the art of the bahraini pull

This is something that I’ve always found totally intriguing… In the Middle East, meeting a member of the opposite sex and starting a relationship requires quick thinking, a lot of talk time, and secret agent skills that match James Bond…

Let’s say you’re strolling along in a undisclosed shopping mall, you decide you need that double espresso and you need it right now.. At the corporate world domination coffee shop, you spot this delicious bellabambina in front of you in the line… your eyes meet and she smiles… OK NOW STOP… if you were anywhere else in the world, then you might decide to start up a conversation on how you love Kenyan double dark roasts because they really release the true flavor of the beans or some bullshit like that.. but you’re in the middle east and that line isn’t going to cut it.. Instead, you must turn on your cell phone, activate the blue tooth transmission on your phone and hope that you can find her and send her a text message… she will also have her blue tooth turned on the prowl for interesting names… once you get her name you can start texting which will eventually lead to calling and then hopefully on to bigger and better things… The only problem is that everyone and their mother has their blue tooth on, scooping the cellular chick frequencies, so panache and guile is a must.

Before the advent of cell phones and blue tooth, people used to write their number on a little piece of paper and give it to the girl or the guy… Some poor sods actually went out of their way and had their numbers printed on special paper with a little catchphrase like: I want to whisper soft poetry into your ear… I’ve actually seen the number paper transfer executed with such class and precision that you’d think they’re trading government secrets… It’s just unbelievable… I’ve never even bothered to try because I don’t know what to do… Do you hand over the number? Toss it over (if you do toss it, underhand or overhand)? Oh and if you don’t know, people are number hungry here, the sequence or the simplicity of a number really gets the girl going, because then she thinks “hmm this guy’s got a good number, I bet he drives a nice car”. So to answer your question, if you’re going to pull in this manner, then you’re going for a materialistic WAP (wannabe princess) and long walks on the beach holding hands is out of the question…

I once heard that guys in Saudi pick women based on their shoes… Since the women there are usually covered from head to toe, then you might want to consider the Manolo Blahnik pumps over the size 50 European medical arch supporting flats.. can you believe that? Shoes, what a phenomenon, that’s how you weed the women out there… If anyone actually reads this, can you verify? I’m interested to know… what do you do if you pick the girl out, then plan to meet with her again and you tell her to wear the same shoes; but then get screwed because she was wearing a popular sneaker that everyone’s wearing these days?

Once you’ve found your blue tooth honey, you guys have to start talking on the phone… Now this is the part that can be quite tiresome… You guys exchange phone calls, spend hour after hour of precious network talk time, doing absolutely nothing… I’ve sat in on and observed one of these talks and had to leave 20 minutes cause it was going nowhere… allow me to demonstrate: phone rings… (hello?) 5 minutes of silence (shlonek- how are you) another 5 minutes of silence (I’m good, I’m thinking about you) yet another 5 minutes of silence (really? I’m thinking about you too) you guessed it, another 5 minutes of silence, and that’s when I walked out of the room. Hopefully the phone calls will end up somewhere and you might actually get a chance to have a private moment with your newfound love…

Another way you can pull is by having a cell phone… Desperate people in Bahrain, spend lots of time with their phones randomly calling people, or they might actually find some stranger’s number and then out of the blue give them a call.. Those phone conversations can be very interesting to sit in on cause both people are playing both offense and defense (when you’re trying to start a relationship with a stranger over the phone, you have to be)… Don’t want to get into the details, but if you’re a pro then you’ll bag whomever your talking to; otherwise you’ll just get chewed up and spit out…

I think what I’m trying to get at, is that this is how business is conducted in terms of relationships… I’m oblivious to this and really don’t even know where to start, nor do I have a desire to even try… People here are so hung up on the bling, that they’ll forgo on the relationship building and the getting to know you bit (if you haven’t kept up on urban phraseology of the past 4 years, bling is defined as the shine that hits your eye when someone is wearing diamonds, so when you say “check out my bling” that means check out the really expensive stuff I’ve got). Talking to a member of the opposite sex, shouldn’t be such a secret or require such crazy methods.. Meeting someone should be fun, not complicated, what if you don’t have blue tooth? Or you don’t have the bling? You shouldn’t be shit out of luck.. People need to drop these false pretenses and just go with the flow. The problem is that many people like to go with the flow, but they’ve been burned so many times, that they’ve got these 15-foot high walls with barbed wire and guard dogs. Guys, we need to stop being assholes, a little respect and courtesy will go a long way, & stop spreading the false rumors. Ladies, give the lads a chance, we’re not all assholes… oh and everybody… can we tone down the materialistic bullshit just a bit? It’s ok to be a fashionista, but don’t hold it against someone if they’re not…

Note to my bellabambina: Baby, I would never even attempt to do something as stupid and silly as this, I know better. You’d catch me, then fricassee my privates and serve them with a little bit of fresh parsley as a garnish. I’m the luckiest guy on the planet and I love you..