Saturday, October 9, 2010

Labels


For some reason, I used to be obsessed with labeling my lesbianism some time back in my life (specifically speaking in my late teenage hood and about 2 years into young adulthood).


I used to think- at a time when different circumstances meant I did not have a lot of access to the internet (we just didn't have it at home! GASP!)- that a lesbian can only either be a "Boya" or a "Banoota".


That is Arabic for what roughly translates as a butch/femme dynamic.



Once that understanding ingrained itself into my world view, it was very difficult to shake it off. I decided that I was a Banoota and that I was only ever going to have eyes for all the Boyat of the world.





Which was kind of absurd, because to me being a Banoota meant being a girly girl, with a girly girl appearance and a girly girly sense of style, which I just was not at the time.

Now I like to be more feminine in my 'style', though I don't know if I'd call it girly. I mean, I like dresses and high heels (not make up though), but I also adore weight training and would rather have short hair than my current shoulder length luscious locks-- but that too is some twisted thinking, because who said being a Banoota or 'femme' meant you cannot build muscle or only dress in decidedly ungirly clothes?

Nobody said that.

So I will stop saying that, too.

Not for my sake, I've stopped labeling myself.

It's just for the sake of humanity, I guess.

 

Friday, October 1, 2010

No Romance - Part 2

Har Har! It’s been a while~! Well on to the not-so-good-stuff~
Three days passed since I gave my crush the note with my number on it. There was no response. I was a little sad, but I wasn’t planning on dwelling on it. ‘Maybe she was not a lesbian after all, maybe my gaydar just plain ol’ sucks’ I told myself, though I knew that wasn’t true.
Then I got a missed call.
It was late at night, I was about to turn off my laptop and go to sleep when my mobile rang for a second and then stopped. Somehow I knew it was her, so rather than just ignore it, I sent a little message to the number, a straightforward ‘who is it?’
‘It’s me, the girl form the bus’ came the reply.
I. was.  Ecstatic. (Hee!)
We messaged each other all day the next day, talked on the phone for ages, swapped email accounts, and chatted after work all night. I learned that she did not remember what I looked like, but she did remember our conversation on the bus, among other things. We made plans to meet on the only day she was off. The first night we chatted, it was great. The second night, I began feeling uneasy. She was demanding to meet my family (?!), and all explanations of how that that just could not happen as I’m not out to them and doubt that I’ll ever be, and that we were yet to meet and maybe we weren’t going to click fell on deaf ears. I ignored the rotten feeling in the pit of my stomach though, and reasoned to myself that maybe she was just overly excited, and anyway she would not be able to meet my family if I did not take her to them, so who cares?
The third night, the night before our meeting, was when she really brought the crazy. The odd bad feeling lurking in my guts turned into blaring sirens when this stranger whom I had never even met yet, and whom did not even remember what I looked like, started talking about us getting married and going back to her country.
Wtf.
At the beginning I thought she was joking. Ha, ha, I replied. But she was dead serious. In disbelief, I typed away, asking if she was serious, telling her she must be joking, reasoning with her, trying to appeal to the power of fracking logic!
‘What do you mean marriage? We haven’t even met yet! Maybe we won’t like each other, maybe I’ll turn out to be an axe murderer, why the frack would I leave my home to go to the country of a total stranger?! You did not even remember how I looked like, what the hell is wrong with you????!!!!’
It was futile. It seemed as if I had given my number to a raging blob of insanity. In shock, I made an excuse, logged off and went to bed. It was a very troubled sleep, and when the morning came, the first thing I did was text this person, informing her that I was not going to make it for our meet up, and that I did not want to communicate with her anymore. In direct terms, I ended this relationship before it started. Such was the power of the lunacy she threw my way.
That was not the end of it, however.
For about two months, I was bombarded with calls, texts messages and emails that pleaded, cajoled, whined, and even threatened, wanting to know what went wrong, why wasn’t I answering my phone, why not talk it out, I am in love with you(!), I can’t live without you (!), I will kill myself if you don’t pick up (!!), I will find you and kill you if you don’t answer back (!!!), we were perfect together, answer me you bitch, pick up the phone you whore, how dare you ignore me, and so on and so forth, etc, etc, etc.
How did I withstand this assault? By ignoring it. One of what I thought was my worst habits with no redeeming qualities is the ability to shut off and live in a state of robotic denial. I put my phone on silence, and went on with my daily routine. Woke up, went to work, came back home, slept. I already had a company phone that my family could reach me at when I did not answer my personal number. And I never did answer my personal phone for the whole time. I only ever accessed it to read the messages (this after the first couple of days I also stopped doing) and to delete the ten million records of her calls and messages, and I did likewise for my email.
The power of completely ignoring someone has always paid off for me. I’ve lost plenty of opportunities to make friends when I’d fall into the trap of this frightening skill. This time, it actually worked to my benefit. I can honestly say I did not feel the slightest bit of stress after the initial two or three days- once I stopped reading anything this mad stalker sent me. She knew virtually nothing about me. Well, only my name, number and email account, but still! There was/is no way she’d find me, or recognize my face in a crowd, and so I let it go. When the calls and messages came to a stop, I could go back to using my phone, and to me, it was as if this sorry episode never happened.
Moral of the story?
Who knows? I don’t want to say ‘don’t ever approach anyone ever in your life’ but I honestly can’t. For every psycho there will be a potential soul mate or something. I guess one should just be careful, weigh the pros and cons, and make an informed decision. Whatever ‘an informed decision’ means.
What I do know is that I will never approach someone again without taking my safety into account, and will offer friendship first, become acquainted with that person, see if we get along  and ‘click’ before taking it any further. And honestly, I won’t be giving my number to any stranger on the bus anymore, no matter how strong my crush on her is.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Cut, Cut, CUT!!!

Soooooo.

I am depressed.

Hmm, that's not right, though. Or is it?

Maybe I am just a lazy self-sabotager.



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Scratch that, I definately am a lazy self-sabotager.

I am also sightly loony. And desparate. Very desparate.

I mean, I listen to music by (straight) female artists, but in my head I make believe the lyrics are about women.

And it's not only with totally gay videos like Amal Hijazi's "Baya'a El Ward"



But also totally straight songs where it's all about men, men, men! Like Rihanna's unfaithful, for example.



Sigh...

Thus concludes this red herring/filler episode. I promised myself I'd sleep early today. See y'all later!

Saturday, August 28, 2010

No Romance

Hey, it's  been a while~! On to the good stuff.

One of the most prominent reasons in my love for Abu Dhabi is the public transportation system. Specifically speaking-- the public buses. Cheap, efficient, and will take you wherever you want, what more could a city dweller with places to go ask for?


On one of these buses, the one I used every morning to go to work, I saw her.

Cropped dark hair underneath a navy colored cap, large black sunglasses, a security guard uniform, and a pair of polished men’s shoes topped off by a men’s golden watch—I was smitten.

Every day for a couple of months before I had the courage to clumsily hand her my number in an awkward little note with an inelegant ‘Call me?’ scribbled underneath the digits, I would steal glimpses at her, playing scenes in my head about how I’d approach her, how we’d converse, how we’d hit it up right away and become a couple. Mundane events like going to the movies, or going out for ice cream, or to a restaurant for a nice dinner all became so much more enticingly fun and romantic in my head.

It was impossible to get close to her. When the bus would reach our bus stop, the seat next to her would already be occupied, and as more and more people would get on, the minute it was empty someone else filled it. That was the dance till the moment she got off at her stop.

That’s only half the truth, though, as although I thought about her nonstop, I was too cowardly to approach her. I wasn’t confident; ‘will she like me?’ I thought. ‘What if she doesn’t find me attractive? What if she rejects me? ‘

And so the ‘Aww, shucks, the seat next to my snazzy-love-interest-who-doesn’t-know-I-like-her-from-afar is occupied! I can’t speak to her, I guess!’ excuse worked well for me.

One day I decided to gather my inner courage and attempt to sit next to her and start a conversation. Instead of rushing in to find a seat before they were all taken as was my want, I simply waited patiently for all the women to file in and take all the free seats in the women’s section of the bus. I went in last, and stood strategically behind my object of fascination. Unfortunately, the woman next to my target got off at a place not so far from my target’s stop. So when I sat next to her, I had to control the pounding in my ears quickly and get to the point. I did talk to her, and it was the first and last time we spoke in person. She was in her seat nodding off slightly as usual when I go her attention with an ‘excuse me’. She looked at me startled and I asked her where she worked. She answered. Her voice was surprisingly soft and she seemed shy. She asked me why I would want to know. I said ‘Oh, no reason’ and then her stop came and she got off.

For a long while I was content with obsessing about that dull exchange of words. I turned and tossed at night, replaying every move and sound leading up to her quietly taking her leave.

The turning point came when I was going to be moved to another office, and so due to the different routes would have had to start taking a different bus. In the beginning, for a very short instant, I was devising ways to take the same bus as her and then get off somewhere where I would take a second bus to work. Then it hit me how fraking creepy that was. As I had no desire to become reach an ever lower level of creepiness than I already had, I made up my mind to approach her directly.

When the moment of truth came, on my last ride on the same bus as her, I chickened out, of course. I wanted to talk, but my brain was empty and I could not think of a single thing to say. I wasn’t sitting next to her and wasn’t trying to, as well. As her stop drew near, it was now or never, and inspiration hit. I tore a piece of paper from god knows where and scribbled my number with a simple message underneath: ‘Call me’.

But even then I was nervous, ‘Call me.’ Seemed so bossy and domineering. So I tore off another piece and wrote ‘Call me~?’, but this too seemed overly friendly and slightly spoiled bratty what with the wavy dash and all. When I finally settled on a simple, unpresumptuous ‘Call me?’ she was already getting ready to get off. My heart went wild, my chest burned, my vision was spotted with blinking stars… but I gave her my note. In awkward, clumsy, uninspired movements, I went 'excuse me', handed over the paper and then quickly turned away from her as she, befuddled but having to move, got down at her stop.

I would later learn that she couldn’t even take a look at my face. That’s how sonic the hedgehog frantic I was.

It also turned to be a blessing in disguise, as my first attempt at romance went miserably wrong.


To Be Continued!



Next Post: Butch lesbian Strangers with Candy! Happily Never After! Part 2!!

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Introductions and Re-introductions~! Let's Roll With It!

I'm a lesbian. Blah, blah, blah. I don't feel ashamed and have never really struggled with the issue. Blah, blah, blah.

Why was my fist post in Arabic (which I have deleted) so farking earnest? Was it the inconnent naive part of me hard at work?

Oh, well, a snippet about me:

Name: Snafu (really, it is!)
Age: 23 (oh, to be 22 again...)
Sexual Orientation: Lesbo
Nationality: It's Complicated
Relationship Status: Crazy Cat Lady, minus the cats.
In the Closet: Yep. Yep, yep, yep, yep.
Out to Anyone: One of my sisters and she doesn't care (thank you Allah!)
Height: Hobbit
Weight: Working on it, dammit!!! Jillian Michaels promised me I'll be shredded by the end of the 30 day shred! You'll see!




La la la. What else? Oh, my ring finger is longer than my index, so science supports the scientific fact that I am a short fat dyke.



 
A short fat dyke with very ambitios plans for this blog.
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Alright, seriously here, I intend to not only write about me and my days as a lesbo in a 'Dear Diary' styla-nanah, I also plan to do other things. Other things that I will let you in at, uh, some other time.
In the meantime, enjoy mah drawing! Don't mind the unrealistic dimensions and lolipop head! (I draw like that because I am a preteen girl at heart).





Next Post: Butch Lesbian Strangers with Candy! Happily Never After!

Switching to English - Starting Over

Ok, for me, typing in Arabic takes ages, and so as I have taught myself to touch type in English (yes, and it has taken me ages to do that! And I did it all on my own! I'm not sure if it's coming across, but I am very proud of this accomplishment! Goal for Ramadan is going from 30 wpm to 50!) and could use the practice (while having fun blogging too!)I have decided to just go with what makes my life easier and comes more naturally and start blogging in English.




I should be ashamed of myself, I know. Yes I am an Arab, yeah I was born, raised and am currently living in an Arab country, yup I have attended public schools and an all girls university with alot of the other Arabs I know. It's like after all that, blogging in English is sort of pretentious. But the sanity of my fingers is at stake, and dammit, there's no need to get all dramatic about the language used in the blog of a nobody!
Another reason for the switching is that- and I am ashamed to touch type the following because it is just that lame- I have been feeling kinda smug about my "Very Good English". I won't lie or pretend here. Thing is, one of the foreign peeps at work complimented my written English today and was all 'WOW, YOU HAVE VERY GOOD WRITTEN ENGLISH! WHERE DID YOU STUDY?'

Others would find the implication insulting, as in "why are you so excited, huh??? What, you thought I was stupid, is that it???!!! That only a person who learned in some fancy, shmancy, with an American/British/Canadian/German/Other-Western-Country-We-Love-to-Hate-and/or-Hate-to-Love-and/or-Love-to-Love-and/or-Feel-Smug-About-Because-if-it's-Western-it-is-Always-Better-you-Backwards-Peasents! curriculum could ever have good written English, right??? How DARE you!!! Be-gone, Imperialist!"

But I tend to give people the benefit of doubt, because I'm like that. Sometimes.



 
Now that I have explained myself, I will be renovating, fixing, revamping-- simply put, starting over! Yay!

(not that there's much to begin with... but fark the details!)

Next Post: Re-Introduction! Meet Defender of Alternitivia, Bubble-Gum Magical Bunny Girl Snafu!