A Time of Great Upheaval

The residents of my apartment are engaged in various types of tumultuous emotional issues of the life-altering variety.

Well, except for me.

Roommate #1:
Was engaged to a wonderful, sweet guy. We had all been friends for about a year before they started seeing each other, and I adored him--he was such a generous, understanding, fun person. Originally from Saudi Arabia, he had lived in the Boston area for quite a few years (the guy even had a distinctly American accent!), and was pretty much as "Americanized" as you can imagine.
Or at least, it would have appeared so.
He had to move back overseas after he finished school--to return to Lebanon, where his father is an Ambassador. He was miserable at the prospect of going, but felt it was "best". He and my roommate have been doing the long-distance thing ever since, meeting up in Paris or London every few months or so; counting the days till she was finished with grad school and would join him first in Lebanon, then eventually in a more hospitable, probably European country. His family knew of the engagement and was supposedly helping to ease the process of moving to another country--helping with visas, job prospects, etc.
Cut to last week, when she (the roommate) began calling me at work in tears, saying he was "acting weird".
Cut to a few days ago, when she burst into the kitchen where I was making myself a delectable bagel dinner, screamed "He's ENGAGED!!!", and hurled the phone across the room.
Engaged. Yep. More than that, actually. His parents have arranged a marriage for him, drawn up the "paperwork" (whatever that means...) and accepted a dowry. A dowry. And I guess he thought he could just neglect to mention it to her, and perhaps it would go away. "My parents just will never accept you", he implored.
She's lucky she didn't go to visit them and have a strange accident, we say.
I told her she wins, hands-down, any "my bad breakup" story contest. Wins.

So, that's roommate #1. Roommate #2 is just moving out to move into an apartment with her boyfriend. That seems so much less interesting now, somehow.

But sheesh, I'm watching my back.