I'm starting to think that while Salah is not autistic or otherwise slow, the Salah we see now is not the Salah he was raised to be. And, his failure to launch is why he is in the situation he is now with Chantal.
Chantal said he has three sisters and one is a pharmacist while the other two are teachers. Alaa told us Salah's father is a university professor (so perhaps a PhD holder) and that Alaa wishes he had a father like Salah's.
I'm starting to suspect that Salah was likely raised amongst a professional class of well educated non Kuwaiti Muslims in Kuwait.
There was probably a family expectation that as a male he would meet and exceed his parents' education levels, job options, and standard of living. (At least that seems the norm fir all my brown friends parents).
He may have been celebrated and coddled more than his sisters. Which is a perfect storm for failure to launch. If you raise a child to achieve, unless you ride them hard as well with discipline they will just expect to achieve without trying.
Chantal says it is strange Salah moved out of the family home. Perhaps that happened because once his mom had passed (more prone to coddle than a dad often), and he was approaching 30, his Dad became more hard-core about expectations.
Maybe he was even cut off. So despite his business admin diploma or whatever he has, he has to muddle through at the Alaa level now. And Alaa looked out for him because he knew the posh (by their standards) kid would never make it on his own.
And Alaa has been rewarded with the same response Salah's Dad got...an idle egoist who refuses to put in the work and constantly falls back on silly schemes (Chantal as a sponsor and the perfume "business") instead of putting in an honest day's work.
This is all speculation but I can see a dude raised in a patriarchal culture (even if your parents say you ain't shit society tells you u are the shit by virtue of a penis) in a situation where you can't get citizenship and the legal rights that bestows, falling far enough with little ability to cope and maybe be arrogant and lazy enough to throw in with Chantal.
As a legal fag I am a little concerned (the way I am for anyone facing potential prosecution in an authoritarian state) about what may happen to him if he keeps allowing Chantal to drag him into dicey situations, BUT the former prosecutor in me also thinks he needs to grow the fuck up, ghost her, and do whatever it takes to survive and thrive as a second class citizen in Kuwait, and if he won't do that, welp ya rolls the dice ya takes yer chances and the House always wins.
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