I finally gave in to talking to Amir, but it wasn't by choice. He came up to me after class and asked why I was ignoring his notes. I was shocked at the sudden confrontation and hesitantly decided to give him a fair chance. It was his first week, after all, and I didn't want him to be completely alone. Surprisingly, he was actually tolerable. Slightly funny too. We talked about all sorts of things, topics varying from religion to sports and eventually to family. Without me asking, he told me that he moved here because his father's job had transferred him from San Francisco to Jeddah. His father was originally Saudi Arabian, so I thought that maybe he would understand our culture a bit more than I had imagined, but I was evidently wrong.
He spoke to me the next day about topics such as women's rights in Saudi, as if women have no rights at all. Does he not understand that we, as a people, want to protect our women from the outside world? They're not being oppressed, it's just our way of life! Westerners just don't get it; they'll never take the time to understand us.
YOU ARE READING
𝐃𝐢𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐚 𝐆𝐚𝐲 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐭
Romance❝ When I walk into a room full of people, I always look for you first ❞ ஐ In which Zaki Hadad, a gay Saudi Arabian teen, struggles to accept himself in an oppressive society and outlets his feelings into his journal.
