Little likes and half-informed opinions

“You have many lovers!” “Thanks, habibti! Wait.. what?” “I mean, we really like you as our team member!” Without looking up and a little lost in (Freudian) translation, my sweet colleague showered me with flattery that day, her big brown eyes remaining fixed on her laptop as she typed rapidly in Arabic.
While waiting for her to pause at her desk, which hardly ever happens, I started staring out of our floor-to-ceiling office windows, partly overlooking the sea, with several cargo ships or oil tankers laying offshore.
I suddenly remembered this woman with a Spanish accent, dressed as if she were at Miami Beach rather than Muscat, whose recent Instagram post had been shown to me by the algorithm.
In her video, she walked along that same coastline, talking about those same vessels (yes, the Big Tech Brothers are eavesdropping on us).
“They are here because of the situation in the nearby Strait of Hormuz,” she had claimed.
“Nah, DIY geopolitical views. Those ships are always there, business as usual!” one of my other Omani colleagues, who had overheard me thinking out loud, suddenly replied, in Dutch.
Meanwhile, my still typing sweet colleague continued to explain why many of our co-workers apparently take note when I am working from home. Not because they are jealous, but they actually “miss me”.
I mumbled back that I am apparently more popular in person than I am online. I guess my lack of followers and likes is partly due to never feeling the pressure to ‘perform’ on social media. I do not really post private stuff, despite sharing a household with comedians. Besides, I am too text-heavy for places like WhatsApp, the Gram, and even emails. I do not use social media to find old friends either; I have even found one in Casablanca using pen and paper (a story for another time).
Apparently, I also come across as “too non-Western” for some Westerners and yet “too Western” for some others. Here I thought I was just open-minded, although I suppose talking about the world
politics can always have a polarising effect on relationships.
Example: When the war in Iran started, one of the people who lived down my late parents’ street in the Netherlands texted to check if we were safe and sound here in Oman. We all remember always asking how we were holding up while we cared for my dying dad last year, while standing on the sidewalk watering her plants.
I thanked her for her kind concern. But then she suddenly mentioned that “they might bring freedom to the people there.” I wrote that I understood her views were likely shaped by Western media, but that I felt both Donald and Bibi falsely claimed they were trying to help ordinary people.
Just then, this lady, who had always reminded me of a friendly Labrador, replied with the unexpected sharpness of a Pitbull that she “hoped they would continue.” She meant with their bombs.
Now, one may say “we agree to disagree,” but sometimes someone seems so morally on the wrong side that closeness becomes impossible.
I did agree with this lady that social media is not the best place to discuss politics. Indeed, better to stick to doing that at family lunch, in an office hallway, or at the hair and beauty salon. In fact, later that same day, my sweet colleague had told me about my many “likers”, the nail specialist at the parlour, who is originally from Tehran, said she had not spoken to her parents or brother in weeks due to the Internet shutdown after the attacks.
While scratching her ankle with a butterfly tattoo on it, she also spoke about the late Shah, someone my Dutch mother, having worked in Tehran as a ballet dancer in the late Sixties, had told me about.
Trying to swallow her tears, the nail specialist switched the topic to suggesting chocolate brown for the toes. In broken English, she just added that she did not feel the Americans were helping her people back home.