Being Iranian

I never thought it could be so cool to be from Iran. I always considered it to be like being from any other country in the world like Turkey or India or China for that matter. Besides, I always thought that media has portrayed an image of Iran as hostile, and terrorist territory in which there is no law and rebels are ripping each other off and life is miserable and we are cannibals. But it turns out that those images are not really applicable when people are browsing through Tinder accounts.

I was never ashamed of my nationality, so whenever someone asked me where you are from, I would reply loudly and proudly, I am from Iran, but then in the cyber domain, it is difficult to add tone to such a simple phrase, so I used to find playful ways of saying it, not to let people freak out and go silent dead. To my amazement it is the other way round. Men do not actually freak out, instead they show interest! Well, it varies from person to person though, but I have concluded that I am very popular among Japanese J

For the rest of the world, it is quite case by case but the trend is steady and confirmed that I immediately get a date out with Japanese. Now, here is the dilemma, they are excited about cultural exchange, which I understand where it is originated from. In some cases, they hardly know the difference in between Iran and Iraq, after all, the two words sound same and majority recall faint images in the news of both names somewhere close by on the map. Those areas on map seem to be associated with war, misery, pretty girls and exotic places to visit. In other cases, they hardly know the difference between Iran and all those Arab states where girls wear burka and have lovely eyes, I have a yoga instructor that after a year still will utter “alhamdo-lellah” when he is greeting me, and I have given up any effort to make him understand I am Persian not Arab.

There you go, with all these presumptions, men all want to get to know about Iran, burka, socioeconomics, cities to visit, what to do and what not to do before they want to get to know about me, if they at all would want to get to know me. It’s become such a strange world. Men prefer to have more information, or ideas about places to go and take photos, instead of taking a good looking, hot girl to bed. Well, I am not saying I am such a great catch, but I am well above average for that matter and still they don't show interest in me as a woman. I am stunned with these findings, slightly disappointed and greatly shocked. They won’t even volunteer to take care of the coffee bill, to them it was just a friendly chat, why be sentimental about it. However, at the bottom of my heart, I am not very confident of this claim. Being the optimist I am, I would try to find a rosy angle that makes the situation less dramatic. I have this theory that men have a heavy burden of being charming, interesting and interested and keep it going, else they will be labeled boring or not fun to spend time with and the girl will just flee. Men might unknowingly try to maintain a steady flow of conversation and not letting silence to fall in, and for that matter, they might use country of origin as a means of warm up topic. I am not sure though what two hours warm up could lead to ...