Comments on: "Looking for an Arab for serious purposes only."

"Looking for an Arab for serious purposes only."

onlyconnect — Sun, 29 Aug 2004 15:41:41 -0800

Personal ads in the Arab world "Resident of the UAE, 28 years old, high-school diploma, looking for a veiled wife, a citizen of UAE or any other Gulf county. Will be allowed to continue working after marriage." ~ "Syrian, 36 years old, holds a government position, is interested to meet a tall, fair-skinned and green-eyed virgin, Lebanese or Moroccan."

By: Pretty_Generic

Pretty_Generic — Sun, 29 Aug 2004 15:49:56 -0800

Wow, those are really different to *** MY PERSONAL AD ***. Fascinating.

By: onlyconnect

onlyconnect — Sun, 29 Aug 2004 16:07:10 -0800

Heh. You are exuding focking confidence and we like you.

By: amberglow

amberglow — Sun, 29 Aug 2004 16:28:27 -0800

pretty's like the Fonz, but more fetal ; > this was weird: First of all, in this context, the word "Arab" refers only to the well-off sons of the Persian Gulf area, whereas Egyptians, Jordanians or Syrians, let alone Sudanese or Yemenis, are not included in this category. Is that a general distinction in daily life too?

By: wfrgms

wfrgms — Sun, 29 Aug 2004 16:32:39 -0800

I don't mean to be ethnocentric... but damn...

By: ElvisJesus

ElvisJesus — Sun, 29 Aug 2004 16:43:50 -0800

I'd be concerned about anyone looking for 72 virgins

By: Pretty_Generic

Pretty_Generic — Sun, 29 Aug 2004 16:49:54 -0800

ElvisJesus - apparently it may well be a mistranslation of "raisins". Seriously. Any chance of the 9/11 movie being called "72 Raisins"?

By: jokeefe

jokeefe — Sun, 29 Aug 2004 16:56:20 -0800

pretty generic-- "Slightly Hairy"? "Naked Mole Rat"? "Freeze frame/credits"? Ah, if I was only, uh, 22 years younger.

By: Pseudoephedrine

Pseudoephedrine — Sun, 29 Aug 2004 16:57:15 -0800

amberglow> Every friend from the Middle East I have makes that distinction, so I would assume so. They're different ethnicities (and in the case of Egyptians, Syrians, Jordanians and the Lebanese, often different religinos), after all. They don't look or sound similar, either.

By: amberglow

amberglow — Sun, 29 Aug 2004 16:58:51 -0800

ahh...i never knew of the distinction--thanks Pseudo

By: croutonsupafreak

croutonsupafreak — Sun, 29 Aug 2004 16:59:13 -0800

One of the things that I appreciate about Islam is that it allows divorce, recognizing that just because a marriage fails it doesn't mean you are a sinner. The last page of the article touches on some creative uses of the doctrine by young people who don't want to have sex outside marriage.

By: Sidhedevil

Sidhedevil — Sun, 29 Aug 2004 17:34:45 -0800

Pseudo, you seemed to miss the phrase "well-off" in there, though. Shirley the word "Arab" applies to poor Saudis as well...

By: onlyconnect

onlyconnect — Sun, 29 Aug 2004 18:28:58 -0800

Maybe all these people could use some help from Online Personal Ad Coaches, who will remove all your dumb references to exes and bad grammar and try to make you sound interesting. Or is it better to leave all the flaws in the ad of your own personal design out in the open? Don't know. I thought maybe Pseudo was saying Arab applies to the richer countries (not people) out there, e.g., Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, etc?

By: Pseudoephedrine

Pseudoephedrine — Sun, 29 Aug 2004 18:36:13 -0800

Yeah, I meant that it applies to the places where the people who are ethnically Arab live. Which, yes, are Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, etc. Y'might as well call a Frenchman a German as an Egyptian an Arab.

By: Sidhedevil

Sidhedevil — Sun, 29 Aug 2004 18:55:12 -0800

I got what Pseudoephedrine was saying, but I thought the odd thing about the original sentence wasn't the way it defined "Arab" by nationality, but the way it snuck in "well-off" as part of the definition of "Arab".

By: RobbieFal

RobbieFal — Sun, 29 Aug 2004 19:41:50 -0800

I should file one of those.. sure.. i'm white and American, but it's not like I couldn't try

By: dhoyt

dhoyt — Sun, 29 Aug 2004 20:19:30 -0800

Hmmmm. This is all well and good for Arabs, but what is the appropriate dating market for soulless, consumptive young infidels? Oh. Never mind, I found it.

By: amberglow

amberglow — Sun, 29 Aug 2004 20:22:40 -0800

for soulless, you'll have to wait for the white supremacist dating service. ugh.

By: kablam

kablam — Sun, 29 Aug 2004 20:48:45 -0800

Well, if you wish to meet Moslem, not necessarily Arab, girls, who are from relatively wealthy, urbane families, American University (D.C.) used to be a good place. I have a friend who met his Iranian wife there. He said most of them are pretty insistent about conversion before marriage, though. He mentioned another guy, also dating an Iranian girl, who was really surprised at her un-Islamic manner. Duh!, she was a Zoroastrian. One of those 3rd date discoveries.

By: Pericles

Pericles — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 13:44:56 -0800

interested to meet a tall, fair-skinned and green-eyed virgin, Lebanese or Moroccan - me too!

By: madman

madman — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 23:39:07 -0800

Speaking of wrong interpretations, Pretty_Generic, here's a joke... -- A new young monk arrives at the monastery. He is assigned to help the other monks in copying the old canons and laws of the church by hand. He notices, however, that all of the monks are copying from copies, not from the original manuscript. So, the new monk goes to the head abbot to question this, pointing out that if someone made even a small error in the first copy, it would never be picked up. In fact, that error would be continued in all of the subsequent copies. The head monk says, "We have been copying from the copies for centuries, but you make a good point, my son." So, the abbot goes down into the dark caves underneath the monastery where the original manuscript is held in a locked vault that hasn't been opened for hundreds of years. Hours go by and nobody sees the old abbot. The young monk gets worried and goes downstairs to look for him. He sees him banging his head against the wall. His forehead is all bloody and bruised and he is crying uncontrollably. The young monk asks the old abbot, "What's wrong, father?" With a choking voice, the old abbot replies, "The word is 'celebrate'." --

By: Pretty_Generic

Pretty_Generic — Tue, 31 Aug 2004 12:10:57 -0800

amused