The Man on the Road in June

04 – 150626

At 1:15 p.m. in the month of June, on a road in Saadiyat, Abu Dhabi, a well-dressed man in sportswear was walking alone in the middle of nowhere. He gave the signs of someone tired and lost, but not the signals of a damsel in distress. I felt the urge to save him and watched attentively as I drove past, waiting for the fainting gesture: the back of the hand pressed dramatically against the forehead. But he didn’t, so I didn’t.

I’m an evolved woman now.

I don’t rush to save others. I don’t cancel my plans for others. I don’t save anyone who didn’t ask for help. And, most importantly, I don’t rescue men. It’s a trap.

I could have stopped and had my driver ask whether he needed help or water, but I didn’t do even that. I’m not willing to be late for my plans. Being hijacked is one thing, but voluntarily abandoning my trajectory is something I no longer do.

I was on time for my swimming class. I enjoyed the pool, being punctual, and sticking to the plan. Now I’m sitting in a hotel lobby, one of many along this coast, wondering if I’ll bump into him. Mostly out of curiosity. To see if he survived.

Personally, I’ve fainted twice from the heat, and I wasn’t even standing directly under the sun. I want to know where he’s from because, even though he looked Emirati, no Emirati would walk along the road in the height of summer. Only a foreigner, usually scantily dressed, would do so, and we would silently shake our heads at them, repulsed by what we perceive as foolishness.

If I do see him here, I want to say alhamdulillah ʿala al-salāmah, as though he survived a thunderstorm or a heart attack. Then I want to ask what made this seem like a good idea when he set out along those highways, and at what point he realized it had become a terrible idea.

I should admit that I am very much an introvert and rarely talk to strangers. So perhaps if I saw him, I would simply widen my eyes and look at him as if to say: What are you doing? Was the workout worth it? Couldn’t you have scheduled better? Who were you hoping to impress? Did you find what you were looking for?

Am I enforcing social conformity? Is the message simply: You will be punished if you try something new or uncommon?

I also wonder if this was a form of self-punishment.

Before or after my swim, I dip my legs in ice-cold water, and if I’m being honest, I do think of it as a punishment. Not punishment for balancing out the enjoyment of swimming, but punishment for having cellulite.

I should also note that I don’t know of a single study showing that cold water reduces cellulite, yet I do it in the hope that it might eliminate cellulite forever. And even if there were a study, it would probably have been conducted on mice or men, neither of whom have cellulite in the way women do.

I don’t think I do this to impress myself or others. I simply want not to have cellulite.

Perhaps I need to save myself from myself.

Maybe we all do absurd things, even harmful things, in the name of fitness and health, simply to feel normal.

The stranger reminded me of someone I used to know. Someone I don’t know well enough to dislike as much as I do. Someone I haven’t spoken to in ten years.

Sometimes I have a redemption fantasy in which we meet again. I would be cool, he would be courteous, and we would be civil with one another before moving on. Light and brief.

But he was the type of person who knew exactly how to push my buttons and bring out the worst in me despite my efforts to remain composed. I still feel some shame about moments when I displayed ugliness toward him publicly. Thankfully, he did the same.

I think this kind of curiosity resembles what people have about food allergies.

If I had an allergic reaction to strawberries, I might wonder, after years of avoiding them, how my body would respond if I tried them again.

How is that curiosity useful?

Am I seeking proof that I have changed? That I have become stronger? Better able to withstand what once affected me negatively?

In school, we are taught to repeat exams we fail in order to move forward. To improve our weaknesses. To get along with everyone.

But we are no longer in school.

I don’t need to prove anything to myself or anyone else. I don’t need to show my work. I don’t need an authority figure to grade me.

I can let go of what doesn’t suit me quickly.

I can choose to be with people who bring out the best in me.

I can let go of what doesn’t serve me.

Not everyone needs to be my friend for me to be a good person.

I don’t even need to be a good person.

I can stay where I flourish.

I can pursue what I naturally excel at and leave the rest behind.

I don’t need to eat strawberries.

In the past, some might have described me as a mean girl. If that were true, then I would say I was mean out of boredom or caution, not cruelty.

Perhaps if I let go of wanting to control others or have them conform to what feels normal or ideal to me, I would be less easily entangled.

I can learn to tolerate the discomfort of unusual situations.

If that man on the road gets sunstroke, that is his experience.

I don’t need to save others from the consequences of their choices simply to protect myself from the discomfort of witnessing their suffering.

Going forward, I don’t want to react so strongly toward others, whether positively or negatively. Being triggered doesn’t suit me.

I was never someone who held grudges.

My mother always told me I was lucky to forget so quickly, a trait she herself did not possess.

As I encountered more irrationality in the world, I found myself needing to remember my own nature: to let go and move on.

I don’t need to make sense of others or of every experience I have.

As long as I survived, I move forward.

I cannot see how chasing fleeting ghosts would benefit me.

I release others from my system for my own well-being.

I am free of them, and they are free from me.