinks this is wonderful. A perfect little church woman, quite good looking, but incredibly simple and boring...

It is not worth it. Why would a person decide to marry someone just because "it seems like the right thing to do", or because "I am getting older, I will have to do it sooner or later, might as well be now".

For months this has plagued me. I have felt like I could not possibly say straight out "This girl is all wrong for you, youre making a huge mistake, call it off." After all, he only asked my opinion after the whole family had basically pushed him into the wedding, she had bought her wedding dress and the engagement party had been planned and invitations sent.

As a friend, is that not really what I owed him?

Well, when asked, I tried to 'lead' him by giving him questions to ask himself about the relationship, questions to which I knew the answers. Very diplomatically giving him my ideas on marriage, or relationships period. As the busy man that he is, the weeks went by and today we are two weeks away. To date nobody else, not his family nor any of his friends seemed to share my views or observations. And so, I figured, what is meant to be will come...what more can I do?

Tonight at the restuarant, I am seated but a minute when my friend's friend (we shall call him J) asks: do you think this is a man who should be getting married?

We know my answer, what can I say. I skirted around the question, still struggling with the question of whether I should be as direct as I could be. Of course J is a top lawyer, and not the kind of man you can avoid a question from. He persisted, and I found myself on friendly interrogation and finally gave in.

You see, I believe in the fact that when things are meant to be they are. If they don't come about the easy way, and you refuse to see them, they will come about the hard way. So, this evening J, who I will now consider my friend as well, in this lovely little French restaurant over what became 4 bottles of wine argued the case against the marriage with me as a supporting witness and my friend as the one on the stand, and I think we may have together finally gotten through to my friend. Through to destroy this marriage, this terribly traditional Italian marriage in which the relatives have already flown in from Italy, the flowers for the bouquets are being harvested as I type, and the bride to be is dreaming of marrying her doctor and the father in law is undoubtedly counting the days to which his 38 year old daughter will be leaving the house (for the first time).

We both knew he didn't really want to marry the girl, he would do so only to be "nice", keep everyone happy, give her the children before its too late, sacrifice his quests and adventures(to save the world), for the sake of doing the "right thing". The right thing never comes at the cost of your life's happiness....does it? Not in matters such as marriage and love.

At many times we are forced to do things we aren't so pleased about, or we do not jump towards doing. This is life, but in love?! how can we be expected to truly love or even feel anything if we force ourselves to do what we think is expected of us by others and not what is in our hearts.

It is not others who will sleep with the ache of our hearts, nor is it others who will feel the joy at the end of the day when we are really with the person who lights the fire of our soul.

And so, it should not be others and their views and opinions, and misplaced intentions, or their perspectives which should tell us what to do.

I drove my friend home, after the interrogation, the closing arguments (and may I add, no rebuttals) and left him at his door. I looked at this tired man, who was really trying with all his heart to do the right thing, and listened to him as he said to me that he had just been praying and he would continue to pray that maybe god would make him love her the way he needed to...and I was so sad. So sad because such anamazing and wonderufl person, who truely has devoted his career and sacrificed much of his life to just giving to others and to society, would now think to even steal love from his life...and settle, and for what?

Fear. Fear of missing a chance to be with someone, even if its the wrong someone, because he fears that he may be alone in the end, if not. Fear that there is no real perfect love out there,and so the easy thing is to just make it work. And this man would come home, day after day tothis woman, and smile while his heart would be left half empty, I believe he would even be loyal, all because he decided that settling for that which others think is right was better than risking finding that which would really be right for him.

And,(forgive me for being all Amelie here) somewhere perhaps building the mosquito nets in Africa (he planned to do) or working for the needy and stricken in Bangladesh, (as he had once hoped to do), there is his person, the real one who would have seen his light and basked in it, alone, and waiting for a person who simply would not take the chance.

I drove home along the lakeshore and the moon above creatd a beautiful reflection of light on the water which followed me most of the way home. At least something had brought his friend, himself and I together for dinner for one last talk, one last try.

I wished that perhaps, whatever the result, by the next full moon if he should look at the sparkle on the waters he would at least know, whatever the case, he had made the right choice.

~v.