Girls of Riyadh

Sadeem tried to keep her voice calm, since her outburst had shocked her friends. Slowly, she began telling them what was bothering her. “I saw him once. I mean, he came to Paris for one day just to see me, and of course I couldn’t say no. Okay. I’m not going to lie to you. Frankly, I was dying to see him, too! This whole entire year, I hadn’t laid eyes on him because of my studies and his work, and because the two of us had an agreement not to meet in Riyadh. It’s just too difficult, dangerous and awkward. It wouldn’t be relaxing like it would be if we were abroad. Outside the country, you can loosen up, you can breathe without worrying who’s watching you. Abroad I could meet him anywhere, in any public place, but here, no. In Paris, I met him at a cozy restaurant and we just sat there talking. It was nice.”

“So far, so good,” said Gamrah. “So where’s the problem?”

“Of course,” Michelle broke in, “right after it, right away, he asked you, ‘How come you feel so comfortable and relaxed about going out with me?’ Or he doesn’t even ask; he just starts doubting you immediately, and by the next day he’s already treating you differently. Different from when you had never agreed to meet him. After you meet a Saudi guy behind your family’s back, behind the society’s back, he loses his respect for you instead of appreciating your move! I know this stupid business really well; these hang-ups are built automatically into the messed-up heads of our guys. They are mentally twisted! Why do you think I left this country to live somewhere else?”

“No, not at all,” replied Sadeem. “He’s never treated me like that. Sure, I’ve noticed sometimes that he seems to have a little bit of this suspicion thing when he talks about girls in general. But he has never doubted me. Firas knows me really well and he trusts me very much.”

“A guy’s nature doesn’t change,” asserted Gamrah. “If he has that suspicion thing in him, then you will suffer from that one day, even if he tries to hide it in the beginning of your relationship.”

“No, believe me, there wasn’t any problem like this. The problem is that for a while now I’ve been noticing that he gives me these really strange hints about our relationship. One day he says to me that his family has found him a good bride, and another day he says, ‘If a well-matched groom shows up for you, don’t send him away!’

“How can his heart allow him to say things like that when he knows I love him so much? At first I figured he was joking, just to torment me a bit. When I saw him in Paris, though, I told him that a friend of Papa’s wants to marry me to his son. Really and truly, I wasn’t lying about that. I figured that he would get upset and worried and would knock on my father’s door the very same day. But what happened instead was that he gave me a smile as cold as the nighttime desert and asked me if the man was a good fellow. He said, ‘Make sure your father asks around about him, and if he turns out to be okay, then put your trust in God and go ahead!’”

“He really said that?” asked Gamrah, her tone disbelieving.

“So what did you say when he said that?” asked Lamees impatiently.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?” All the girls spoke at once.

“My brain seized up! I couldn’t get what he was saying! I just sat there staring at him. I couldn’t say a word and I must have looked like a complete idiot. My eyes teared up and then I said, ‘Sorry, I have to go.’”

“So what did he say?”

“He said, ‘Don’t be angry,’ and he made me swear that I wouldn’t leave! He said, ‘Look, if you go now, I am not going to speak to you ever again.’”

“So you stayed?”

“Ya, I sat there until he finished eating and then we both got up and left the restaurant together. He then fetched me a taxi to the hotel.”

“So are you guys still together?”

“Together, but nothing has improved since then. He is playing with my nerves and I don’t know what to do to change him back to what he was before. Why is it always like this with me? Why do guys always change totally after they’ve been with me for a little while? There must be something about me! What seems clear is that the minute I start feeling comfortable with them they start getting really uncomfortable with me.”

Men’s insistence on calling the shots, Lamees believed, didn’t just come about in a vacuum. It happened after a guy stumbled on a woman who really liked that kind of domineering behavior and encouraged it.