umm......sometimes gossipy people talk good about you and help your case lol llol lol

Well I agree with you , gossiping is the #1 sport in many MENA countries.

what stereotyping!

Similar to the notion that men named Charles are smart A$$e$....

no way!

Actually its more of a reality there because of the way the family unit is structured. There is no such thing as "this is my life and I'll do what I want", no secrets. Everything is out in the open therefore people will naturally talk about it. I think this is the one thing that got on my nerves the most when I was there.

Things there are very different than here. For instance, my husband asked me how much money so and so makes. I told him I don't know, it isn't right to ask a person that question. He was amazed. He said that they ask that question all of the time there. I am sure this is just the tip of the iceberg but I am still learning.

One other note, I know a butt load of Iraqi men where I live. I have known then for 10 years now. They may be here, but they are all the same. They are constantly gossiping about each other, and their wives, girlfriends, etc. My ex knew places I was going a year after we broke up. It seems his friends had seen me and didn't waste a minute to call him on the phone to report in. Not only that, he told me himself when we were still together that this is what would happen.

Lets just say I stay away from any place that I think they might be.

I know I've told this before but we stayed at a different flat than the one he lives in when I first went there. The reason for this was to avoid the gossip since it is very unusual for a foreign woman out of no where (to them) to be shacking up with one from that neighborhood. His neighbors know if he gets mail before he does. They are the kings and queens of gossip and he and his sisters HATE that about their neighborhood.

Anyhoo....when I was there the first time we did go to his flat when his sisters were not there. Within about two seconds of our closing the door there was a loud pounding. He let them pound away until I couldn't take it anymore and when he finally opened the door there were about 15 or so people outside the door and one woman pushed her way past him and started SCREAMING at me in arabic. She was about in her mid 60's I would say with a housecoat and a head thing on (not a hijab type scarf but the thing they wear around the house that ties at the top in front) and thick thick black khol under her eyes.

i started crying, he yelled and after a while of them going back and forth (I guess the police were going to be coming next) his sisters finally came over and kicked everyone but this woman out. They went back and forth and back and forth and then the tears came. Hugs all around (except for me ) and then came the MABROOOK, MABROOOK, MASHALLAH MABROOK!!! Then she did hug me and stared at me with tears and smiles. lol

I tell this because SHE is the one the consular person talked to the most. lol. She is the one who said of course he is married to a foreign one, etc. So sometimes the gossiping just might help.

most people marrying israelis convert. i would go out on a limb to say that close to all people marrying practicing orthodox or conservative jews convert. some people marrying reform jews convert and some remain "interfaith". orthodox and conservative do not accept interfaith hence the conversions. israelis tend to follow orthodox/traditional views. of course there are those who are israeli or grew up orthodox or conservative but are now completely not religious at all and will remain interfaith (or no faith). it is tradition for the rabbi to reject you three times to test your sincerity and many rabbis dont deal with conversions (so they might just be rejecting you period). your children are only jewish if the mother is jewish either through birth or conversion. i think its the same in islam but with the father? can a muslim woman marry a non muslim man who converts and have muslim kids?



israelis always ask how much you make and how much you paid for things. i am very secretive on stuff like that and it annoys the heck out of me. i always say "alot" or "not too much" then of course unless they are really obnoxious they dont want to keep pushing the question.

Oh ok it must be the rejecting 3 times that is the hard part. The muslim woman marrying the converted muslim man question is up for grabs because it will spark a whole muslim women can marry non-muslim men thing. lol. But yes converted is converted so the children would be muslim.




And then there's the opposites like my oldest sister who tells EVERYONE what she paid for EVERYTHING she wears. REading that it would seem that she's arrogant but she shops at second hand stores almost exclusively so it's more like, "oh I love that coat!" and before you can finish your sentence she's all "it only cost me 50 cents!!!".

hahahaha...well apparently she's not a snob!

on the other hand, societies this "invasive" tend to be more close knit and in tune with each other-a rather helpful thing when individuals have a problem or are in need, because it's seen as affecting society as a whole, not just that individual. there can be definite benefits and advantages to that kind of society, and most of the time people see this kind of meddling as a given-and people act accordingly. it goes well beyond entertainment purposes though, or just gossip, even if that happens a lot. but maybe it's just easier to categorize the way other people live as just a "freaking waste of time".

Close knit yes, families that is. However you aren't look at the flip side of this. Its not so much the family "meddling" that creates the problem, its the fact that nothing is kept secret. So if they tell a friend or neighbor and that person tells someone else, it keeps going and going. And similar to an old fashioned game of telephone the facts get distorted and often hurt the person involved. Maybe you don't think its a waste of time but maybe you haven't lived through it. I have seen girls that often get passed by for marriage because of a rumor that some guy started that all of sudden becomes fact. Things can get very crazy very fast.

yes, but are you insinuating that this is unique to the area? because it isn't.

I never said it was unique to the area. I said it happens in that area and in many parts of the middle east. That doesn't make it unique so don't put words in my mouth.

what part of ? wasn't clear? and it goes well beyond the middle east. in this country, the top selling publications have nothing but the interference into other people's personal lives as their subject matter. interfering into other people's personal lives is one of the most lucrative businesses in this country. but, really, "no one cares about stupid things here like they do there".

Did I ever say it only happens in the Middle East? NOPE But this forum is about MENA so its only natural that we discuss MENA.

a comparison was being made in the original post i quoted between here (usa) and there (mena). that's what i've been on about since i first posted in this thread. you said you agreed with her...so what is it you were agreeing with exactly? some sort of false smugness that americans aren't as absurdly intrusive into other people's lives as anyone in mena? because that's patently false and ridiculous.

Have you been to the Middle East? Do you have any Middle Eastern relative or any way to make a fair comparison? Or are you just going out of your way to be rude?

Yeah thats what I thought, just being rude. You have no basis for your argument. At least the people here involved in this discussion have something to compare in their personal experiance. Yet you always seem to come out of the woodwork to argue about something you have not experianced first hand.

if yr going to go that route, why don't you ask morocco_4_ever's husband if he's got any american relatives or any way to make "fair comparisons" since the guy's been here, what, 14 months? if yr agreeing with him, shouldn't the same standard apply, if yr going to ask me that?

Let's see, his wife is AMERICAN. Does that qualify as family for you? I'm quite sure he has met several of her family members/friends as well. I think the 14 months he is basing his opinion on is better than basing it on nothing.

No one ever said this didnt happen anywhere else, surely it does. However we can only discuss our experiances with it and it just so happens our experiance is in MENA. I'm sure there are plenty of small towns where this kinda stuff happens too but where I live, I don't even know my neighbors. So the MENA way of life is very different from what I am used to here and what I have experianced. And basically it comes down to that, personal experiance.

Yes he does.

Come on JP...what could you possibly know about the culture over there?? What, you would almost think you are..............ARABIC!

Perhaps ta me go hiontach lives in a neighborhood similar to the small towns in the MENA that has nothing more to do than gossip and create problems. Its all just geography. I was basing it on my husbands city to mine, thats all.

I think thats what it comes down to. A close friend of mine lives in a Military housing area because her husband is in the Navy, and its similar. Its a small area so they all know each other, many of them don't work and are stay at home moms. Shoot I can tell you that I do gossip with my friends and YES its a complete waste of time. Discussing other peoples lives and problems has added no benefit to my own life at all but its just fun sometimes.

oh! so then because my husband's family and friends are very private and don't find it acceptable to discuss their own and other people's lives all out in the open, but my irish american extended family and friends do, then i'm therefore qualified to say people there don't care about stupid things the way people do here. yeah, that makes total sense. not really though.

yr so right about this though-"we can only discuss our experiances with it"-which is not at all what the original post i responded to did. it may be true about the people that guy has met here, compared to who he knows where he grew up, but other people's experiences are different.

Ummm....calm down here. You are taking this way out of proportion here.

I still have not seen where anybody said that EVERYONE was like that. They are speaking from personal experiance and thats implied in the post. I think you are just nitpicking. I also don't think you understand how deep this goes in the middle east. People commonly make decisions there based on what other people will say or think and not what they want. You will commonly hear "You can't do that, what will people think?" and yes I agree you do here that here in the US and other areas as well but it doesn't have nearly the impact it does in MENA and other areas.

Maybe some of it has to do with the fact that most of the gossip is believed. It is here too sometimes but in MENA respect is everything, its all you have and need. You can lose everything and anything except your respect. Alot of this is based on that. Something as simple as putting your feet up on the dashboard in a car while driving can get you lots of backlash over there and you will be deemed as disrespectful. You will actually hear people say things like "oh no, that family has no respect. Their son/daughter did this, they are not a good family.

I myself do care what people think too but not to the point where I let it dictate my life. My cousins in Jordan are not so lucky.

ta me go hiontach - since the whole topic spun off as a result of people wondering aloud why home visits are performed, perhaps you could suggest what you think the purpose would be?

Just my humble opinion, but it certainly does sound as if the consulates who employ these techniques are taking advantage of some possible norms.

For example.....currently my husband is getting flack because some in his neighborhood are stating that I only came there that one time (we were in alex the second time) for sex and that we're not indeed married. (this is due to the fact that he hasn't got the visa yet so they think he's making the whole visa thing up). Mind you the lady in the housecoat sets them straight when she hears this talk but it's not easy to squash something like this once it gets out. Thankfully the consulate officer did not come across these people.

Then there's the "evil eye". People there are jealous of him that he is going to the United States. No doubt about it that some evil eyes have been set and cast because of the talk.

I lived in an appt complex once for two years. I never EVER talked to even one person living there. Comparing that to his situation and it's like apples and oranges. The street I live on now is different and my next door neighbor pretty much knows what's going on but still it's not even 1/100th of what it's like in my husband's neck of the woods.

I married in Egypt, but my husband works in Kuwait, what will they do for a home visit???

They won't. Which was part of my original point. Other countries go through Egypt like Sudan, Iraq, etc. and i have yet to see a home visit from any who post here that are going through Cairo. The Sudan couples seem to just fly right through.

My fiance and his family are VERY private people. They dont even talk about EACH OTHERS things. He never has liked to discuss what he said/what she said things, or other peoples business as he was raised gossip is wrong. I also believe this is one of the reasons, in addition to others, why I do not go to his home ever to visit. The talk both good and bad. so not all egyptian families behave this way. But many do. We mostly want to avoid the bad talk. It is true that many (not all mind u) there will look at an older foreign woman with a younger man (husband or not) as someone looking for sex..and he is naturally only interested in a visa. We have tried our best to avoid any of this in his parents neighborhood. Since they are more traditional, this type of talk would just be humiliating to their family. We know better and thats all that matters...but will not subject his parents to this.

I knew someone that went to visit her now husband there and after her stay the neighbors thought she had given the family thousands of dollars and one suitcase turned into 10 suitcases..and that they were living together in sin...and she had to be there to give hiim visa.

That reminds me of "my neighbor knows this guy who got his visa in 2 months!"

I have actually heard that rumor fromt there before...."she only went there for sex". What is that suppose to mean???? Seriously if a woman wants sex she can get it here easily....why would you fly thousands of miles for sex???

no kidding!!! I mean not for nothing but the do-it-yourself kind is less stressful and you don't have to pick up any dirty socks. Who needs a man for THAT????

Super Stud 10 and batteries....clean house, no cooking or laundry...a match made in heaven!

People can be as private as they want to be but *some* neighbors will always talk.

I have an EXTREMELY nosey neighbor who watches ppl from the window and knows the ins and outs of everyone in the apt. complex. She doesn't work so she has plenty of time on her hands. It annoys the crap out of me because I, too, am very private in my real life and don't like ppl watching me or keeping track of my comings and goings. I'm the opposite as this neighbor. Someone could get killed in my building and I probably wouldn't know it until way after the fact.

My inlaws are nosey and talk about their neighbors, their neighbors are nosey and talk about their other neighbors. My husband actually likes the fact that, generally speaking, many Americans are not quite as nosey and intrusive as his neighbors. He hates the rumor mill that's so prevalent in his neighborhood in Egypt. But he does love to relay the rumors.

I can't tell you the number of "so and so got his visa in 3 mos after the papers were filed" or "so and so was a millionaire after a year in the states" stories I've heard. I love those.

Ive also heard a lot of those, especially the millionaire ones. wow I had no idea how many moroccans were giving bill gates a run for his money!

Egyptian guys are hot! Thats why!!! Hows that for a generalization!

You just step off the plane and people are throwing money at your feet! lol

The other day, as we were coming home from work my husband kind of snickered and said "yup, America....we don't have to work and we have millions".

Hey, is this true?
Are they doing home visits in Morocco now?
My SO lives in a little make-shift studio in the city with other men...
I don't even think there is an apartment number?
Will they send someone all the way to the Sahara to ask his family about me?

Worries worries and more worries....
hz

Thats very racist!



I haven't heard of any home visits in Morocco personally. It were serve them right to go all the way there...lol

hehehe even if its a complement?!

I am very offended! You can't say that! Is this just your experience or are you suggesting that all Egytians are hot? What about American men, aren't they hot too? (I don't even want to go there...hahahahah)