OPNO VERSUS MARRIAGE: personal contemplations, or making a list, as Audrey always suggests

In order to get married, things OPNO must change:

• Dancing, skipping, running, when she moves in public. Apparently, this is not an Omani girl thang to do, and I do it without even noticing. It is because I used to be into a semi-artistic/graceful sport once upon a time, a lifetime ago, I fear.
• Caring about any of the guys from her past, even in the way of old friends. Hard one. Tricky. Some people you can not talk to for over five years and they can take on look at you and know exactly your life story since you last spoke and exactly what you are feeling when they see you. Can you ever really cut that? I can cut communication, I can cut seeing, but the feeling of knowing them is not something I can touch really, or pin down. Can one? Or do you just pretend it isn't there and lie about it?


• Laughing in public and talking so loud. Yes, Omani girls are quieter. Also, smile less. This kills me a little inside, to have to check my own nature but it part and parcel of fitting in some cultures. There are times and places for showing your bra, and a laugh can be like a bra, so some Omani ladies have explained it to me. I guess so.


• Some places, some villages, some restaraunts, even if I have no one to take me, I shouldn't go by myself. HOW I REBEL AT THIS ONE. I honestly DON'T care what a bunch of men (who likely have paid for sex from some prostitute or had many haraam girlfriends think of me for deciding to go get my curry from a coffee shopor a pepsi from the corner store. Islam says A WOMAN CAN GO OUT FOR HER NEEDS WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG with these guys that they can't think of anything except that a girl who likes pepsi and curry is easy. Dear God. Ya Allah.


• Keeping any secret from one's past to one's future husband BEFORE marriage. After that, never, ever bring up anything. Yeah, I kind of have this thing that on you are married to, he should be the one you don't have to guard your tongue from. Guarding tongues causes alot of marriages in Oman to be completely void of cnnection that men go seeking for in other women OUTSIDE OF THE MARRIAGE. Must grasp a balance in this one I think.

• After marriage, not telling relatives or neighbors about my past (since everyone is going to wait for the Western girl to screw up and assume she already has).

Is this anybody's idea of happily ever after? Is no wonder I am scared and wondering STILL at my age?