Dude-bai

So I knew coming out here that Dubai would be a bad move for my dating life. I checked out gender ratios on the CIA Factbook to discover that the male-female ratio of people between the ages of 15-64 in the UAE is 2.74. Meaning that there are almost 3 guys for every girl in the country. Further research revealed an even darker picture, as I discovered that the next highest countries on the list were Qatar (2.46), Kuwait (1.78), the Maldives (1.62), Oman (1.38), Bahrain (1.34), and Saudi Arabia (1.29). Meaning that not only does my new country have no girls, but neither does any of its neighbors.

The reason for this is that these countries import a lot of laborers from various South Asian countries to do all the blue collar jobs, but don't want the workers to actually settle so they don't let them bring their families. So if Pakistani construction workers is your target dating demographic, you're in business. If your target dating demographic is, well, female, then the odds are stacked against you.

I thought I had mentally prepared myself for this. After all, it was an adventure, and I have spent most of my 28 years being fairly content with my single dude status. Plus, gender ratios aren't necessarily a good or bad sign of somplace being a great place to move to: 2 of the top 3 countries with the most favorable ratios for men are Zimbabwe (0.81) and Chad (0.85), not exactly paradisiacal locations to cruise for chicks.

However, I underestimated the strange behavioral difference it would make in me to not have a proper gender balance. Not having girls around you start doing strange things. After about a month in Dubai I found myself on ITunes doing something I thought I would never do: downloading Britney Spears. At first just a few songs, then when I saw that I could have all 17 songs to complete her Greatest Hits album for only an additional $4.44, I went ahead. Then in a flurry of activity, I started downloading Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Rihanna. In the space of about 15 minutes I ended up spending around $40 on songs that I think were written with a target audience of 15 year old girls.

Not that this was entirely unprecedented in my life: I have previously admitted on my blog to listening to Madonna's "Material Girl" and the disco classic "It's Raining Men" (click on the titles to go to confessions). In high school I may or may not have purchased a Spice Girls T-shirt and may or may not have stolen leotards from the dance team for my Halloween costume. But those things were done in a perhaps misguided attempt to get laughs. When I made the Backstreet Boys spoof video it was entirely tongue in cheek: I didn't actually start listening to the band with any regularity. I never actively sought out or bought any Madonna music, it came on a compilation album. But this time, I'm not into Britney Spears to be funny, I'm into it for reals.

All of this has prompted a lot of soul searching. One day, while at the gym on the rowing machine with "P-p-p-pokerface" pulsing in my ears while at the same time falling in love with Sarah Bareilles whose "Lovesong" was playing on the television on mute, I started to wonder if the Middle East was really messing me up. After all, gender relations are notoriously complicated or backward, depending upon your perspective. Your "gay-dar" can really get thrown off: men hold hands and it's not a sign of anything other than friendship. It was in Egypt that I started reading the "Modern Love" column in the New York Times and dropped my "must be with a cute girl" rule for watching romantic comedies. Could it be that I am compensating for the shortage of female contact? Am I trying to create a 1 to 1 gender ratio within myself?

I don't really have any answers, nor am I getting better. I now have Lady Gaga on three different playlists for my Ipod. Last month, however, I reached a new low. The Dubai International Film Festival was in town: dozens of international films playing, a chance to get cultured. Instead, I went with my [male] roommate to see "Twilight: New Moon." It was the only movie playing after 11 PM, so when I finished my work at 10:55 I literally raced sprinted to get there to make it on time. I pushed my taxi driver to drive recklessly so that I could make my man-date to see the biggest chick flick ever made.

As I came in to the theaterI told my roommate: "I hope you'll be flattered to know that going to see Twilight with you may be the gayest thing I have ever done." Then it occurred to me that we may have actually had a stroke of genius. I mean, could there possibly be a better place to meet girls? Based upon the descriptions I had read, the movie theaters everywhere else in the world were packed with young, attractive, single, lonely women. This is the crowd that reads Twilight, and aside from the confused looking woman at the front it looks like my target demographic:

Yet it was not to be. With a mixture of amusement and disappointment I ended up sharing a row with my roommate and three Egyptian men. Only in Dude-bai can you go to see Twilight and have there be more men than women in the theater. Go Team Khalifah.