Let me start this post off with an amusing little anecdote:
Recently, while I was in the doctor’s waiting room with my mom (I had a dentist appointment. Joy!) a Qatari man sat next to me and took his cell phone out. I was in one of my dreamish-trance-like states, so I wasn’t really paying much attention to him. When I’m in a situation where I have to wait for a while and get bored, I tend to withdraw into my head for entertainment. (Can you blame me?) Anyways, despite this, I did notice that he was punching a number into his cell phone, but wasn’t doing anything with it. He had it on his lap and the number’s text was large and glowing in the phone’s backlight. I noticed it was a nice number–definitely an expensive one, since it was very easy. (It had four 4’s in it). I kinda waited for him to friggin’ press the call button or something but he didn’t. The phone remained on his lap with the number glowing ’til the backlight shut off. Justifiably losing interest, I withdrew into my head again until he got up and left. The following conversation ensued:
Mom: Heh heh. Hala, that man sat next to you showing off his phone number for ages and you didn’t even notice.
Hala: Oh? HA HA! No, I did notice that he had a number on his cell phone! I just didn’t know it was HIS! Ha ha ha! I was waiting for him to press the call button or something!
Mom and Hala then engage in silent laughter
Yeah. This dude was trying to silently pick me up by punching out his cell number on his own cell phone and holding it out on his lap in plain sight for at least a few minutes. Mom said he stayed until the backlight turned off TWICE. (I had stopped looking after it turned off the first time).
You want to know the only thing I noticed about him? That he smelled like an old used ashtray. It was pretty disgusting. So much for the effort he put into trying to get my attention!
And, that, my friends, is exactly what I find completely hilarious about the way Qatari men try to pick up women in this country. They don’t come up to them with some lame pick-up line. Nor do they offer buying them drinks or even simply flat-out asking for a phone number. No, what they do is they recite their number at you at the most random moments.
Take a couple of days ago, for instance. My sisters and I were walking to the Mall from our house. And just as we were rounding the corner that leads up to the door, a car sidles up near us and I heard a deep voice go “Khamsa, khamsa, tis’aa, arba’…..” etc. I couldn’t even see the dude’s face because the car was going faster than we were. (Plus, I knew what he was doing, I wasn’t about to give him the benefit of knowing that he got my attention by staring). But it there was enough time for him to repeat his number twice in his gruff-voiced Arabic.
Yep, that’s how he gets action from girls. He yells his number out the window and hopes the object of his interest whips out her cell phone fast enough to punch it in. He’s not the only one…it’s like the “Picking up chicks — GULF style!” thing.
Thing is, culturally, Qatari men and women don’t really mix. They are often educated in sex-segregated schools from childhood, so they aren’t exposed to each other for long natural periods of time. Thus, they pick up much less overt ways to get each others’ attention. I even had a Qatari dude mumble his number at me when I was simply passing by him in a gym clothing store. Only I didn’t even know. I saw Madi doing a silly little imitation and I didn’t get who she was making fun of. She didn’t hesitate to tell me that a man just recited his number at me as I was cluelessly walking by, distracted by something in my own head.
Hehehehehe….well, it adds some kind of humor to your day, that’s for sure. 
