The Perfect Crime [Remix]

Burned remnants of the Old Town Damascus Market

I called it a remix because after finishing this piece, I remembered I’ve written something eerily similar seven years ago with the same title. It was back when I fell in love for the first and last time in my life, with a man who realized he was not ready to commit. Six years later he got married to someone who I pray brings him joy and he to her. But my article back then lacked what this one has, a deeper message behind simply telling a story, a call to action for this so called progressive society that seems to pick and choose what issues they are supposedly “handling” but technically not. Recently, I was enrolled in a two-day training on how to host and facilitate restorative justice circles. Before this week, I had absolutely no idea what that meant, but after one hour, I knew God had sewn this directly into my fate because it was the fuel beneath my fire. We were trained through a hands-on experience of being put in healing and community building circles of our own. Together with 12 strangers-turned-friends (and four familiar faces), we each shared the most intimate of struggles, cried, found refuge in one another, and remembered that first and foremost we are human. If every single soul on earth remembered this surprisingly often forgotten fact, I guarantee you 99% of the world’s problems would disappear.

One time a guy was trying to psychoanalyze the bases of my singlehood and he said, "Maybe you're too straightforward and guys don't like that?" I'm almost 100% sure my face resonated the sentiment of, "Does it look like I give a damn?" I shrugged my shoulders and repeated my mantra: I am not changing who I am. Let me repeat it because I know you probably thought I was joking. I AM NOT CHANGING WHO I AM. And by that I mean the essence of me. No one is perfect and I'll raise both hands to testify to my range of imperfections, and while it is difficult, I do strive tirelessly to make sure I tread with goodness. If there is room for growth and improvement, I caution myself against ignoring that road often desired to be less taken. But all in all, the essential core of who I am, who I have become, who comes to the surface of the shore when I finally untangle the chains of that anchor drowning me—that element I will not change. Actually it has been proven that it can't change, because I tried. Lord knows I did everything in the book to bend it in half, destroy it, reform it, but it wouldn't fully break and so I didn't fit in the box pre-constructed for me by someone who wasn't me and I catapulted back into my ground zero where I’ve learned to regrow.

How can guys claim to hate straightforwardness when all they ever complain and whine about are the "confusing methods of women who make no sense and are not upfront?" When Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams memes are made about his frustration over her repeated, "I don't know." I think you like her not knowing because when she knows you feel defeated, emasculated. Almost as turned on as Ne-Yo is in his song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-KiYo4BwVI), but then absolutely terrified at the power of her knowing what you think she shouldn’t. My goodness I am already knee deep in motion sickness from all this knowing the knowledge of knowing. But I write this rant because men need to know, and women need to know, and these two knows are different. The elephant has taken up the whole freaking room while we women sit cross legged in scrunched up discomfort, biting our tongues till they bleed because we know that for some ridiculous reason we should not know what we know and it's so damn frustrating!

Brace yourselves, I'm going to throw some massive straightforwardness, more than usual, because I’m tired. I am so absolutely tired of the behaviors of men in the dating world. Tired of being messed with. Played. Lied to. Tired of seeing good, I mean really good women, treated like second rate, being toyed with and used because they are women. You probably don’t deserve us; you, society, and all that you have reproduced over the years—these cyclical creations that do not seem to evolve but rather devolve, you don’t deserve us. I mean for the love of God, today’s generation has produced, enabled and normalized the Netflix & Chill culture, ghosting and terminology like "AF," thinking that makes us "lit" and "on fleek." When do we grow up? Are there any grown ups? Not the boring serious big people who hate their lives and count down till the end, but those who have discovered the love of themselves and the love of others and know how to balance work and play while being genuine compassionate kind human beings along the way?

In the last month, I have gone to quite a few open mics and to be honest, it was purely for selfish reasons. I needed a soul re-revival because the one I got from Ramadan was stolen, like a flame I ignited that someone selfishly extinguished without cause and a piece of me is still in angst. I'll get back to that in a second. At these open mics however, I found greater things than I was looking for. I saw woman after beautiful bold woman get up on stage and literally beg males to grow up. To be gentlemen. To court them with decency and sincerity. How is this becoming such a damn hard thing to do? It baffles me, but then it relieves me because on this 20-day journey of dealing with pain, hashing out my words and hearing the words of other powerhouse women, I'm reeducated on the reality that I am not alone. I'm not the only one lied to, played, ghosted, ignored, judged and dropped for no reason. It's how males operate, and before y'all jump down my throat with your #NotAllMen spiels, don’t Netflix, but do chill and read on.

Read on because y'all are getting creative in your efforts to seduce and conquer. You begin with this well worded introduction to defend your fellow "good brothers," marketing yourself as one. You repeat that hashtag, all the while you literally just did that to a girl two hours ago, or are preparing to do it to the one you're talking to now in about twelve days. Amen Amaré says, “The worst thing a man can do is listen to what she’s been through then put her through it again.” Amen to that Amen because that seems to be the trend, especially with this particular story.

I needed to hear the cries of those other women on stage and shed tears with them to remember my soul. I had spent exactly two years collecting its broken parts that were scattered all over the earth, finally put them back together like a 5,000 piece jigsaw puzzle. The picture was getting clearer, my faith was growing and I felt healed. This past Ramadan was the first I had in three years that brought me back to the content woman I was in December 2012, when life looked like the color of hope. Ramadan was nearing its close and I prayed harder and harder to savor this bliss of feeling saved again, under the Grace of God, and most importantly, happy. The glue holding my pieces together had not even dried yet when another #NotAllMen representative walked in one night.

That night I was not planning to go out. I wanted to stay home and have Ramadan dinner with my peeps I call family. Usually that's my tradition, but this year I felt like a huge element to the self rediscovery journey was being around unique social groups that illuminated newer elements of spirituality, so I threw on a basic outfit, made no attempt to over beautify, set aside the fact that I was exhausted after only three hours of sleep, and was on my way.

Don't you hate those moments? You look back and think, "Why? Why did I go? Like if I had just stayed at home, in my pajamas, made pasta and salad—heck even pasta salad, and eaten with my peeps, there'd be a little more memory space in my head that would not be causing an agonizing battle in my heart between *get over it* and *I miss him*?" What makes it worse is that that night was probably the most spiritual and enlightening night of Ramadan for me, and it had nothing to do with him. I pulled an all nighter of prayer after the dinner, thanking God for peace and begging Him to keep my heart protected. Plot twist.

The story isn't really about him [the guy] per se, more about all the hims that hymn this banter and get away with it because we women are silenced on these matters. Told to just accept this circle of life because there's nothing we can do about it, boys will be boys and they will not change. But guess what, we're expected to! Yup! We're asked to act like a lady but think like a man. Self help and marital advice are always geared towards switching up the woman's psychology so that she can better understand him, never requiring he practice the mystical art of being human enough to give a $#!% and try empathy.

Empathy was one of the biggest elements of my last job. I was literally being paid to teach medical staff to be empathetic to aching patients who had enough on their minds and at one point I thought, this seriously makes me doubt hope in humanity if I have to actually spoon feed "how to be kind and compassionate" to educated healthcare professionals. Then I accidentally walked into the secret lair of the company’s bureaucracy, spoke out for justice and I was no longer liked for knowing the truth. Ah, there it is again, knowing and speaking up, big no nos in life. I left, realizing that this drama and a four hour commute was not worth the money.

Anyway, I digress. Mr. #NotAllMen was someone I highly revered and respected in the community for years actually, which is probably why it hurts the most. When you view someone with such high regards based on hard facts and evidence, it becomes a hell of a lot easier to let your guard down when he says, "It would be my honor and privilege to date you." Now, before the Religious Police jumps down my throat on this one, I know you don’t Netflix, but chill. We're all dating when courting (not hooking up, there is a difference). How else are we meeting people these days? Through random aunties worldwide who know absolutely nothing about me and send my mom blunt Whatsapp messages letting her know that there's a desperate hunter…um I mean suitor…looking for a wife and they heard she has a female in stock? Yeah, that traditional method may have sort of kind of worked before, but I never approved or found comfort in it. He's an absolute stranger who knows nothing of me except that I'm female and “of age,” although now I'm nearing expiration. Woot woot! First pump to being two and a half inches from 30!

There's also the notorious fact of my divorce, which I think may be the sole cause of these increased Whatsapp marriage requests. See, my poor sad Arab community apparently suffers from severe hearing impairments and therefore misheard the word “divorced” as “desperate” and now thinks that I’m ready to settle for anything. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt, divorced and desperate both start with the letter ‘d’ and English is their second language so, yeah, I can see where the miscommunication happens as they continue to request appointments. Appointments. I feel like an animal on display at some elite zoo art gallery.

EMBARK ON THIS DANGEROUS EXPLORATION OF THE NEWLY INCREASING BREED OF DIVORCED STRAIGHTFORWARD KNOWLEDGABLE ACCOMPLISHED WOMEN. PROCEED WITH CAUTION. WILD AND REQUIRES TAMING.

BY APPOINTMENT ONLY.

Goodbye Felipe—no wait, what’s a more Arab name? Moe? Okay, goodbye Moe and Moe's mama and Moe's homies. I am not settling and I am not desperate! If I am considered wild for all the straightforwardness that I am and even wilder for daring to reject said hunters…er suitors…then score one for me. I need a spirit as wild as mine to soar with me, not cage me. Not mistreat me. Not spark with me at a Ramadan dinner, keep in touch, then surprise me with a three-hour Eid eve confession of his desire to date me because of my enigmatic persona and then doesn’t. Not someone who quotes one of my favorite poets and tells me that the gravity of withholding his feelings for me would be too heavy and so he was taking this risk and diving into vulnerability for me, asking if I would be willing to join, then finding it an empty space.

After three hours of having my breath re-instilled within the soul I had just finished gluing back together, after three hours of his vows of legitimacy, sincerity and genuineness, and after the friendship and intrigue developed over the time we knew each other as simply friends, I said yes. 

She said yes ladies and gentlemen! She said yes! She said she'll let her guard down for someone she believes in, someone she has high regards for, someone whose dignity has shone brightly every place he's left a footprint. Why not? Am I not deserving of someone who saw my wild spirit in all its nakedness and then gave me a high five because he said he loved my sass? [No, sass is not a typo.] Man, I love a man who genuinely loves the sass. My grandpa loves my grandma's sass and it's why they've made it as far as they have. God how I miss them and how I regret not staying behind in Syria with them till the Fall and continued working with my fellow Syrians. Oh what life would have been like…

I would not have awoken to a bright butterfly filled Eid morning that had bits of anxiety sprinkled in there. Who can blame us? We've been hurt in such sick ways (and domestic abuse is no walk in the park to overcome) so the idea of reengaging is frightening but a worthy risk with the right one. And that's how it felt when I heard his voice Eid morning wishing me a happy holiday with the same excitement and joy he had the night before during his three hour confession. It felt like he was thrilled preparing to call us an us soon enough and it felt good. It felt good to be wanted by someone so esteemed. It felt good to feel worthy above the worth I spent two years remembering for myself. Two years of dark days where I questioned whether or not that worth even existed when no one actually seemed to see it? Kind of like that age-old philosophical question of whether or not the tree makes a sound if it falls in the forest with no one to hear it. I fell, but did anyone hear me?

For as long as I can remember I've been called bold, brave and courageous for writing the rawest of things. Some have called me heroic for speaking out about domestic violence and sometimes I feel like a sell out. I don't find it courageous or bold or heroic. I find it real, necessary, my own method of implementing restorative justice. My call to action for this society that has lost all sense of accountability, especially when it comes to the behaviors of men on the rules of engagement.

There is no consequence or punishment or justice with these actions. Heck, we even reward perpetrators of domestic violence in our communities by not only stroking their bruised egos after another wife leaves them, but welcoming them back into society immediately and offering yet another wife on a silver platter because god forbid he be lonely. In turn, women are harassed badly for speaking out about these injustices, told to take it like a man and behave with the humility and modesty of a true God-fearing woman by muting her pain and experience. It’s become such a norm that women tell it to other women, making this behavior acceptable for men; the behavior of abuse, the behavior of cheating, the behavior of ghosting and dropping off the face of the earth without giving the woman you’ve been seeing or talking to the courtesy she deserves to know that you lost interest, you realized incompatibility, you were intimidated by her all around awesomeness because you’re not really man enough to take it all in, your ex returned and want to go for round three, etc.

A few years ago a girlfriend of mine was telling me about a guy who ghosted her. For those who are new to this embarrassing term from the current generation, here is the definition of ghosting from yet another phenomenal innovation, Urban Dictionary: “The act of suddenly ceasing all communication with someone the subject is dating, but no longer wishes to date. This is done in hopes that the ghostee will just "get the hint" and leave the subject alone, as opposed to the subject simply telling them he/she is no longer interested.” She was explaining how months after he disappeared, she saw him with a new girl and said, “When I saw how they were interacting and their chemistry and connection I realized that’s a relationship. That’s a real one, not what we had.” I looked at her with a puzzled expression and said, “So you’re justifying his ass-holic behavior simply because you weren’t his one?” Yes, she was and as are many other women, who hear stories of others ghosted and go, “Yeah, it happens. That’s how they are,” and it only paves way for this cycle to keep rolling. That’s a huge part of the problem. It’s been made to be like some sort of rite of passage for men. Something they do to every woman they’re not 100% sure about until they secure the one. Then men ask us not to paint them all with the same brush and it’s becoming really hard bros.

I mean yeah, I gave this Ramadan dude a chance because when there’s a spark, as mature educated women we don’t really generalize. We go ahead and marginalize the idea that you’re all the same tools, recognize that to live life we must embark on hope and trust to some extent and we try. We unlock some vulnerability, some of our hearts and our guards and we give you the respect and courtesy of trust and chance. Then you screw it up. You keep her and her heart awake for three hours the night before Eid, plan out the next three days together, give her the sense that you’re genuinely invested and then disappear without a trace. No wait, with a trace, the trace of suddenly deleting her from social media without warning.

I would love to take credit and say I did something to turn him off, but I barely set one foot on that bridge and he set it on fire. Burned down everything including the friendship I had sincerely valued. It’s rare to come across fine, educated, eloquent, charming, comedic men who share the same interests and insights as you (especially when you are me) and so I had thoroughly enjoyed his posts. Those have been burned too. I wish I were Michael Westin so that at least I could have been given a burn notice. [You won’t get that joke unless you actually know/watched the show Burn Notice.] It just would have been a heck of a lot easier than preparing for the first date and then driving two hours to realize it wasn’t happening. Then driving back from LA to OC in rush hour on a Friday evening, have your call to him ignored, arrive home and find you’ve been deleted from social media, all within 48 hours of his impeccably articulate monologue of passion.

The theories on his disappearance have been half entertaining half mind numbingly painful to concoct. They have ranged across a wild spectrum, from his realizing that I would not be a successful Netflix & Chill partner to the possibility that I was his rebound and the return of his ex caught him by surprise less than 24 hours after his confession to the crazy idea that it was all a prank. I actually asked him if it was a prank because it seemed surreal—like a cross between the films She’s All That and Never Been Kissed. Hot popular guy telling the artsy writer intellect that he wants her. Who knows! The possibilities are endless, so endless in fact, that I’m considering updating this list of shade (http://ladynarrator.blogspot.com/2015/07/50-shades-of-shady.html), although quite a few of these 50 shades seem legitimately applicable.

All comedy aside though, this seriously has to stop. We have to learn to raise a generation of courteous, respectful and dignified individuals who recognize that other people are…people and that it’s not at all acceptable to toy with their hearts, minds or souls. A recently circulating quote on social media lately has been, “If you don’t have good intentions, please just leave me alone. I’m tired.” It resonates. These men go about living their lives carefree, with absolute immunity thanks to society and male privilege, and we pay the price. Then we’re told we shouldn’t even pay the price because we shouldn’t even really care because well, he’s not worth it anyway, so move on. I’m sorry, do I not have a heart? Do I not feel things? As a woman am I immune to pain? Is that what they teach these days? Yeah, I know we females have higher tolerance for pain but we still feel it. It still hurts like hell when someone uses you, plays you, strips you of your right to know after putting on quite the show.

As much as I hate resorting to men practicing empathy by requesting they imagine this happening to their sisters or daughters, let me do it anyway since that’s the only way to tug at your heartstrings. So tell me, what if a guy did this to your daughter? And she comes home one day realizing that Jimmy Neutron not only stood her up on the first date but also deleted her from social media, after his hours of seemingly genuine feelings for her? What do you tell her? Your baby girl, crying in your arms from the excruciating pain of a broken heart, asking you why. Do you tell her stories of the times you did the same thing? Do you tell her to suck it up and accept that boys will be boys and the bull cliché of, “You deserve better so let it go and move on because the right man won’t do that to you, just the fifteen other girls he went through before finally reaching you?” Like she has no right to hurt and find closure to that deep wound? When the hell did we all become Elsa that we have to let it go?

Listen guys, I get it. Honesty can be hard in sensitive moments like these, the ones between you and the woman you're preparing to ghost. I understand things change—well I mean in my case I'm clueless as to what changed in less than 48 hours with minimal communication—but generally speaking, from all the ladies I've talked to, we all collectively seem to agree on the fact that it'd be much more appreciated if you could simply say why and goodbye.

Were we rebounds? Here's the less cowardice and minimally douche-like approach to telling us: 

Screenplay: Breaking up with girl courteously when she was only his rebound.

Scene 1. Act 2.

Guy: I have to be honest. I realized that I jumped the gun with you and while I do think you're great, I know I have some residing feelings for my ex and we want to give it another shot. After all we have invested in one another we owe it to ourselves. I'm sorry.

End scene.

It's not perfect, in the sense that we wish you could've been more emotionally mature before depression/drunk dialing us in your off again moment before it was on again, but it's far better than being left in the dark. You know, more class!

Was it something we posted/said/did that made you realize incompatibility? Here’s how that would go:

Screenplay: Breaking up with girl courteously after realizing incompatibility.

Scene 2. Act 2.

Guy: I have to be honest. In our time together I’ve come to realize that we aren’t right for each other. While you are a gem [yeah, a guy once said that to me], I think we’d be better suited for other people. I'm sorry.

End scene.

Say something. We'll get it. We'll hurt a tiny bit but we'll get it and appreciate finally knowing, because here's my main point, the moral of my long-winded manifesto. Each and every one of us is battling things in this world, both personal and interpersonal. We deal with monsters inside and outside of ourselves every day and let's face it, while good does exist, it's been a heavy era upon us all. We carry the weights of the worlds and too many people are on the edge, only a hairline from going over. The last thing anyone needs to face is this unnecessary pathetic hurtful behavior. There are worse things happening and we do not have time to endure being treated as worthless beyond the point of at least the courtesy of an explanation and a farewell. We do not have time to endure being someone’s opening act to fill in the voids of their insecurities or empty life. We really do not. And while many will say, “Don’t let them in,” or, “Don’t let it get to you,” it happens. As women we’re told we’re wrong for being single and then reprimanded when we get dumped/ghosted as if it were our faults. Like what the hell, man? What do you want from us? We enter the dating world and try, then get hurt and we’re the problem. We stay out of the dating world for a while and enjoy our own company and end up facing 24/7 angry mobs telling us our insides are ticking time bombs so we need to hurry up.

Society, my message to you is this: Let us live in peace as women who do not go about messing with the hearts of your precious males. Exert the hateful energy you have towards us single ladies on educating males to strip their privilege and exercise empathy, kindness, compassion, courtesy and dignity. You’ve got a lot on your plate society, so stop wasting time trying to dictate how we should feel and start dictating how they should behave. You don’t want us to be single? Try producing better men for us to be with. And while I do not deny the fact that some women do ghost and play games, I’m personally coming across tremendously larger numbers of women being screwed big time while men kick back and relax, laughing their days away, knowing that in the long run they have that free Get Out of Jail card that never expires, and the reaffirming thought that there’s nothing we women can do about it.

But there is, and it starts with speaking up. As I sat in the healing circle on the second day of training this week, the facilitator explained that this one would be a little more intense than the other circles we had. It was going to dive into pain. At first I wasn’t concerned. I had been a pretty active participant and shared the facts of my experience with divorce and domestic violence, but apparently at a surface level. The “talking piece” was passed around and another girl in the group decided to skip the first question asked. It called for us to describe a time when we hurt someone. Everyone else answered and the talking piece reached me. For the first time, I passed too. All I could think about was my being hurt throughout my life, realizing that I always bent over backwards and walked on eggshells to prevent myself from hurting anyone around me, while the world continues to take stabs. The talking piece returned to the other girl who wanted to be skipped and she said, “I can’t. I’m only going to cry and I really don’t have the energy to.” I looked up from the floor and said, “Yeah, me too. That’s why I’m passing.” The facilitator, in her calm and gentle voice, began explaining why those flood gates shouldn’t be afraid to open, that as trainers we need to be comfortable being vulnerable so that our groups we host feel the same. She handed the other girl the talking piece and she shook her head, so it came back to me. I took in a deep breath and barely managed to get three words out before the tears spilled. “I think those I hurt the most were my family members throughout the two years of my relationship with that man.” Insert heavy waterworks that echoed across the uncarpeted multipurpose hall. It was so difficult to rehash the reality that I had cast aside the most important people in my life, the people who have always been there for me, who actually loved me (unlike someone else), who took care of me and tolerated me on days where I know I wasn’t tolerable due to so much mental and emotional manipulation, all for the sake of someone I had trusted. “The experience tore us apart, and while we have mended, the problem is I can forever see the stitches of where we had to sew us back together and that’s what I hate the most. That it happened thanks to someone I had trusted my body, my soul and my heart to and he betrayed me. He caused a healthy, happy and content 24-year-old to contemplate ending life because it seemed like there was no other option. But then I realized I’m not strong enough for that and I could never hurt my family to that extent. I often wished that he hit me, left a mark, something visible so that abuse would be recognized, because no one can see sexual abuse, no one can see verbal abuse and no one sees emotional abuse.”

For a good solid ten minutes the tears kept streaming, even as the talking piece rotated to others. Then it reached the other girl, the one who had passed a few times. Her face was glistening with tears and this time she kept the talking piece. “My story is exactly like Dania’s,” and she began sobbing. As she described her journey as a new single mom living in a shelter, I cried harder. This is why I talk, people. Because it took hearing my vulnerability to be able to unlock hers, and afterwards she felt ten times better for letting it out. We all did. What surprised us even more was another girl in the group then asked if she could take the talking piece one last time, and before even talking she began crying. “My mother was a victim of domestic violence. My father constantly beat her and I hated her for years because I believed she was such a weak coward for not leaving him and forcing us to stay and live that life. But now that I hear both of your stories, for the first time I realize that it doesn’t mean weakness if you get caught or stuck in that situation. That it can happen to anyone and that my mother was strong for trying to keep it together.” Just when we thought the streams of tears were slowing, we all burst.

So for every soul out there thinking it can do it’s thing without caution at the expense of others, think again. And for every soul out there thinking I am to be silenced, also think again. If I need to be the match that lights the first torch that will then light every other one out there sitting in dark silence, so be it. This has apparently been the path paved for me and I proudly accept it. I proudly accept speaking up for those who are too afraid to do so, too concerned about what society will say, too concerned about how men will perceive them. #NotAllMen? It’s about time that hashtag is manifested into reality and by men who truly believe these behaviors are to cease from the start, not when you’ve finally found the one!