DuBye

I moved to Dubai last week! Then I got really depressed and moved back to Riyadh two days later.

In 2018 I notably wrote a Quora article that listed all of the things that made Dubai feel so unnatural. I said that it felt like a Black Mirror episode (probably one that I’d rewatch more than once), and that a prerequisite for good cities is maintaining a certain level of unsafety to truly feel real and exciting. I could go on and on, but the truth is that the world needs a Dubai. I can’t imagine a world without it. Where would all the lost souls go? The racially ambiguous white-collar workers? Who will take custody of the godless, money-making Slavics along with their whorish posse and crypto income? Dubai is doing the world far more favors than we give it credit for.

But Dubai doesn’t need me. Have you ever consumed a beverage or food and your body simply rejected it? No questioning, no cramps, no aching. Just a quick, full rejection of what you chose to put inside of you. I don’t need this. I don’t belong here. The overtly frictionless Dubai way of living might work for some Bolivian administrative assistant you’d meet at a networking event, but it just doesn’t work for me.

When I wrote that 2018 Quora post, I, of course, received a lot of backlash from Emiratis and Saudis (this was back when our diplomatic ties were peaking. Have you ever met a seemingly happy couple that you could tell were not sexually attracted to each other whatsoever?), but today I feel both more comfortable and much less inclined to reinforce that narrative. All I want to say is that this city doesn’t need me. I don’t need it.

When I moved for work-related purposes last week, I had a vision of starting anew: apartment hunting, car shopping, people searching. In theory, it reminded me of when I first moved to New York. And LA. And Pittsburgh and Seattle for the first time by myself. So I was excited for Dubai. I thought this would feel familiar. I wanted to do all of those things.

But I never asked myself why. I was never an outcast in Riyadh. I have my friends and my family and everything I love. I spent so much time abroad—why do I need to do this again? Oh wait, I don’t.

And so, with zero hesitation and a huge amount of relief, I knew—two days into my move, in a DIFC apartment complex that was far too new to feel this old—not that I was going to change my mind soon, not that I was thinking about whether I’d made a mistake, but fully knowing that I would be back in Riyadh within a few days. My body rejected it. I am typing these words on a FlyNas flight from DXB to RUH, and I’ve never, ever felt happier.

So thank you, Dubai. Thank you for opening your arms and granting me the very big privilege of crossing borders to be within your vicinity, but I won’t be moving forward with that decision. I’m sure there’s a 28-year-old lower-middle-class Romanian data analyst with an intermediate jiu-jitsu hobby who would be far better suited to fill the space you’ve created for me. I hope you remain tall, vast, and shiny; and I hope I never see you again.