Noor is studying for her second master’s degree in social science and public policy and isn’t interested in settling down with a non-Arab Muslim. It’s a personal choice and a parental edict. But she is not averse to a little fun experimentation, with boundaries. “I’d say I’m a liberal conservative. I take the best of both worlds. I know my limits,” she says. That includes being open to outings with men who are not Arab and partying with friends. But she does not drink or have intimate relationships with men.
Noor has a unique perspective on dating and cultural politics in London. Born in the US of Iraqi parents, she spent time as a toddler in the Middle East and was raised and educated in London, where the family has resided now for almost twenty years. “It almost makes it harder living in such a multi-cultural society because you get along with everyone, and you share similar traits with the Italians and the Swedes, etc. But it’s almost like not too many fish in the sea, but just too many of the wrong kind of fish in the sea,” Noor says.
Happy with her life and international group of friends, she plans to give her future children the best of both worlds, eastern and western. For her that means marrying an “Arab Muslim who grew up abroad… with a good family and a good job… with middle ground values” similar to her own family. But finding a partner who can culturally relate sometimes seems impossible. Her parents feel her frustration too. “It’s hard living in this kind of mixed community and I think they get particularly worried sometimes.”
Ade, a writer and adjunct lecturer at a prestigous university in London, could probably relate to some of that youthful frustration. The Nigerian-descent London native decided to have a child in her twenties because she was concerned about never finding Mr. Right. “It was almost pre-empting a crisis by just doing it. I was making a decision to just avoid that dilemma and at least achieve motherhood. Wifehood was never a goal of mine.”
