Faking wedded bliss (aka a case for buying diamonds)

In recent years, diamond companies have fallen over themselves in trying to capture the elusive niche of women who buy diamonds. For themselves. With their own money.

If you’ve recently moved to the UAE, like me and most of the women in the newsroom, the temptation of that market is immense. And inevitable.

From showing visiting family around to outings with friends, a chance of, “oops, I did it (again)” has occurred frequently. And the justifications for the purchase of the precious baubles are equally varied.

Case in point:
Within a week of my arrival in Abu Dhabi, I made my first ever diamond purchase at the local gold souk called Madinat Zayed, which looks like any supermarket except tons of gold and diamond jewellery dangle from like they were fruits and vegetables.

A few days in the city teaches you a precious lesson. Giving men who inquire about your wedded status, an honest answer, is asking for trouble. From unwanted to paid amore, it translates to all kinds of trouble.

For example, I was dumbfounded when three men approached me within five minutes of each other at a five-star hotel’s lobby and Mr. A asked to be my “friend”, Mr B stood grinning and Mr C pulled out a wad of cash. I ran from the lobby. Didn’t walk, didn’t hurry, just picked up and ran.

The steeliest women here have taught me their intimidating ways, including my favourite, from my friend at the business desk who gives men in Dubai and Abu Dhabi a piece of her New York mind in a B&T accent (For those who grew up on the outskirts of New York and used a bridge or tunnel to get to the city). Since I couldn’t master her rate of speed of speech delivery, instead I bought a wedding ring and faked my marital status.

The ring works especially well when I am forced to answer uncomfortable personal questions to a cabbie, usually from Peshawar, Pakistan, who depending on my answers can turn from a disapproving fellow to a smiling fatherly figure. It’s 10-pointer if I am unmarried, but much shorter if I flash the ring:

Married? Yes
How many children? None
Why? Newly married.
-The End -

That is not to say they don’t offer advice, but it’s better to hear how I will make a dutiful wife by bearing 10 children than be chided about my womanly shortcomings or be offered a cabbie’s cousin in marriage.

So far, it has also worked in restaurants against eager waiters (although one still slipped me his number, winked and said, “call when you are lonely”); at the hospital, where I landed with a case of bronchitis and an eye infection, and it took the ring to make a male nurse back off. The latest deflected fellow was a passenger on a flight from Bahrain.

Now that the ring’s purchase has been justified, it’s onto a pair of solitaire earrings to match the ring — if only to create a new shopping niche.