soulxtc
August 7th, 2006, 09:30 AM
Saudi Youth Use Cellphone Savvy To Outwit the Sentries of Romance
Three a.m., two luxury cars side by side on an empty street, slicing through the sticky seaside air at 100 miles per hour.
The girl in the gold Lexus waved at Husam Thobaity. She was in the back seat, covered by a black veil that hid everything but her eyes.
"She had the most beautiful eyes I had ever seen," Thobaity recalled. "So I gave her my number by Bluetooth."
Thobaity, 23, pushed a button on his cellphone and activated Bluetooth, a short-range wireless function that is standard on most new cellphones. Within seconds, the girl's Bluetooth screen name popped up on his cell's glowing display. He laughed: She called herself "Spoiled," which matched the flashy Daddy's Girl car. Excited, flustered, using his left hand to steer, he clicked on her name and sent her a text message with his phone number.
The big Lexus roared off down another road.
It would be a week before Thobaity heard from the girl with those eyes, the woman he loves.
Cellphone technology is changing the way young people meet and date in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, one of the most insular, conservative and religiously strict societies in the world. Calls and texting -- and more recently, Bluetooth -- are breaking down age-old barriers and giving young men and women discreet new ways around the sentries of romance.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/05/AR2006080500930.html
Three a.m., two luxury cars side by side on an empty street, slicing through the sticky seaside air at 100 miles per hour.
The girl in the gold Lexus waved at Husam Thobaity. She was in the back seat, covered by a black veil that hid everything but her eyes.
"She had the most beautiful eyes I had ever seen," Thobaity recalled. "So I gave her my number by Bluetooth."
Thobaity, 23, pushed a button on his cellphone and activated Bluetooth, a short-range wireless function that is standard on most new cellphones. Within seconds, the girl's Bluetooth screen name popped up on his cell's glowing display. He laughed: She called herself "Spoiled," which matched the flashy Daddy's Girl car. Excited, flustered, using his left hand to steer, he clicked on her name and sent her a text message with his phone number.
The big Lexus roared off down another road.
It would be a week before Thobaity heard from the girl with those eyes, the woman he loves.
Cellphone technology is changing the way young people meet and date in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, one of the most insular, conservative and religiously strict societies in the world. Calls and texting -- and more recently, Bluetooth -- are breaking down age-old barriers and giving young men and women discreet new ways around the sentries of romance.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/05/AR2006080500930.html