The job of finding a life partner can be difficult for some Arab expatriates. Many succeed in their working lives but struggle to find a spouse away from their home countries. (Names in this article have been changed to protect their identities)
Many Arab expatriates have found security and financial stability living in the UAE – but meeting a life partner can be different matter.
Take Amna, a Palestinian woman living in Ras Al Khaimah who has received five proposals of marriage, only to see them all fall through.
Amna, 25, said all her suitors refused to see her once they knew she lived in RAK.
But she has kept her sense of humour about her prospects for marriage.
“They think that we live in a cave,” she jokes. “RAK is not a deserted place like people think. It offers everything that other emirates do.
“Some of the suitors asked me to meet them closer to their emirates to save their time. What kind of people ask a girl to do that?”
Once, she recalls, a family asked her family to meet them at her brother’s house in Dubai because it was easier for them to get there. This time it was Amna’s relatives who said no.
The suitor had made such a poor impression on her family that it left them concerned about their daughter’s future.
Amna, who was born and raised in the UAE, says that these same families would think nothing of travelling long distances from Palestine to Jordan or Syria to find the right girl for their sons, if they were back in their homelands.
She feels that once they become accustomed to the higher standard of living in the UAE, some families are no longer prepared to go to the same effort to marry off their children and want everything served on a plate.
Amna would seem like a perfect catch. She comes from a family that includes accountants and engineers. Her parents, she believes, did an excellent job bringing her up.
“I am a well-educated woman. I pursued higher degree in a top university in Cairo,” she says. “I am not desperate to get married. Had I been, I would have agreed to marry one of these men.”
Other young women in her neighbourhood have experienced the same problem, she says. One factor is that most of the young men from the Levant live in Abu Dhabi or Dubai because most of the available jobs are there.
But what irks her most are the misconceptions about RAK, including a belief that it is short of schools and recreational areas and spaces. The ease of getting around RAK, the tranquillity of the city and the lack of traffic are among its charms, Amna says. “What else do you need?”
Amna would prefer to marry a man from her country and culture. “My family is not strict but I prefer someone from my own land to avoid conflict in the future.”
She started thinking about marriage for the first time last year. “Marriage is a necessary part of life. I am a working woman now and stable. I am knowledgeable enough to raise children.”
Amna has a few conditions. She wants an educated husband – “My parents put a lot of stress on education” – and at 170 centimetres, she wants someone to whom she can look up, or at least look in the eye.
“You see, I am not wearing heels. I am very tall. I want a tall man.”
The marriage dilemma for young expatriate Arabs is not restricted to RAK, or to women.
Ahmed, 26, is Syrian. He has lived in Ajman for eight years and has everything he wants – except a wife.
He was unemployed in Syria because of the turmoil there, but has become a successful businessman in the UAE and is financially stable. “I run my own business, so money-wise I am doing great,” he says. “But I am mentally tired and fatigued.”
Like Amna, Ahmed is looking for a life partner and is finding that difficult. He wants to marry a hometown girl to protect his future.
In Syria, he says, finding a spouse is easy as the whole community tries to help. “I just want a girl who will respect and obey me,” Ahmed says. “I will treat her in the best manner and provide her with everything she could ask for.
“Even though we are in an Arab land, we still remain strangers here. We don’t know many people except for a few here and there.”
But this week he is excited. “In a few days, my family will be seeing a girl in Ajman for marriage purposes. I hope it turns out positive.”
He heard from his sisters that she is modest and humble. “I have not seen her. But I trust in my sisters’ choice. Women know women better.”
The young woman lives with her family in Ajman; but as for Ahmed, work requires him to spend much of his time in the capital.
This is another cause of Ahmed’s stress. He finds the commute between Abu Dhabi and Ajman time-consuming, but his plans to move to Abu Dhabi have been hit by fast-rising rents.
“In our culture, dowry is not an issue,” he says. “If a man does not have a bucket of money, the family would only ask him to buy clothes for the bride. That’s all.”
The issue faced by many Arab expatriates, he says, is finding a woman who matches their expectations. Some women are extremely demanding, they say, while others are so determined to wait for the perfect man to knock on their doors that they end up with white hair.
Khater”, from Jordan, says he is ready to marry a woman of his match regardless of her background. The problem is, where to find her, says the Abu Dhabi expatriate.
“I have lived here for 10 years and I don’t know anyone properly,” says Khater, 30. He describes himself as an introvert who spends most of his days in his recently opened flower shop.
“My family members are scattered all around the place. I am alone here,” he says.
He says he has tried to find a partner for several years.
“I am ready to move out to other emirates if I find the girl, but there’s no girl for me,” Khater says with a laugh.
At the end of the day, he says, it is all destiny. What is written will come to pass.
aalhameli@thenational.ae
