Spoilers, Heat and Whinging

I was at lunch yesterday with 4 girls, 1 English, 1 Aussie, 1 Lebanese and 1 Jordanian. It was a business meal, but we had been together for many hours in meetings and had grown tired of talking about work. So naturally the topic changed, to men. A passionate debate ensued over Larb and Basil Chicken about what kind of man makes the best partner. The Arab girls raved about the gifty nature of Arab men. Fathers, brothers, husbands, future husbands, future ex husbands all had one good quality in common-they liked to spoil their women-expensively and frequently. Fine for some! The Aussie, the English and me (all currently or previously with English blokes) agreed that for all their amazing qualities, Brits weren't the best with the gifts. Before you ladies with gifty English men jump all over me, we were not generalising. We were saying the English WE had dated were not particularly thoughtful or frequent with gifts. They were however (we all agreed) the most loyal, loving and devoted men we had met. There was no consensus at the table as we all 5 sucked down another ice tea and prepared to brave the Dubai heat for 5 minutes walking back to the office, but it was unanimous that every culture produces very different partners.

Summer heat in the Gulf countries is unlike anything I have ever experienced. It's pure humidity (if it drops below 42ish) to the point where you can actually see the condensation hanging in the air. I don't know what my point is, except to say that if I lived in heat like this, I might need more gifts as well to make me stop whinging.

Whinging is a funny thing. It bonds us to one another, it separates us from each other and ultimately it serves as a form of expressions. I think whinging, like partners is culturally specific. In England for instance the weather takes center stage, in America it's often money or taxes people complain about and in South Africa it's the load shedding. Whatever your beef, you can bet you'll find someone else who will share it with you. Am off to Istanbul tomorrow where whinging is a national pass time.