“One Moroccan mint tea, please.”

“Of course, sir.”

The waiter throws at me a slight, formal smile and puts away the small notepad without writing down anything.

A slight wave of doubt hits me. Moroccan mint tea in the capital of Saudi. Am I just being a cultural trashcan and basically ordering a Wiener Schnitzel in Paris? But then again, why would they have a Morrocan mint tea on the menu then, right? I hush away the random feelings of doubt, as I often do, and lean against the wide back of the hefty chair I’m sitting on. No, this overthinking is not normal. I’m not behaving naturally. It’s just… the nerves I guess.

The interior of this 5 star hotel is different from the typical restaurants I have seen in Saudi so far. Maybe it is the spacey atrium that actually reminds me of the Moroccan riads, traditional multi-story houses with small inner courtyards. Were I here on a normal day, this would definitely create a feeling of cool air and a relaxing atmosphere. But oh boy not today. I’m not as half as relaxed as I wish to be today.

I can’t help it – I still have serious doubts if this hotel is a good place for the Tinder date I’m about to have.

Well, to be exact, I’m perhaps not even using the expression “date” correctly. We are in Saudi after all. For meeting a member of the opposite sex in public who isn’t your husband/wife, you can go to jail. Extramarital sex wins you a few lashes on the back and infidelity earns you the deluxe prize of the all deluxe prizes – few days in the jail with a wide array of services including the KSA signature, complementary death penalty.

Of course, I have verified that this space is “open”, i.e. it is OK to meet girls who aren’t your spouses. And yes, the mutawa, the religious police, have their privileges limited since last year (which basically means that they can’t kidnap you, put you into jail, or ransack your home, or randomly beat you up anymore, but they still can ask the police to lock you up if they feel like that). Yet, I still feel quite unrest.

Funny. After more than a year of meeting different random people, I would think that I have experienced a lot and that not much can make me feel nervous anymore. (And the lot includes even those pecularities such as the one I had on a date in Japan few months ago when after asking the girl the first question “What do you do?”, she answered “I enjoy to do bad, really bad things” with a wicked, really wicked smile.)

In any case, a restless question keeps banging on the door of rationality in my head: Why am I even doing this?

There is not much to ponder – I’m simply curious. I want to understand more. I want to meet people. My current lifestyle in this country is shittier than shitty – I have only a minimum amount of social exposure to the locals and only a brief understanding of the country. It is only natural that I would love to learn more about different aspects of life in this huge and lovely pile of sand. And Tinder is surprisingly easy. Not even mentioning that I prefer talking to a cute girl than talking to a guy. In any culture.

Regarding the girl, I know that she (1) loves chocolate, (2) doesn’t have much experience with street food, (3) is Syrian, (4) was born and raised in Riyadh, (5) learns Turkish. As such, she basically fits a description of any typical girl you would meet in Europe. Maybe except being Syrian, being born and raised in Riyadh, and learning Turkish. But hey, we still have chocolate to talk about.

So… yep. I have absolutely no idea what kind of person she is. The occasional chats through Tinder/Whatsapp are nice, but they are not really revealing anything about the person. How could they ever reveal anything anyway. On the pictures she is wearing a hijab, and even though I can see her face (and oh my, the eyes, the eyes!), she could be literally anything – a religious fanatic, a hidden lesbian, or an undercover mutawa (religious police) with a plastic surgery, clean shave and big eyes. Or just a normal, cute girl. The possibilities are endless.

All of them sound like hell of a fun by the way so I am not sure if I would prefer talking to an undercover mutawa for a second. Well. Maybe not.

This is the lovely thing about life – you never know exactly who stands on the outside (or even inside) of your mind. Especially if you have met this person on Tinder.

In the worst-case scenario I can try to make it look and feel business-y. Keep some distance, keep it neutral. Thank you after an hour and leave.

Then yet again, I can try to be neutral but I already know that I won’t be able to keep it neutral – I prefer to push the limits in most conversations sooner than later and in the case of necessity, maybe pull-back a bit. This is usually faster than doing slow circles and finding out the limits of the person by slowly pushing the ball of understanding to the border of a certain cliff of despise.

The waiter brings my tea and I check the clock. The girl should be here any minute.

How will she actually look? How casual/formal will this whole meet-up be? What are her expectations going to be like? Will she even find me? Won’t there be anyone else from the surrounding tables to tell us to go away?

My questions which make me feel like an inexperienced teenager are disturbed by the sound of opening doors.

I see girl in a dark abaya with silver linings, energetically entering the atrium.

The first surprise – no hijab. Her long, wavy hair moves in an almost choreographed harmony with the abaya and makes her look… nice. Not as in “oh right, nice…” but as in “ooooh right, nice!” kind of nice. I never thought that I could see a girl in abaya and actually perceive her movement as feminine. At least in the traditional, maybe a bit haram (sinful, from the Islam perspective) European sense.

The second surprise – she finds me, smiles at me, sits down, crosses her legs, and says in extremely casual, almost accent-less English: “Hi Michal, nice too meet you. How are you?” I’m not sure if I’m surprised by her casual behaviour or surprised by my own feeling of actually being surprised. I mean, on one hand, why should I be surprised? On the other hand, why is this actually happening so smooth? This shouldn’t be happening so smooth. I feel almost disappointed that it isn’t awkward, shy, and full of random cultural fuckups.

The third surprise – the discussion is painless. We talk about food, cooking, music, we make fun of some KSA rules, discuss healthy boundaries, psychology, roles of females in Saudi, a bit of Python/C# (only a bit, luckily), Islam sects, music, bad (really bad) dating experiences, ways of having fun in Riyadh, travelling… She is spontaneous (reacts with a energetic “Yalla!” to almost any crazy idea I throw at her, including being my chef in a restaurant chain or creating a Saudi association for spreading music), bubbly, funny.

In the end, we spend 5 hours talking. Suddenly it’s eleven and we call it a day. She thanks me for the evening and stands up. I thank her too.

In her huge eyes, I see a petit question mark.

I turn to her and say “It’s not like I can give you a hug in this country and escort you to the taxi stand. But I hope to see you again soon.”

She smiles and replies, “You are right, unfortunately it doesn’t work here like that. Nice talking to you. Good night and hopefully see you again.”

She turns and heads for the exit.

I watch how the back of her dark abaya with silver linings dances in the rhythm of her long steps and how it dissolves into the dark void after she enters a taxi and leaves.

“So the are normal, cute girls here after all.”

I stand up and order an Uber back to my hotel.