Doubts part II

[morocco4ever 63]

Exactly.

One thing I'm curious about - for those of you who did meet online.... Have you discussed with your SO the circumstances behind your online meeting? How did you distinguish the motives of your own SO who may have been in the cyber cafe with lots of others who were specifically looking for American women?

Well the circumstances were this:

I was home, the kids were sleeping, all the good shows had come to an end and I'm not into watchin' reruns so I thought hey, I'll go into a chatroom. I had been a member of a religious forum for years (it's where I first met Rhama a couple of years ago ) and have ALWAYS been searching deep deep for "the answer". Not at all looking for the answer this night but I was very curious about Islam. I had never known a muslim so I thought hey...lemme take a peak at the Islam chat rooms. Well they were all mostly in arabic so that was useless but after roaming around a bit *ping* there he was. I started immediately asking him about questions, saying how I admired how the women covered themselves in his country and it just spiraled from there.

He works two jobs, one as a barber and one as a salesman selling beauty products to various beauty establishments. He doesn't really start until about 3pm and so that brings him to the cafe at night. He's always loved talking to people in different countries 'cause it fascinates him, so that is what he was doing there.

How do I distinguish the motive? I dunno. I mean we weren't talking romance or anything for a while. Mostly it was, and still is, about God. About how wonderfully powerful He is, etc.

Today our conversations go like this:

how was your day? <insert day description here>

did you pray all of your prayers? <insert comment here>

how are the kids ?

then he'll talk to each of the kids...usually they try to talk arabic from one of my books to him or they'll show him something in the egypt book that we have.

then one of us will say something that we read today either in the Quran or in a related book that really moved us and we'll talk about that.

then if there is time we'll talk about life in general and what he can do to be a good muslim husband for me and what i can do to be a good muslim wife for him. (I LOVE that part )

then that's it. we do the i love you's and end it with the shahada.

is that all wrong....i.e. is that what everyone in the cafe is doing? who the heck knows. in any event the worst that can happen, other than my being heartbroken, is that i will have learned a lot about God and will have increased my faith in HIm.

Only you can judge this for yourself. I am guessing that you haven't known each other very long, so I wouldn't jump just yet. But for heaven sakes, give it time, and enjoy. If after you have known each other and he is open enough to talk about the personal things with you, then I think you have something special.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

One thing I'm curious about - for those of you who did meet online.... Have you discussed with your SO the circumstances behind your online meeting? How did you distinguish the motives of your own SO who may have been in the cyber cafe with lots of others who were specifically looking for American women?

Don't look now but you finally figured out how to nest quotes within your replies! Now why can't you always do that, would make following these conversations so much easier

[Fandango 1,439]

One thing I'm curious about - for those of you who did meet online.... Have you discussed with your SO the circumstances behind your online meeting? How did you distinguish the motives of your own SO who may have been in the cyber cafe with lots of others who were specifically looking for American women?

Don't look now but you finally figured out how to nest quotes within your replies! Now why can't you always do that, would make following these conversations so much easier

yay szsz!

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Nothing to figure out. I just prefer to use color rather than quotes.

[Fandango 1,439]

Nothing to figure out. I just prefer to use color rather than quotes.

Oh, sorry, I recall you saying once you couldn't figure it out....guess I was mistaken.

[chri'stina 190]

Exactly.

One thing I'm curious about - for those of you who did meet online.... Have you discussed with your SO the circumstances behind your online meeting? How did you distinguish the motives of your own SO who may have been in the cyber cafe with lots of others who were specifically looking for American women?

Mine is kind of old news as he has been here over 2 years now, but I'll share from the experience. Maybe my answer is not really applicable though because very very rarely did Sujeet ever chat to me from a cyber cafe. He did not like going to cyber cafe's at all. But this was in India too, not the ME/NA so I am sure there are cultural differences between the regions anyway. Sorry if this answer is off topic...

He started chatting to me while he was working at the Indian Law Institute, as their programmer/consultant, and he was not at all interested in marriage. He was bored, had finished his programming work for the day, and started looking for ppl on AOL IM to talk to who wanted to talk about God. Think of all the ppl on VJ who type while at work. So that was Sujeet when we met, always having no work left to do.

We only chatted while he was at work, and later he got a webcam so I actually saw his office room and occasionally coworkers who'd walk through. Then he finally got the internet at home maybe 8 months after we met online, so he could talk to me anytime instead of only while at the office. So a cyber cafe played no part in our meeting or relationship. I think once we chatted while he was at a cyber cafe because he was visiting another city and that was the only way to keep in touch.

He was strictly looking for someone to discuss God with and someone who could maybe help him understand some things, since he didn't personally know any protestant Christians around his area. So we just talked about that stuff for awhile and he'd say how he planned on staying a bachelor so that he could do what he felt he needed to in the future without worrying if a wife would be unhappy about it(he has a passion to help orphans/street ppl and wants to do something more about it in the future). But he didn't know I had similar desires to help kids in the future, so I was shocked when he mentioned that, and told him I had similar dreams. He was shocked as well.

So that's what started the whole thing even more and the interest in talking to each other. He knew I wouldn't be whining in the future if we had to sacrifice a lot of comfort in order to help others who need it more. This topic alone made me feel he was for real, not a scam, and was not looking for any woman to fall in love with. But love was of course not mentioned until many months after we started chatting.

[Mrs. Forgetful 2]

Wow! I am a little tired of reading! It just keeps going and going!

I am blown away by all of the things said on here! There are so many good points and things that make sense.

I have never ever liked long distance relationships. That's why things took so long for me and the hubby. I need to get my ducks in a row and so did he. By the time I came around he was about to go back to Morocco for good. Thank goodness I told him that I was moving to Philly for good and that we should try things again. So he applied for his OPT and said that we would have a year to figure out what we are going to do with our future. Nine months later, I decided that I wanted to marry him for sure. I started to push it on him, but he wanted to decide on his own time.

Now the biggest thing for me and I still don't understand, is that over the 3 years he had never mentioned me to his family. I had said hi to them a few times, but I was just a friend. When I had asked him about this he said that he didn't want to say anything and then things not work out for us. But on the night of Jan. 15th he called his parents and talked to them for three hours about me. His mother kept asking the same thing, "Do you really love her? Does she really love you?" Everytime she asked he said yes. So the next day proposed to me.

Now this made me realize how much his family means to him. I know that he misses his family terribly. He can't wait for the AOS stuff to be finished so we can go to Tanger.

I will alway have doubts about things and I don't think there is anything wrong with it. I believe that things happen because God wills it. Good or bad the things that happen to us are things to learn from. And just because people have marital problems at times, doesn't make it a fraud marriage. What people need to remember is that every single relationship is different. Lets say that my husband and your husband had a really bad habit of something, and this habit got on my nerves but seemd like a ususal thing to you, that doesn't make it a fraud marriage. People take some of the tinest things and turn them around and make it into a huge deal and think "Oh that looks like it could be a fradulent marriage!"

And another thing! I totally disagree with the age thing! I do not think that age could be any sign of a fraudulent marriage! There are pleanty of couples all over the world with huge age gaps. Just because my husband is almost 10 years older than me, doesn't mean it's fraud. My grand parents were 15 years apart and they were married more than 50 years. My husbands parents were married for 33 years with 13 years difference. So there is never a real way to tell if it's fraud just because of the age.

The only way to know really if it's fraud is if the person comes out and really tells you or you finally catch them in the act. And if you look at the majority of the relationships here in the US, how many end in divorce or a break-up? How many do you think are because of an unfaithful spouse/partner? That's just as fraudlent as the rest.

Ok I have to go home now, but I would like to add more later.

I also understand that some of the things said were "red flags" so please don't get me wrong for the way I stated it thanks.

[morocco4ever 63]

I didn't meet my husband in a chat room. I hate those! Filled with Pervs like Charles.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

I don't like chat rooms either. No offense to those who like them.

Oh, sorry, I recall you saying once you couldn't figure it out....guess I was mistaken.

No need for a sorry, Lisa. You're probably right. At one time I probably didn't get it. That time has passed and I just don't use them. If it makes it easier for others to follow the discussion, maybe I should. I usually don't if I want to comment on multiple posts.

[chri'stina 190]

If I really had wanted to, I could have married a Nigerian or Philipino. Because on AOL IM, if you all know what I mean, there aren't really profiles. You just put stuff into your info box, like a quote you like or something. And I just had myself listed under 2 categories I think...you know when you click a box of interest for your user name. "Christianity" and "Alternative Rock music". (Sujeet found me under a Christianity search).

There was a Nigerian guy who started sending me msgs, first all he talked about was Jesus and God and so I was like...well...ok...and was just curteous and all. Then after he talked to me a couple times he revealed his nature:

Him-Can I visit America

me-I don't decide whether you can visit or not...

Him-If I visit America, can I visit you

me-uhhhh what?

Him-if you pick me up from the airport, will you take me to your house and make love to me.

I reemed him out, told him he should be ashamed saying he was a good Christian guy, acting all fake, and blocked him. Creep! How many more like him? Don't even want to think about it...And unfortunately there are probably women who would fall for it...

Then some guy in the Philipines was acting ridiculous with me and blocked him too. I wasn't talking to anyone foreign to try to find true love, I just always have loved learning about other cultures.

So there definitely are ppl out there just looking for an American woman/man and will keep trying until one falls for them. You have to know what you will or will not tolerate from ppl, and will have to make your own judgments about their character, which can be tough at times!

And it was after these 2 events that Sujeet popped into my life. So I was very refreshed when he turned out NOT to be a creep. But still I never ever ever thought I'd marry him one day. That's why we don't know the date we first talked on AOL, because it didn't seem important or worth remembering on that day.

[honeyblonde 0]

My SO and I met online, and I still don't believe you can get to know somebody well just over the internet. I don't believe I was in love with him until we had met in person. (we also talked for over a year before we met in person.) We were interested, sure, but there's so much you can't tell.

Sure, had he lied, I could have caught him in a lie, and I'm as analytical as they come. But there's tons of little things that shape my picture of him, and almost none of them are words. It's not just lust. How does he react to a slow waitress? What's his body language around my friends? How does he treat my sisters? Is he patient in traffic? Does his mood vary with his blood sugar? (maybe that's just me.) How is he around his family?

It's like a good story. The difference between telling and showing.

When I met Abdel he was in a cafe helping one of his nephew's buddies set up a Yahoo messenger account to meet other kids his own age in Morocco. He did a search on the word Morocco to show him how to find people to talk to, and my profile popped up. I was doing a research paper that semester on the legal system of Morocco and had mentioned it in my profile. Abdel and I started talking about that and he offered to help me find certain legal documents I needed or translate them for me. Every time I came online he had a new link for me for my paper. He also proofread it for me and suggested a better introduction (he didn't write it for me, just told me a general concept to use.) He also would tell me how reforms there may seem great, but really take a long time to get to the people, especially in the countryside where many women still don't know how to read. Since he knew I had to have real sources for what he told me, he would go find them for me. I got the only A in the class on my paper, so needless to say I thought the world of him within a month. What was hilarious was that after a couple of days, the kid changed the password on the account, and poor Abdel thought he had lost me. He set up a new account with almost exactly the same name as the kid so I would recognize him and talk to him again. Of course then he had to explain why his name was Abdel but his e-mail was Amine. When I went to visit him he was really relieved the first time we ran into Amine on the street and he was able to show me he was telling the truth.

As for seeing how Abdel was with his family: Within a few weeks of meeting me all of his family came to the cafe to meet me, and his sister went and bought a computer for the house and got internet so he could talk to me at home and they could talk to me too. Of course her son needed one anyway for school, she just figured that was a good time to go get it. As we got to know each other better Abdel started going back to the cafe because his family wouldn't give us a minute alone. Somebody was always leaning over his shoulder waving at me, or his nephew was hanging on his neck wanting to play video games on the computer. We did still talk from his computer at home occasionally, and I got to see over the months how close he was to his family. I saw that doing dishes was his normal chore when his little sister would tell him it was time to go do them. I also saw him tell me to wait a few minutes, then put the cam where I could watch the room and go serve lunch to someone who had just come in from work. I could see that this was normal, not some charade he was putting on for my benefit. I saw how patient he was when his nephew hung on him and all I could think was that if he did that to me I would scream about him hurting my neck. I saw him interact with neighbor kids that came to play with his nephew, I saw how much he respected the women in his family. I also got to see how he reacted when his brother was almost killed and then how he handled stress and a family member in pain as he was chosen to be the one to stay with his brother at night while he was having seizures.

Maybe when you just talk to a man sitting in a cafe with a bunch of other guys you don't see all that, but I did see many times how he interacted with his friends because his family would tell them he was at the cafe with me and they would go find him there. He always introduced them to me and let them talk to me for a minute if they wanted to.

I'm not saying I wasn't cautious - I was. I'm just saying that he passed any test I could have thought of to throw at him with flying colors.

[ya falaha! 0]

I love how you said you end with the shahada...I thought we were the only ones who did that!

From the first time we spoke he ended the conversation with...la illaha illallah..I answered with Mohamed rasool allah. It stuck after that.

Exactly.

then that's it. we do the i love you's and end it with the shahada.

is that all wrong....i.e. is that what everyone in the cafe is doing? who the heck knows. in any event the worst that can happen, other than my being heartbroken, is that i will have learned a lot about God and will have increased my faith in HIm.

Edited October 26, 2006 by moody

[UmmSqueakster 54]

I love how you said you end with the shahada...I thought we were the only ones who did that!

From the first time we spoke he ended the conversation with...la illaha illallah..I answered with Mohamed rasool allah. It stuck after that.

I'm thinkin it's an Egyptian thing. Husband and I do that as well

[deeshla 0]

My husband is a network admin. When we met he was working at a net cafe right across the street from his home. He was bored so he decided to go into a chatroom to waste some time. I've been in this and a couple other net cafes in Egypt. I saw a few young guys chatting on Yahoo but they were chatting in Arabic. I also saw some girls online too. I never saw anyone primping for the cam or practicing "lines" to use on women. Of course I didn't spend entire days in there so who knows what went on when I wasn't there. The funny thing was that since Mohamed lived directly across the street from this place I could hear the Yahoo dings and other noises from the bedroom.

I spent a lot of time in cyber cafes over 3 years and in several different cities in Morocco. I also speak both Darija and Berber so I was able to hear what was said between men. Some cafes are actually known for being "chat" places. I also talked to many many Moroccan men in my English classes (boh small town and Rabatis) about this -- they were the ones coming to me with love poetry to translate or asking what certain line meant so they could use them on their Western girlfriends. They also were very frank about why they were finding these women.

Look, online relationships can work fine I am sure. More power to you if you can go that route and make it work. My assertion about this new trend in Morocco does not negate the success stories.

[ya falaha! 0]

I'm LOL @ Stina's story!

The first night I met Mohamed I went to a chatroom just to pass some time. I was bored. One man from Jordan tried to talk with me and almost immediately asked me to help him get a visa. I was SHOCKED! I didn't know ppl just came out and said it like that. I blocked him. The next person that tries to talk with me is Mohamed. The first thing I say to him is..do you need a visa? He about died laughing! He said I'm just looking to talk with ppl..I'm bored at work here. We talked a bit and he had to go. The next day I was online and he pops up again and says...hey do you need a visa? That was a running joke for a long time. My name on his list initially was..visa and so was his on mine, lol.