Real Beauty

She is so much more than just beautiful.

Our notion of beauty derives from standing out. In any given society, in any given country, most people have a certain look, derived from its people's gene pool -this theory obviously excludes largely cosmopolitan populations such as the populations of New York or Dubai or London. Usually each country has certain defining genetic characteristics regarding height, build, eye color, hair color, etc. We usually view a person as beautiful or attractive when they stand out from the group. Again, this is not always the case. This is not to claim that ONLY people who look different are attractive, and other people can suck it. It is just an observation... for example, someone with a tan isn't looked at twice in Argentina, while in Norway they would be considered very attractive. That doesn't mean that all white people living in Norway are considered ugly scum unfit for love and compassion, but odds are that a tanned person is more likely to be attractive to Norwegians than just another white Norwegian. Perhaps a radical view, but one which I've come to notice in most countries I have visited. Similarly, in most of the Arab world, being white is usually synonymous with being beautiful, due to the fact that being white is not very common.

Due to that unfortunate fact, some Egyptians would not call her beautiful. She's cute, certainly (they would say) but she looks so "normal". Ordinary. One of a million- or rather, one of 90 million. Since it would take a very long time to track down each idiot who says that and punch them, I'm going to do it here in writing instead. You see, you ignorant, pathetic, equally-tanned, hypocritical excuses for Egyptian males (whose taste I share, shamefully), it takes much more than a tan to make a girl "ordinary". We live in Egypt, we're all tanned. If you don't get tanned, you die of skin cancer; it's an evolutionary mechanism. If anything, from a Darwinian point of view, your going for a white girl decreases your offsprings' chances of survival and hence -from a purely evolutionary standpoint- natural selection is gonna have some fun with you and yours.

I can't expect you to see beyond your veil of koshary-fuelled ignorance and notice how beautiful her eyes are. No, they don't have to be wide blue eyes. They're almond shaped  brown eyes, juuuuuust  the right shade to make you crave something chocolaty. Highly intelligent eyes, which seem to have the ability to figure you out and see right through you within five minutes of meeting you. I can't expect you to appreciate how playfully seductive she is when she plays around with her ringlets of wavy, brown hair, twirling it further and further into tighter curls that spring bouncily back to their original artful tumble; unpretentious and fun and low-maintenance while still managing to look elegant. I can't expect you to see how even her "common" tanned, dark skin is unblemished, smooth and soft as velvet. But most of all, I can't expect you to notice her smile, o clueless unworthy Egyptian male idiot. When she smiles, her whole face smiles. You can tell, because she gets that twinkle in her eyes and her right cheek twitches slightly as her lips part to show a pristine set of gleaming, perfect teeth -in stark contrast to her dark complexion- complimenting the glint in her eyes and compounding the effect to make you inwardly moan because any time now, she is going to stop smiling and you will fall back in the terrible, dark abyss where you dwelled before she started smiling.

But as I said before, she is so much more than just beautiful. And far from being "unremarkable", she is -no matter how you look at it- extraordinary.

When I look at her, I see a burning passion for what she does. In her eyes, I see more than pretty, smiling, intelligent eyes; I see a fiery will and determination burning as bright as any star, announcing to the world that "I am here and I am going to succeed". I see a constant need for self-improvement. I see a strong, assertive character that manifests itself in a nonthreatening way that instead of antagonizes other assertive personalities, manages to win them over to her side willingly, where they are glad to cooperate as peers and equals. I see a very helpful person who will go to extreme lengths to lend a hand to whoever needs it, but still makes sure not to be taken for granted. I see a girl with all the tools to succeed in life, who does whatever it takes to get things done, yet still manages to make it look effortless and laugh about it. I see an intellect that is so obviously a match for my own, which in all modesty is not a common occurrence, yet she never comes across as arrogant... and while we're at it, her laugh is extremely contagious and her sense of humor is so well-developed that I can honestly say that she is one of literally four girls I know who can actually make me laugh.

Every time I see her, she grows more and more beautiful in my eyes. And every time, my respect for her grows. She is not one of 90 million Egyptians- she is one IN 90 million Egyptians.

Conventional beauty will fade, but what she has is infinitely more enduring.

So you see, my visually (and mentally) impaired Egyptian friend, beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder.

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I know several girls who are going to read this post and think it's about them, and I find it very ironic that you're probably not gonna read it. But maybe one day I'll show it to you, and you'll know I meant every word I said.

22/10/2014 Edit: No, I will never show you this post now. For both our sakes.

Bondok's View of Life in Your 20s

Please note that this is simply my point of view, which you have the right to agree or disagree with.

Right off the bat, I'm gonna go ahead and shoot the elephant in the room up its massive butthole with a shotgun that shoots little shotguns;

I may be biased.

The fact that I am currently not hopelessly and irrevocably in love with anyone -anyone who isn't fictional, that is- might slightly cloud my judgement. Maybe this article would go a lot differently if I were one of the lucky ones who met their soul mates on a rainy day when they offered to share their umbrella or at a restaurant when they were both stood up by their blind dates or on the titanic when it sank and there was only one plank left floating and the bitch claimed it all for her fat, selfish ass- I'm getting sidetracked. My point is, the hopeless romantic in me admits that there maybe another valid point of view, which I would only agree with if I were in a loving, committed relationship with a girl I couldn't wait to spend the rest of my life with. But I'm not, so here goes.

I personally know several people who got married. I personally know even more people who are currently engaged. It's a person's basic right, they're quite within their rights to do it. I wish them all the happiness in the world, and I hope they enjoy the wild journey they're about to embark upon, and I'd really like to ask them out for dinner some time so they can give me tips on how to handle this pesky cardiac arrest habit I seem to have developed in response to whenever any girl starts getting too commitmenty with me. However, this is where it ends. I cannot see myself in their shoes, and even if I'd already met the girl I knew I wanted to marry, I doubt I'd be getting chained down at this point in my life.

What I've unfortunately felt recently is that the concept of marriage has devolved into some kind of competition. That's not to say that all people who get married do it to win some game, but it's definitely embedded into the psychology of 8 out of every 10 girls I know that she needs to draw the winning lottery ticket as quickly as possible before some imaginary deadline. I happen to personally know several examples of such girls, and I've had many pants-shittingly terrifying experiences with a couple of them, without going into too much detail. They all seemed to want to force a connection between us -a connection that wasn't there- just to meet some imaginary obligation only they could feel. 

In no time at all, the concept of marriage has changed from a proclamation of mutual love to the entire world to an opportunity to change your relationship status on Facebook and post some wedding photos with annoying captions like "my one and only, forever together <3" to try and make as many people as possible feel lonely and unfulfilled.

Speaking as a member of your target audience, I have to say I'm unimpressed. The fact that you're happily in love should matter only to you, not to your entire Facebook entourage. News flash: the pictures you share either induce indifference, jealousy, depression or "hide from newsfeed". If you were truly in love, you would generally not feel the need to obsessively share it on every social media outlet you have access to. If, on the other hand, you are only settling for the best option you currently have, then I feel sorry for you and go ahead and share the pictures so you can blunt the pain of the mistake you're going to have to spend the rest of your life dealing with. You'll have to forgive my bluntness, but that is exactly what people seem to forget about marriage.

If you're secure in your knowledge that you've picked the right person, I congratulate you. If you still haven't picked, then here are some warnings I hope you'll bear in mind:

MARRIAGE IS FINAL.

THERE IS NO GOING BACK.

YOUR LIFE AS YOU KNOW IT IS OVER.

IT'S NOT ABOUT TAKING SOME SELFIES AND MAKING BABIES "BECAUSE HOW HARD COULD IT BE"?

Imagine, if you will, going to buy a pizza. You go to your favorite Italian pizza place and order a Quattro Formaggi pizza. The manager -who is running a terrible business model, admittedly- asks you to make sure your decision is final, because he will only ever serve you Quattro Formaggi pizzas from then on. One could argue that you could go to a different pizza place, but then one could get the fuck out of my narrative because this is MY tortured metaphor. Anyway, even a decision as trivial as this one -if you think about it- is not easy to make. What if I crave a pepperoni pizza? What if I get tired of blue cheese? Would I really like to spend the rest of my life eating THIS PIZZA, and nothing else? Wouldn't I eventually swear off pizza altogether?

The point is that a person's point of view changes a lot between the ages of 19 to 25... what was acceptable to you a year ago could make you roll your eyes or have a fit today. We are in a phase when our brains are maturing and we are deciding who we are, what we want in life and who we want to share it with. Maybe you hate blue cheese today but then a couple of months from now you'll start liking it. God knows, this exact thing happened to me this year. I'm sure you're not here to explore my adventures with blue cheese, but it's relevant: nothing is certain in this age range because we ourselves are ever-changing. Our tastes change, our wants change, our needs change. To choose a life partner at this age would be like getting a tattoo of a burger on your forehead because it seemed like a good idea at the time, when you were a (hungry and retarded) teenager, except that you're stuck with it for the rest of your life... unless you undergo a very painful and expensive procedure; divorce, in this metaphor.

Where is the logic in getting married before you know what you want in life? In my case, for example, I am currently working in a field that is as far removed from my college major as it gets. I'm at an uncertain stage in my career, and am unsure if I want to continue down that path or change my career altogether. I'm unsure where I'll live; maybe in Egypt, maybe in Europe, why not the Gulf, possibly the States. With so many variables, I would be insane to make such a decision now, when even my livelihood can still be called into question. How could I commit to supporting a family when I'm not even fully capable of supporting myself yet?

And you know what? I like that I have no idea what I want to do with my life. I like that there is no user's guide that I should follow. I like that I can do anything I want because I'm in my 20s. Now is the time to explore all the viable options, and make an affordable mistake or two. If not now, when?!

Marriage is responsibility, marriage is saying goodbye to your nonchalant spontaneity and independence. Overnight, you've suddenly forfeited your financial freedom and your control over your own life, and all of a sudden every decision you make affects two people, and it only gets harder from there if you decide to have kids.

Compare that suffocating reality to the life of a young adult bachelor, whose only dilemma is what to try next; where to live next; what to do next. No strings attached, no one to answer to. If you should decide to pack up and move to Europe tomorrow, who's stopping you? If you were to decide to go backpacking through East Asia (Europe is too mainstream), who would you have to convince? No one. You only answer to you, and that is priceless. At least to me. Over the past 22 years, I've visited 16 countries and I don't intend to stop there. In fact, the more I travel, the more I ache for more travel (maybe my blog's background picture should have given that away). I love getting familiar with foreign culture and history. Most importantly, I love meeting new people abroad, and that is never going to change for me. I live in a permanent state of wanderlust, and even though I was in Greece three weeks ago, I'd jump on a plane tomorrow and go anywhere else if I could take a few days off work. The day I stop travelling is the day I die, and it's something I've learned about myself because I've allowed myself to explore rather than got chained down at a needlessly young age.

Again, if you already know who you want to marry, I'm not convincing you to break up with them... but give yourself some breathing space! If you both know you're in love and getting married, why do you have to do it now? If you have to prove your intentions, then it feels more like a financial transaction than a marriage. Which I suppose is a huge part of marriage anyway.
Don't get me wrong, I'm the most hopelessly romantic guy in the world. My endless quest to find my "the one" often ends up in my being compared to Ted from How I Met Your Mother. I want the dog and the white picket fence more than most people who actually do have them. But I'm not gonna settle for any girl, she has to be perfect for me and we have to be in love. And I firmly believe that there is a time and place. The time is not until I'm at least 25. And the place is God knows where, because I'm in my twenties. The sky is the limit, and I'm gonna milk that feeling for all it's worth.

And there you have it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is why I will always be against picking out baby names when you should be exploring the world... and more importantly, yourself.