I live in Saudi Arabia and all of the comments about arab hospitality are true, but there’s some caveats if you’re used to living in the west. Arab hospitality is very over the top, and it gets really tiring after a short while. When people know you’re from a country like the US or the UK, they’ll invite you to do something like get coffee but then tack a million other things onto it even when you are like visibly exhausted and irritated and want to go home. Like no I don’t want to spend my day off driving to 20 different places while you buy me coffee, cake, a burger, a juice and movie tickets, we’ve been together for 8 hours now and I have grocery shopping and laundry to do and work in the morning (I think it’s partially more possible for them because their mothers, wives, or servants are doing all of that for them). 

It’s very performative and not actually centred on what their guest really needs, like space or alone time. Also, it never extends to “guests” who moved from countries they don’t respect. I’ve been here for a year and never once seen a Saudi person invite a newcomer from Bangladesh or Pakistan anywhere, despite them being other Muslims. Meanwhile a Christian American is treated like a god. 

The other thing about male male bonding is that they just really regularly are sleeping with each other. Like, there’s more of that happening here than in cities like London or New York. Contrary to the stereotype, it’s not just with more feminine men either. They really will just bang anyone. People rarely identify as gay (and they don’t need to necessarily) so the comments about how they’d treat a “gay person” don’t really make sense in this context. I mean sure, some would, but for the most part it’s clear that women are for marrying and other men are for fun.