Gamal
“Do you believe in God? What religion were you raised in?”
Intense “get to know you” questions and first impression. After my red eye flight, early morning airport hang, and afternoon adventure around Singapore, I needed a recovery nap. Laying in my dorm bed reading, I heard someone come into the room, waved hello, and went back to my book. Apparently that wave indicated I was ready to chat, and Gamal jumped right in. He had come to the room for one of his daily prayers, but instead started asking my religious background and opinions. I stopped after 5 minutes, let him pray, and passed out.
The next morning, I ran into him at breakfast. He mentioned how this was his first solo trip and it had been way more difficult to meet people than he imagined. I shared my plans to go to the world renowned Singapore Zoo and he immediately decided to join. On the bus ride over, he taught me some Arabic words and phrases, told me more about his travels, and began to teach the 5 Pillars of Islam. I thought he was slightly socially awkward but overall, nice enough. Throughout the day, I learned about his love of selfies (including carrying his own selfie stick, which we used to take photo after photo) and the rules for eating halal.
The next day, he once again decided to join my plans to go to the Botanical Gardens. The lessons in Islam continued and I grew weary but was heading to the airport in a few hours so let him continue.
BUT he decided to travel to the airport with me. I thought it was odd, but also knew he was leaving the country via bus and the Singapore Airport is a destination in itself. Too nice Katherine didn’t know how to say no, so when he insisted on carrying my backpack, we headed off for the 1 hour bus ride. I finally snapped when he became too needy during check-in. We went to the see the indoor waterfall, he insisted on buying me fro-yo, then we said goodbye at security. I went in for the hug, he went in for the handshake…finally this awkward hostel friendship had come to an end.
Except…it didn’t.
When I landed in Taiwan, I started getting a series of messages from him. “Did you land?” “Are you safe?” “Why aren’t you responding?” “I’ve decided to go to Kuala Lumpur too - when do you arrive? I’ll book us a hotel.” “What is your shoe size?” “Nevermind, it’s done.”
Escalated QUICKLY. I told him to stop contacting me and blocked his number. In KL, I started getting a series of missed calls from first a Singapore number, then Egyptian, then Malaysian. I blocked them all, only to then get an email asking if I was okay since he hadn’t heard from me. I replied, asking again for him to please stop contacting me. He replied with a picture of two high heel shoes and a stuffed bunny rabbit he had bought as a gift, apologized if there had been confusion because of the language barrier, and that he loved me.
WHAT. IN. THE. WORLD.
And so ends my experience and friendship with Gamal, an accountant, an Egyptian, a first time solo traveller, a Muslim, and a bit of a creep.
**I debated a lot about whether or not to share this story. Should I include the photos we took? What about his actual name? In the end, I decided it’s important to share as it’s part of my experience and part of my story. The photos are ones he excitedly took and shared, and I know he has way more on his camera. Not all chance encounters end on a positive note, but luckily this one didn’t have too negative of an impact.**
