Afternoon murmurs from Muscat’s chic Manhattan

“Donald was the name of her orange cat. That was a bit creepy,” I chatter to my friend about my late father’s girlfriend as we sit at a large shared-with-strangers table at the bohemian No Name Café.
Despite being located in the posh-ish Madinat Qaboos residential area, basically Muscat’s version of Manhattans Upper East Side, the café itself gives me déjà vu of a comfortable living room I have been to in either Brussels, Amsterdam, or Paris. It is a late, hot Wednesday afternoon, after school and work. One or two chairs away from us, two beautiful yet slightly too perfect looking women are having their early dinner or late lunch. One wears a hijab or headscarf, with the front of her shiny brownish black hair showing. The other, with dark blonde hair and blue eyes, suddenly looks up from what is most likely her Instagram feed on her phone.
“Darling, can you imagine? Just two days after International Day of Peace, one threatens destruction while the other one increases pressure beyond the battlefield,” she tells her friend as they both begin their own struggle with slightly overpriced sourdough sandwiches.
I am guessing her geopolitics talk was inspired by some of the speeches held during the United Nations General Assembly general debate.
As my friend goes to the bathroom and my daughter talks to hers, I look around. Opposite me sits a young lady wearing a hoodie (too hot!) and huge headphones. Judging by the way she is using her hands, she seems to be designing something on her laptop. My daughter, who introduced me to EcoGPT, whispers to me that she hopes the girl is not using energy hungry generative AI because it is so bad for the environment.
The No Name Café probably owes its laid back atmosphere to its friendly staff, bookshelves stocked with vinyl records and books, and a well composed mismatch of sofas, tables and carpets, complemented by huge Arab style arched mirrors with decorative frames and jazzy music.
The patrons are mostly Omanis; you can tell from the way they dress and talk. This also means you can mind your own business, work, study or chat, and nobody is likely to approach you.
At least not directly. (One man was just trying to order something for a beautiful young woman via the waitress. Although a discreet way of flirting, but also a bit unusual to see something like that happen so openly during the daytime in Muscat.) (Also, she rejected the offer, so I guess he will have to marry someone else.)
Although MQ has a very different feel to Al Hail North, where we reside (I mean, if Muscat had a Queens, then Al Hail would probably be it), it is, by all middle class means, posh-ish, not posh to the max, as we are no Dubai.
True, outside the café sit a few fancy four wheel drives made in Japan or China, with the occasional super expensive Italian or German car sporting a special plate with just two or three numbers. But not all the owners are “Mami, Papi” kids, the common nickname for young people whose parents bought them the fancy car. There are plenty of hardworking entrepreneurs or young, unmarried people who have secured a good job and still live at home, as per the cultural tradition, so they can afford the fancy ride.
Still waiting for my friend, I have a quick look at my own social media feed. The psychiatrist Dr Daniel Amen and comedian Bill Maher are having a chat about mental health struggles. My first thought is that they are an odd pair, as one always talks about the negative effects of certain beverages on the brain, while the other seems to be sipping something that is not water from a glass. They both agree that the use of AI and smartphones has resulted in a very “unfeeling” world in which people are not really connecting with each other, and that there is a correlation with unprecedentedly high rates of loneliness and even depression among young people.
September was Global Suicide Prevention Month. A topic that seems to be a bit of a taboo in this part of the world since it is considered haram to harm yourself. But more people here are now opening up to conversations about anxiety and even depression as they learn that it is nothing to be ashamed of.
My friend returns from the hammam and asks me what I am watching. She says, “The access is too easy and feels to harmless, from the iced latte in single-use plastic cups, using AI as a shrink, binge-watching as a form of escapism, to scrolling through your social media feed powered by algorithms. It is that easy and feels safe, people may ignore the consequences, for the environment or themselves.”