In high school, it didn’t take long to realize that I coveted Eman, whose body was like a temple. It was a place where I wanted to worship. When my thespian boyfriend cheated on me with the prettiest madrigal, I was jealous of him, not her. Then there was Julia, captain of the soccer team, with puffy lips and cheeks red with rosacea. Adrienne, lead cheerleader, with massive green eyes and crescent-shaped lashes. And of course the Air France stewardesses on my transatlantic flights from the States to Amman, with their tinted nylons and hair pinned back in little buns. When I saw a cute girl, the feeling in my stomach, the wave that seemed to take shape there, excited and inspired me. But mostly, it terrified me.

In the days leading up to Eman’s wedding, I would accompany my mother to the Vendôme hotel along the corniche in Raouché, where most of the out-of-town guests were staying. The two of us were staying with a friend of hers from Washington who summered in Lebanon, and who was also invited to the wedding. Each day we would meet up with everyone in the hotel’s lounge area for tea. I would wander to the veranda and smoke. I’d often find Eman’s bridesmaid at an outdoor table, in a T-shirt and black jeans, her foot resting on the opposite knee as she peered down at her BlackBerry. She was twenty-eight, ten years older than me, and already had her own startup—a successful one, I’d heard. She would look up and see me, then smile in a way that suggested I should come over. She’d light us each a cigarette, having just arrived at the end of the last one, its butt still smoldering in the glass ashtray. I’d ask her questions about life in Dubai. “It has the feel of an Arab country, the food and the language,” she’d respond, “without the conservative mind-set.”

“Are you seeing anyone there?” I once asked. I was careful not to specify a gender, simultaneously avoiding an assumption of queerness and implying it.

“I’m seeing people everywhere.” She exhaled a billowing cloud and then smiled again, a bravado ruffling up in her demeanor. “I’ve got someone in almost every major city.”

The wedding was a display of straightness. Everyone I encountered told me my turn was next, essentially instructing me to meet someone. I felt surface-level excitement at the fantasy of being with a man and feeling emotionally fulfilled by one, rather than just sexually satisfied, along with underlying despair, knowing it was precisely that: a fantasy.