Honestly, it has always puzzled me, the situation in Dubai, I have always felt something wasn't the way I thought it should be but sometimes I wonder if it's me or the environment that's making things less than accessible. I don't like to put the blame on external factors if there is something in me that I could change to achieve better results.
Over time I have developed several methods of explaining the situation to people new to Dubai, it would generally go like this: "Listen buddy, in this city, you're a victim of the statistics, which in this case are quite-unbalanced statistics. You have 73% something of the population being MEN, most of them are totally available and yearning for a relationship, while the remaining 27% something are WOMEN. Needless to say, many of those women are conservative, married, or came to Dubai with their boyfriends/spouses, hence they are practically unavailable, take that out and you're left with another total percentage, but we're not yet done. Then you'll have to start considering the obvious and non-obvious forms of prostitution, which are honestly prevalent (for the reasons mentioned previously). There are so many women in Dubai who do not want, or cannot afford the luxury of having boyfriends, they simply utilize their se|xual capacity to make an income or add to their existing income. Those are also unavailable. In fact, I have come across so many examples of women who are not prostitutes in the sense that they get paid per night, but have a se|xual agenda extremely similar to that of a prostitute, but let's not make this brief analysis even more complicated."
Whether you like my way of putting it or not, it's beneficial for this discussion that I simply tell you what I think.
Recently I sent a message to one of my friends, Sophie, who (while in Denmark) has met someone through OkCupid (from Spain), and now after 2 years it seems that it's actually working. She was wondering why I'm still single and what's wrong with Dubai, "Isn't Dubai supposed to be this and that", she said. I don't know how to answer that, maybe there is something wrong with me, but I sent this reply nevertheless, which I'd like to make a part of this discussion:
It's great to hear that. You and Pedro, very nice.
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It's complicated to explain why it's the way it is in Dubai. Some might tell you it is incredibly easy to get women, but it really depends on the job of the person and where they live. In Dubai, your personality, as shocking as it sounds, simply doesn't matter! What you say or how you behave is of little relevance, under certain circumstances you'll have lots of chicks, effortlessly, but not so many are those living under those circumstances.
It's fascinating, and I might talk about it some other time, but the bottom line is that it is kinda difficult to get anyone to be interested in you, no matter how intelligent and charming you are, while having a low-level job or being on budget. Not in Dubai. At least not from the social circle I find myself more attracted to (I share little to be honest with many of the working ***, *** and ***. Mostly uneducated and simply unsuitable).
To put things in context: I worked as a barista in Dubai for 2 years. Being the barista I was, I was getting 2700 a month, 1300 of that used to go to my house. I also lived in Karama. It really helps this discussion that you complement your viewpoint with some information on what you do and where you stay. Seemingly Dubai doesn't look the same through the eyes of different people depending on where they live/work and how much they earn.
I know it is the same everywhere but I find the salary differences in Dubai to be a bit drastic. For example, assuming that I would get this job with BlackBerry that I am trying to get, my income would jump from 2700 to 18,000 dirhams a month, which is more than 6 times the salary, simply because I chose to leave my passion for now and work in my actual field. Not only this, working with BlackBerry (if it happened) would make other people perceive me in a totally different way, but you might say that this is the way it is everywhere in the world. I yet have to argue that here it is a bit more superficial.
ADDITIONAL NOTE1: The original title of this post was "Discussing Women's Availability in Dubai", and while I still think that the realtively-simple notion of statistical availability summarizes, or accounts to most of the problem, I've eventually decided to make the title more general to invite the suggestion of other (potentially crucial) aspects.
ADDITIONAL NOTE2: I think that the current imbalance creates a big problem both for men and women. I don't want the title of my post to give the impression that I think of "women's availability" as a man's problem, it is not! It is a serious societal defect. In fact, you'd more than often hear women in Dubai saying that most men in Dubai are jerks or that there are no nice guys in Dubai, which is partially justified in the fact that the men of Dubai are desperate and that Dubai's working conditions don't encourage a proper development of relationships.
