How to Lose a Guy in 10 Minutes

Yesterday after work Alex and I met our friend Arazoo in a lovely park. By lovely, I mean it would be equally apt to be the set of a creepy horror film or a Pinterest-worthy, hipster photo shoot. Lots of chipped-paint amusement park rides, overgrown bushes, and ice cream stands in various states of disrepair.

On our way to one of these stands, Arazoo asked, “Acadia, my dear, may I ask a personality question of you?”

I’m pretty sure she meant personal, because when I assured her of course, that’s what friends do, she replied, “So you think you will marry Iraqi man?”

Cue frantic scramble to choose the words that could express the absolute impossibility of that situation without insulting her, Iraqi men, or her entire culture in general. “Uh….well I will be going home to America in three weeks, and I must finish university, and then medical school. So I won’t have time to be married for awhile, don’t you think?”

“But after, will you marry American man or Iraqi man? Because my friend, he ask if you marry him.”

*Brief explanation (as I attempt to understand) of the alternative to dating that occurs here:

1. Boy sees Girl in a public setting (in this case, the Life Center, where we help practice English). Boy likes Girl.

2. Boy talks to Girl’s friend (mandatory to go through at least one middleman, preferably more) to see if she’s interested in, you know, being married.

3. If Girl is convinced, her family and Boy’s family have a picnic, size up each other’s social standing, and tah dah, engaged! Then Boy and Girl can spend time together, in public.

That’s incredibly oversimplified, especially in this city, the most progressive in the country…but you get the picture, it’s a lot quicker of a process than in America. And I somehow found myself on step 2 of 3! I was suddenly in danger of violating on of our unbreakable female intern pacts we swore at the beginning of the summer: no engagements, and no leg-shaving. (Gotta defy the excessive gender roles we’re forced into in some stealthy way, you know).

 “Well Arazoo, before we get married in America, people usually know each other for a much longer time” (translation: AT ALL!).

I continued, “I will be going home soon, and though someday Insha’allah maybe I will return to Iraq, I won’t have enough time to get to know any men.  So you can tell your friend, I’m sorry, but I don’t want to get married.”

She shook her head a bit and handed me mostly melted ice cream as consolation for my loss. “Well, he will disappointed, my dear. I tell him.”

Disappointed??? I almost spit out my ice cream, trying not to laugh at the ridiculousness of the entire situation. I suppose the loss of a potential visa is disappointing, but the alternative would be the most disappointing Iraqi housewife ever to cook rice. Little does Mystery Proposer know that rice is approximately the only Iraqi food I could make…

Arazoo didn’t seem too phased by her friend's rejection, and we enjoyed the rest of the night still happily single ladies. Crisis averted in the park. And just to clarify, by crisis I don’t mean a sudden engagement to an Iraqi man I don’t know. Muuuuch more of a crisis would be what my mother would do to me if she found out :)