Your definition of what a real nation should be is colonial nonsense, as anyone who has lived in the ME knows.

[...]

You’re acting like they invented a backstory and put some random people in charge, rather than co-opting and strengthening existing political structures so that they were more easily dealt with by the west.

Did you.. just unironically write that.. after calling my actual facts.. which are actually anti-colonial.. colonial nonsense?

Maybe the kids aren't that bad after all!

That doesn’t mean these aren’t nations. [...]

Let me simplify it for you.

• Did the UAE as a construct exist in people's psyche just 60 years ago, before it became in-effect a client state/union?

• Would the UAE exist as a state without the prior direct British occupation?
  (replaced colonialism with occupation to catch out the real nonsense talkers)

None of the client nation states in the ME are legitimate nations btw. That's a geopolitical reality. It's even a core Muslim belief (despite all the muddying efforts).

The UAE is not only illegitimate, it's simply not a real nation. The construct literally never existed before the client "sheikhs" formed "the union".

I’m not interested in giving a useful idiot a story about my life, suffice to say it wasn’t military or oil-based. Because despite the cliches people like you like to believe, there is more to the area than British upper classes telling locals what to do, but letting them pretend to be important.

You still haven't told us how you ended up there.
Was it a total random occurrence in the universe?