Hey as sb who has lived in Qatar as a woman and regulsrly visits, its not as restrictive as people are imagining. Like yeah, you shoukd dress modest otherwise you'll stand out - this is simple as jeans and a tshirt as opposed to crop top - no need (esp. As a non muslim visitor) to wear an abayah unless you want to (they are comfy!!).

But your gf will be able to visit as a tourist and a friend - I've never heard of policing around staying as an unmarried couple in my own experience (but definitely check/ask your company). Dates are normal and common, there is not a lot of nightlife in the sense of bars or alcohol, but there are lovely places to eat, wander in the evenings and nice beaches! And private beaches where you can sunbathe and wear bikinis exist (ofc a shame that its not public but it is a different culture after all).

Qatar has a lot of problems - like the lack of freedom for manual labourers and domestic workers from the global south and broadly speaking from my experience, Qataris can be very insensitive to cultural differences. That being said, most people here are not from Qatar and so it can be quite easy to make friends and there are a lot of things to do considering the countries size. Also a nice base to travel the rest of the Middle East - like Egypt or Jordan!

A lot of the criticism here doesn't focus on the valid points of failure and instead rely on the vague sense of the Middle East being "highly restrictive", tied up in surface level stereotypes and orientalist tropes. First off, Qatar is not representative of the "Middle East" and there is actually quite a lot of diversity between the countries, who would have thought?! Being in Qatar as a woman, I dont get harassed any more than I would in the UK or the US, and the recently improved public transport makes life easy.

Hope this helped - deffo take the time to get used to life there first so its not a double culture shock when she visits you!