Photo by Troy Holden

When in Rome, do the Romans. Or something.

You won’t find many brothels in China; love for money is a legal no-no. But no worries, you won’t need to.

I expected to land on a dirt runway, live with farmers and frolic through rice fields. For some reason *cough* Hollywood*cough* I couldn’t help but associate westernization with modernization, and expected China to lack both. Truth is, China is as modern as it gets. This is good news for someone who navigates new countries with his privates: cosmopolitan women are far more likely to end up in bed with me.

I’d found an apartment already, and for a few days my only companions were the pretty receptionist, jetlag and a hard bed. By the fifth day it was high time for a drink.

I hit the bars as soon as I could walk, and followed the pretty lights in the sky until I stumbled upon a massive, modern club called Tang. Two bottles of Jack Daniels made me a table of friends – even managed to attract another Arab. An hour of serious drinking had me ready for company, and the bar was full of it.

There must’ve been four women to every man in this place; mostly Asian, most stunning, and all staring at me.

Yes?

A steaming dumpling caught my eye, and flashed me the peace sign, along with a fantastic smile. A minute later she walked up to my table and started chatting away in broken but coherent English, asking all the right questions and leading the conversation in a direction I thought I’d have to take care of myself. Independent women rock my socks.

‘It’s time we go somewhere louder,’ screamed my Arab friend.

He was insane, surely, but it seemed like the right night for it. We packed our things and head out, but a tiny Chinese hang tugged at my shirt; my hot spring-roll had reservations.

‘What’s the problem?’

‘I don’t want to move until I’m sure you want me.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Do you like me? And are you OK with the price?’

‘What price?’ I was a bit shocked; only a complete dunce would miss a critical bit of information like this.

‘When I saw you first, I told you 800.’

‘You never said anything of the sort.’

‘No, I told you with my hand from before.’

Not a peace sign after all; the Chinese have developed an ingenious way of counting and communicating numbers on one hand, but let’s not get distracted here.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘You’re lovely, but that’s not the kind of night I was looking for.’

‘If you change your mind, I’ll make it 650.’ That’s just under a hundred US, for a slice of Asian heaven.

Perhaps someday I’ll start paying for sex. Some night, with the right combination of alcohol, loneliness and lighting I might just give in and let my money flirt in my stead; it certainly seems to do a better job these days. But not that night.

‘Thanks, but no thanks. Have a great evening.’

My own evening was shot to hell of course; self esteem gets a square kick in the balls when you realize your wallet was doing the talking all along. Thank heavens for Jack.

I skipped the new plan and head back home to sleep it all off – the indignation, not the whiskey – but paused in the large lobby. The building I lived in was still under construction, and they’d just added the largest crystal chandelier I’d ever set eyes on; a monster of an art piece that I just couldn’t stop staring at.

‘Do you need a massage?’

‘Excuse me?’

It was Irene, the receptionist who’d been my lifeline for the first couple of days. She’s a beautiful twenty-something local girl with a real knack for customer-service.

‘You give massages?’

She laughed – I loved her laugh. ‘No sir, but the spa is just about to close. My friend works there and I’m sure she wouldn’t mind squeezing you in.’

‘I kind of just want to watch TV tonight; I’d rather be in my room.’

‘We can arrange for it in your room.’

‘Wow, um, thanks?’

‘Well, you look very upset, and it’s my job to make sure you’re happy.’

‘Marry me Irene.’

‘That’s a yes to the massage then?’

I went up home in a significantly better mood. Some 20 minutes later a beautiful girl – complete with little heart-shaped spa tag around her waist – knocks on my door, furnishes my bed with towels, and starts pushing away all the shame and indignity one oily stroke at a time. Life was good.

And it got better.

Around 1AM my door knocks, and the masseuse gets up to answer. It’s Irene in a miniskirt, here to pick up her friend.

‘Feeling better?’

‘Immeasurably.’

‘What was upsetting you?’

‘I got my first taste of Chinese working girls tonight. Thought I’d met a charmer, but instead I was apparently paying for it. She wasted my mood and my entire evening.’

‘In other words you’ve been here for almost a week and still haven’t gotten lucky?’

‘Something like that.’

‘We can fix that.’

Time froze. My blood froze. Other parts of me got very hot. She said something in Chinese and then the two girls slowly tugged, rubbed and kicked out every single concern I’d ever had, along with my heart and soul. Twice.

‘I need a favor from you,’ I said.

‘More?’ Irene was giggling.

‘God no – well maybe – but first I need you both to get up, and go to the drawer. There are two black Time Out Beirut t-shirts there; that’s the magazine I write for. It’s important that you wear them and I photograph you; the editors will never believe me otherwise.’

‘Just make sure you hide our faces; and I’ll grab the t-shirts.’

She helped herself to my drawer, then helped her friend into the t-shirt. She did this very slowly.

‘I love you. Both. Forever. Marry me?’

She giggled again, ‘Welcome to China.’

Photo by Stuart Richards

HIM

I’d never been on a blind date. The concept was foreign, like something out of a creepy low-budget film. The magazine sent us on three of them, one set up by our families, one by our friends and one by a professional agency (no, seriously, it exists) in Saifi Village.

DATE ONE

This was easy; I turned to my meddling aunt for the family date. ‘I have just the girl for you,’ she informed me as my cheeks were molded into new and exciting shapes. But the Druze are known for our setups, aren’t we?

Souad was a traditional girl, a relic from a time when parents visited with an elegantly framed photograph to discuss the details of your first date with their precious (here meaning expensive) daughter, and how many heads of lamb will have to be slaughtered for the wedding. The girl was smart and stunning, and a black hole.

We went to Pasta di Casa, and as she slowly ate her salad (minding her carbs, no doubt) I realized that while the words I articulated over the course of the evening did register with her, I was getting absolutely no feedback. I tried explaining what a black hole was, in an attempt to break the ice and make her laugh at the absurdity of our situation. And as the inner geek steered the monologue from black holes to white dwarfs, I inevitably came upon Stephen Hawing; how remarkable it was that he gave so much to the world, and even raised children that will carry his name. Here my date uttered the first full, unprompted sentence of the evening: ‘I love children; how many do you want to have?’

The fettuccine ran cold, and Alfredo snickered.

DATE TWO

Ah, friends. I expected more of them, really.

This one was a talker, and my buddies had given her my shortlist of likes. ‘Talk to him about games,’ they’d apparently instructed, ‘talk about writing and religion, knives and Martian fungus; and whatever you do, never agree with him. He loves the challenge.’

If she was anything, she was a challenge; she fit so much information (about herself) between the first two drinks that I fully expected her wine to have aged. I love talkers, but there has to be room for maneuvering, and for lack of interaction I found myself mostly staring at all she nearly wore, and planning my dream bathroom. She didn’t figure out my last name until I had walked her to the car much, much later that night. That’s where she asked the first sincere question of the evening: ‘What does Baz mean, exactly?’

‘It’s like a falcon,’ I began to explain, but my mouth became suddenly occupied. The smashing teeth and tequila breath prompted a moment of, well, Zen I believe. I’d read about this, a guy called Tuesday Lobsang Rampa had me sold on the idea of transcendental meditation when I was 14; it’s when your soul leaves your body to observe the world you see, as a result of great concentration, shock or trauma.

My soul sat atop her Fiat and fiddled with my silver line, occasionally glanced down my date’s blouse and waited for the life to drain from my limbs; it jumped in just as my knees buckled. ‘We’ll save the rest for later,’ she said with what must have been a wink. I decided on black shower curtains, and floated back to the pub.

DATE THREE

The only way I could get matchmaker Solange to set me up was to lie about being a journalist; and for that I apologize.

The interview at Pom d’Amour went smoothly. Solange was tactful and sensitive, and very concerned about privacy. She’d taken a look at my online profile, and had a bunch of questions prepaired. She explained that her agency’s database had a five-to-one women to men ratio, and young male professionals were always a quick setup.

She wasn’t kidding. Two days later I had a daunting list of potentials, and after a significant elimination algorithms finally settled on one whose name made a naughty anagram (sorry, can’t tell.) This was my third and last date; I was fearless.

I had two whiskeys and two shots of vodka before she showed up. She was just as nervous, and a whiskey enthusiast; perfect. A few drinks into the evening I’d forgotten all about the article, the agency and my transcendental experience, and was happily chatting away with a girl I’d never date.

She was a finance student, athletic (that’s pc-speak for hot) and had a brilliant smile; certainly not the type that would need a matchmaker.

‘I have absolutely no time to go through the whole song and dance anymore. You could easily waste half your life trying to figure out whether a man is right for you, while wasting even more opportunities. The two of us have had a great night for instance, and it’ll just get better; but we’re obviously incompatible. If we were dating it would take us months to get out of each other’s hair.’

The night got much better, and we didn’t even exchange numbers. Three cheers for decisive women.

Photo by Martin Raab

HER

When Karl approached me with the blind date article I thought it would be fun; I was wrong. If only one could summon sudden illness or geological miracles.

DATE ONE

He was the professional setup, but the agency had sent me a man that didn’t meet my requirements. They called ahead and said ‘we have a guy here that you might like, but he’s older; is that OK?’

Maybe I should’ve asked how much older.

It was a bit of a surprise to see a forty-something man in a designer coat walk into de Prague. This guy belonged in a classical portrait, leaning on an expensive armchair inhabited by an old gentlewoman with an opium pipe. He noticed the panic and smiled – I wish I could say warmly – and lead the conversation to a comfortable and friendly zone.

He was rich, he explained: a house here, a villa there, a nanny for the dog and a coat that might’ve paid for everyone’s dinner. He was nice, but impatient, and it somehow suited his character. I’d always held that age differences were overrated, but I tell you the man came from a different world. My concerns were noted by Solange and the agency set me up with another date that very same day. This one was in my age range, but apparently not single. Excuse me?

I don’t know about you, but a guy who kept a girl around even as he looked for another didn’t seem like a solid choice. Back to the drawing board.

DATE TWO

My dear, dear friend Karl was behind this one, I realized. This guy was schooled, made to memorize line after line that my sneaky friends knew I’d bite into. Somewhere in the middle of the evening he said one of those signature words used only in your inner circle and his cover was blown to heck, along with my hopes for the evening. Facades aside, the guy turned out to be pretty decent, but I understood why my so-called friends had fed him all these lines; he was eye-candy, and no more.

Eye-candy was a gentleman though and did all the right things: pulled up my chair, listened politely, made sure I was comfortable and so on. By the end of the evening I could almost ignore the fact that he had nothing to share; but not quite. A few hours of this could be interesting, but a relationship? Nah, we’d have to talk at some point.

As we walked to the parking lot he asked the question I’d been ducking all night: ‘No pressure Nayla, but will I see you again?’

‘Not soon,’ I replied. ‘I’m only here on vacation and have to travel back for school.’ It wasn’t a lie, but I knew he felt otherwise. What did I expect anyway? If my friends are any indication of what Lebanese men have become, I’ll be single for a long, long time.

DATE THREE

My third and final date was an incident waiting to happen. The family friend who set me has wanted me to meet this guy for years. Yippee ki-yay. She said that the only men worth seeing were quiet, mild mannered and ready for marriage; the fact that he wore an oversized baseball cap that was fifteen years out of date was no one’s concern.

This was the boy next door stereotype, the polar opposite of the girl next door stereotype. He was creepy, quiet and beady eyed, and didn’t ask questions so much as interrogate me.

This was an interview. He considered me as I presume a farmer would consider livestock, and I knew that as he ran his eyes over my body he wasn’t just admiring my appearance, he was assessing me for breeding.

I pressed the panic button: speed dial, Karl: escape plan beta.

Moments later I was bombarded with phone calls, and during that cellular storm I explained to my date in quick sentences how my friend’s cousin’s sister’s boyfriend had left her, and as I was wasting time here (great time, mind) sipping on a cappuccino the poor girl was on a ledge somewhere preparing to throw herself off; or something just as plausible. He nodded with a blank gaze and scribbled his number in Dubai. ‘Call me if you’re in the area,’ he said. ‘This was very pleasant.’

I don’t think I’ve ever lost a number quite as fast.