Friendships

If you walk along any road in Dubai, you may every now and then see two men or two women walking along together, holding hands. Nay, this is not a public display of a same-gender relationship. Rather, it's much more common here that friendships between a man and another man or between women includes such signs of closeness.

Imagine two bankers in Frankfurt walking along the shopping street Zeil like that. A bit hard to imagine, isn't it? On the other hand, it's said to be much less common among nationals here to see close friendship between men and women.

Traditionally, men and women tend to be much more separated in the public space anyway, as I hear. In a restaurant, I recently saw a 'family room' exclusively for single women, married couples and families. There are 'women only' days in beach parks. And I noticed last weekend that, in the evening, much more men spend time outside, for example waiting in line to cross the Creek in an abra, or standing or squatting in front of shops or on the sidewalk in small groups, chatting.