Got engaged... in DUBAI!
Missing my fiance and want to reminisce our engagement last August, here's a little backstory because I'm sure mine is not like any you've heard before.
Pretty much since I've been a member on here I've struggled to find the "right" kind of girl for me. Dating never really worked, between my inability to "just be friends first" with an attractive woman and my inherent picky-ness and impatience it was kind of doomed to fail. At the same time I was looking for decent girls to date I also started to network with my local Muslim community in Denver; I met three good Muslim girls but to be honest they were a little "too" good if you know what I mean (not down with music, the occasional weed puff, going out to bars with my non-Muslim friends etc.). This whole time the rest of my family (dad, mom, two younger bros) were living in Abu Dhabi and I visited them over there once pretty much just to meet women. Again the girls I met were OK but none really "clicked" either they weren't feeling it or I wasn't. [As an aside the way this stuff works in Arabic culture at least, if a young man or woman wants to find a "mate" they basically network through their family and friends to help them find that person. I call it "half-arranged" because the decision rests on the young couple if they like each other or not, at least if the families are halfway decent people and not backwards fundamentalist jerks who force them to marry.]
So fast forward a year or two to this past May which was the month I graduated from college (great timing huh? :banghead:) and my mom and brothers moved back to Colorado from the UAE at the same time. My dad informs me while still overseas (he still lives there now due to his job) that his sister had given him a tip-off about a good friend of hers who has a daughter also looking for a man. Well he got in touch with them literally the day before he was to fly over here for a month to spend Ramadan with us... and the way he described it sounded a lot more promising than my past experiences. Around the beginning of August I flew out to Dubai with my dad for that month to meet this girl and get to know her. Just so you know a flight to UAE is typically 16-20+ hours depending on your connecting stops and I'm 6'2" with really long legs so flying is quite painful for me, I wasn't looking forward to flying out there on a limb and being disappointed again.
Long story short... I wasn't disappointed, the girl I met blew me away and was beyond my wildest hopes and dreams, and we decided to get engaged in the Arabic tradition just a day or two before I flew back to the States. To clarify getting engaged in that context is more just like a "courtship" thing; it doesn't mean your marriage is set-in-stone but it allows the couple to spend time together alone because outside of engagement the man and woman aren't supposed to even touch each other. Some of you might think it's extreme but, TBH their culture is like 2000+ years old and it felt cool to be a part of those traditions. I'd also like to mention this girl is Syrian (as in literally from Syria born and raised) which is also where my dad's family is from. Sharing the same cultural background definitely helped make this happen.
So without further ado, Khalid and Suha...
I'd post more but I'm worried about interweb pervs lol
Missing my fiance and want to reminisce our engagement last August, here's a little backstory because I'm sure mine is not like any you've heard before.
Pretty much since I've been a member on here I've struggled to find the "right" kind of girl for me. Dating never really worked, between my inability to "just be friends first" with an attractive woman and my inherent picky-ness and impatience it was kind of doomed to fail. At the same time I was looking for decent girls to date I also started to network with my local Muslim community in Denver; I met three good Muslim girls but to be honest they were a little "too" good if you know what I mean (not down with music, the occasional weed puff, going out to bars with my non-Muslim friends etc.). This whole time the rest of my family (dad, mom, two younger bros) were living in Abu Dhabi and I visited them over there once pretty much just to meet women. Again the girls I met were OK but none really "clicked" either they weren't feeling it or I wasn't. [As an aside the way this stuff works in Arabic culture at least, if a young man or woman wants to find a "mate" they basically network through their family and friends to help them find that person. I call it "half-arranged" because the decision rests on the young couple if they like each other or not, at least if the families are halfway decent people and not backwards fundamentalist jerks who force them to marry.]
So fast forward a year or two to this past May which was the month I graduated from college (great timing huh? :banghead:) and my mom and brothers moved back to Colorado from the UAE at the same time. My dad informs me while still overseas (he still lives there now due to his job) that his sister had given him a tip-off about a good friend of hers who has a daughter also looking for a man. Well he got in touch with them literally the day before he was to fly over here for a month to spend Ramadan with us... and the way he described it sounded a lot more promising than my past experiences. Around the beginning of August I flew out to Dubai with my dad for that month to meet this girl and get to know her. Just so you know a flight to UAE is typically 16-20+ hours depending on your connecting stops and I'm 6'2" with really long legs so flying is quite painful for me, I wasn't looking forward to flying out there on a limb and being disappointed again.
Long story short... I wasn't disappointed, the girl I met blew me away and was beyond my wildest hopes and dreams, and we decided to get engaged in the Arabic tradition just a day or two before I flew back to the States. To clarify getting engaged in that context is more just like a "courtship" thing; it doesn't mean your marriage is set-in-stone but it allows the couple to spend time together alone because outside of engagement the man and woman aren't supposed to even touch each other. Some of you might think it's extreme but, TBH their culture is like 2000+ years old and it felt cool to be a part of those traditions. I'd also like to mention this girl is Syrian (as in literally from Syria born and raised) which is also where my dad's family is from. Sharing the same cultural background definitely helped make this happen.
So without further ado, Khalid and Suha...
I'd post more but I'm worried about interweb pervs lol