I don't regret anything;
I just had no idea what I was getting myself into:
the lies, the secrecy, the plotting,
the unethicality of the women of the family I was marrying into
and the blind denial of the men.

I honestly don’t understand people who ask me that question.
“How could you let him?”
It’s not like when a man’s about to beat up his wife, he stops to ask her if she’d let him first.
Why is there an assumption that just because something happened, she must have agreed to it?
gender violence, marriage, social pressure, romantic relationships

I don’t want to have a big wedding and spend a lot of money on it.
I don’t want a big dress or heavy makeup that I know I won’t like.
I don’t want to get married in a wedding hall I don’t like and receive gifts I don’t want.

I was the only girl in an office full of men.
Sometimes, I’d have to work for twelve hours straight.
I’d get so exhausted when I got my period that I’d sometimes faint.
It’s not reasonable for me to get exhausted every month,
So I devised a story about how there’s something wrong with my kidneys.

I have to sit a certain way, I can't move my hands when I speak.
I can't cry around people, and if someone hits me, I have to hit them back. These are just a few examples of things I should do if I want "to be a man."
I’m still going to be myself, no matter how much this costs me and no matter how many times people tell me that I'm "not a man."

“Don’t listen to him.
Your body is not defined by kilograms and centimeters.
Your body does not define you.
You’re beautiful.
You’re more beautiful than you and others think.
You’re talented and smart.
Your value is not determined by a number on a scale or by your clothing size.”

I used to end every sentence with “when I lose weight.”
I’ll be more energetic.
When I lose weight...I’ll catch the eye of the man I want.
When I lose weight...I’ll be better at my job.
When I lose weight...I’ll attend more social gatherings.
When I lose weight...I’ll get more roles in movies and plays

I used to work as a sales person in a computer shop in Riyadh.
A woman wearing the niqab came in, and looked at me and my colleagues
“Oh, God bless, who of you should I talk to?” she asked
“You could talk to whoever you’re comfortable talking to, miss!”

It didn’t feel normal or spontaneous.
Between being scolded by your conservative [female] relative for doing something “immodest” and listening to your friends whispering about touching certain [private] areas on maids’ and female cousins’ bodies, you eventually learn to associate the opposite sex’s body with shame.
There has got to be something shameful about it.

I don’t like it when you tell me "clean shave" after I remove my facial hair.
I know I have facial hair like men do.
I also know that you say this as a joke, thinking it’s funny because I laugh when you say it.