Friday 12 June 2009

The Secret Lives Of Arab Teens

The three main electronic devices: laptop, iPod and mobile. If I had to give up any of them, I am 100% sure it would be my mobile phone, its piratical and can help out in some tricky situation but still this is what I would give up after all, they are house-phones and pay-phones.



But ask 90% of the girls in Bahrain and the surrounding countries, I think they would give up oxygen before they would give up their mobile phones. The reason for that is Mr. secret boyfriend. Yup, it's not right in the islamic point of view, it's not right in the traditional point of view. But I am not here to say what is right or wrong, I am just saying what is going on. It is not accepted with our older citizens but normal with our younger citizens. And it is loved by our telephone companies, because they are making money like crazy. 

Girls as young as 12 years old claim to have found their true love. But I think it is sad, I mean yea they might think the whole thing is exciting and they might find a kick in having a dirty little secret, but and there is a big BUT to it. Is it really worth it? 

Most of the so called relationships last for a short period of time, if you can even call them a relationship, because I don't consider a phone relationship actually a relationship. The phone is just like the internet, you can pretend to be who ever you want to be, just because you can. A lot of people might think of it as a sign of modernization because they are copying the west. Is copying modernization, hmm? Big Question mark there. And then again, in the west most couples that don't see each other and have to carry on with their "relationship" on the phone break up most of the time anyway. And then there is this feeling of guilt, and I know most of the people do feel that way. Guilt is one of the ugliest feelings ever. I am not sure about the rest of you, but I'd rather feel tied down than guilty. Then there is the secrecy, when you have to hide something then it is not right. And I think a relationship should be right or it's not worth it. 

How does it happen? Well, the girl and the guy are in some mall, they shoot looks, then the guy throws a little paper with his number at the girl, faltering right? Hmm, questionable. Or they small talk and exchange numbers. I don't know about the guys but the girls hide in their rooms, bathrooms to talk. They talk mostly nights. And when people are around they use girl tenses so the family would think it is a "girl" friend. They save the guys number with a girls name. This is the common way, but I guess there are a million other ways. 

Where do we learn all this? Movies. True love. The thing is life is way different than hollywood. Catching stories of how they met and how perfect everything is, and the imperfectness is still so nice somehow, don't you think? The amazing love story, where prince charming gets to fight for her. Well, ladies it's not that way. Of course for every rule there is an exception but that leaves the rest which is 95% the rule. (ha ha, I have that rule from the movie "he's just not that into you".) And I know that, because 99% of the people I know who have secret boyfriends break up, marry other people, get bored, get caught or spend all the time fighting about nothing. 

No offense, everything I said is just a personal view and not a judgment. This is just how I see it.

P.S: read the book "Girls of Riyadh" by Rajaa Alsanea.

3 comments:

zein said...

Thanks so much my son i hope all arab & muslim girls & guy have your same bright ideas

GOD blesse u my daughter

amer the arab boy said...

lol yeah i see a lot of that in america to, my sister goes to arab countrys all the times and she tells me about those girls

Anonymous said...

Hi, I don't know if you are still live with this web page but I have two new students in my gym class and live up the street from me. They are both from Jordan and speak VERY limited English. Sarah and Hamzel ( i think that's how you spell it) are fluent in Arabic. He's 19 and she's 16. They both seem really nice but quiet so the extroverted loud mouth I am i tried to make conversation and now I think learning Arabic might be cool. I probably scared them though because neither one of them knew what I was saying. Can you give me some advice as to how to learn arabic or resoucres I can use. Also some similar customs and traditions so I can bond with them more. Today was their first day in America and I want to give them a warm welcome and a friend.