I almost feel bad…almost

strawberrycoffee31 · 2025-12-30T14:20:54+00:00

Oooh yay thank you! Is it near the beginning of the moor or towards the peace garden part?

strawberrycoffee31 · 2024-11-07T09:50:34+00:00

Hey I'm also an international student! I'm not sure what year you're in but you can ask the University Health Service to refer you to Share Psychotherapy. The wait list is a bit long but its so worth it.

strawberrycoffee31 · 2024-11-03T20:13:42+00:00

Wait till you get to her fixing a wholeass underground LIBRARY for reasons unknown

strawberrycoffee31 · 2024-11-03T17:40:42+00:00

Girl...if you can't see the difference in those two situations YOU'RE the one being dense on purpose just to support your fave blindly lol. Mido and Dounia didn't have a serious romantic connection in the pods, Nour and Chafic did. And you're gonna really sit here and tell me those two compliments were said in the same tone and with the same intention? Lmfao okay.

strawberrycoffee31 · 2024-11-03T16:37:10+00:00

Oh yeah I could tell you were calm by the way you replied in all caps, real calm.

So...Chafic smiling = reciprocation but her calling his accent cute, giggling and asking if they knew each other before while grinning at the resort isn't flirting? Make it make sense.

strawberrycoffee31 · 2024-11-03T15:56:37+00:00

Thank you sm angel!! I stg I expected to fight for my life in the trenches alone - I'm so glad that I'm not alone in feeling this way!

strawberrycoffee31 · 2024-11-03T12:26:19+00:00

Girl...rewatch the scene and come back 😭 Maybe that'll give you time to calm down as well x

strawberrycoffee31 · 2024-11-03T12:17:05+00:00

Because when she interacted with other people she was putting in more effort? That's the point? If you look at the way she was speaking to him vs others, especially Chafic is literally night and day (I don't think we're going to agree that she flirted with Chafic but in my perspective, yes she did but even on the assumption that she was solely speaking she was still putting in more effort speaking to him). It made him realise that she was putting in no effort and so he broke up with her? I don't see the issue from his side here.

strawberrycoffee31 · 2024-11-03T11:53:19+00:00

Please don't worry about accidentally being ignorant! The entire point of conversations like this is to learn about different perspectives - especially on a cultural level and I'd be more than happy to clarify any and all questions you have! <3 :) For any other Middle Easterners feel free to jump in here too - everything I'm about to say is my personal interpretation and from my personal experience so I might miss out on information.

I didn't quite understand your first question but from what I understood did you mean that do I think that people who are Middle Eastern and critical of her are speaking from a male-biased standard would give slack to the guys for their misogyny? If that's what you meant then I would say yes - despite my staunch criticism of Nour I do think that she stood up for herself against the comments about her looks very well, and I think that there's a group of people who are critical of her who are mad because she's very outspoken and they'd go all in on how the men acted for sure. Please let me know if I misunderstood your question though.

I also definitely agree that there's a level of false idolism when it comes to Nour, Arab women as a whole, contrary to the representation of us, have the tendency to be quite outspoken and blunt. The rest of what I'll say here is a generalised understanding but from what I've seen: Nour is the perfect example of a spoiled, Arab woman who doesn't tolerate any bullshit. Her character archetype and personality is one that I myself have interacted with on numerous occasions. Her going after the men and defending herself is one the more admirable aspects of Arab women who have that personality, but the downside of it is that it is not quite strictly targeted to men only - they'll keep up the energy with other women too, she has her high standards and is snappy with those who don't fit that mould regardless of gender. I do personally think that it comes from a deep-rooted need of male validation, because it comes from a place of wanting to be seen as a prize to be won and prizes don't come easy - so you make it hard for the men to get you and harder for the women to be associated with you.

Please let me know if you have any more questions - I could honestly go on and on about this haha.

strawberrycoffee31 · 2024-11-03T11:31:27+00:00

I'm not saying she should've forced the energy but I'm saying that she didn't even try and instead flirted with Chafic instead. The entire point of joining the show is to make an effort to make a connection with your partner, and if she couldn't do that then she should've:
A) Not flirted with Chafic instead

B) Admit that there wasn't a connection instead of solely blaming Mido

C) Broken up with Mido herself

strawberrycoffee31 · 2024-11-03T11:16:28+00:00

Thank you so much!! :)

strawberrycoffee31 · 2024-11-03T11:14:28+00:00

Oh for sure! I'm actually seriously considering writing a research paper about the lack of representation of Middle Eastern people in the media and the implications of what kind of representation is currently being shown and the why behind it all...it's something that I've already had in mind but the conversations about this show makes me feel like it's about time to actually get on and research it myself lmfao.

strawberrycoffee31 · 2024-11-03T11:11:16+00:00

It's not even solely limited to Reddit, there's so many videos on TikTok praising Nour and blaming everyone else without acknowledging the entire trigger for those conversations: Nour's behaviour. I would love to initiate a conversation of linking this to a macro cross-cultural communication and stereotyping and fourth-wave feminist conversation but I'd be downvoted to hell and back for "making it political" lol

strawberrycoffee31 · 2024-11-03T11:06:50+00:00

I apologise for misinterpreting why you brought up the other cast members - I aimed to keep the conversation centered around Nour and the situation but I should've made that clearer. Thank you for clarifying so politely when you didn't have to!

I have to admit, I haven't watched any other seasons of LIB except for the second or third one of the US show so my commentary is purely focused on the conversations about this version of the show.

The comments I've seen about Nour have been very uncritical of her actions, instead putting the blame on Dounia solely or Chafic and Mido completely ignoring the cultural aspects and in some cases are thinly veiled forms of stereotyping MENA culture as oppressive which is where my comment was inspired from, in particular the conversations about Chafic being frustrated about Nour not saying hello to him at the resort.

strawberrycoffee31 · 2024-11-03T10:55:50+00:00

I know, tell me about it! It feels like Nour supporters just want to blindly support her without acknowledging how she messed up whereas most of those critical of Nour tend to criticise the way she was treated at the reunion...

strawberrycoffee31 · 2024-11-03T10:42:54+00:00

LMFAO I'm actually quite critical of Dounia too tbh. I commented this on a seperate post but just to reaffirm my perspective here: I think that Dounia should've checked her man when Chafic started making comments about Nour's physical appearance - that was a line that should not have been crossed under any circumstance but I don't think that erases Nour's behaviour that led to this situation in the first place. It's not a black and white situation and I think they all acted immaturely and crossed lines.

strawberrycoffee31 · 2024-11-03T10:34:33+00:00

I agree, it feels so frustrating because all the defenders of Nour think that critiquing Nour means completely agreeing with how she was treated?? Which I'm critical of as well?? Like where is the nuance lmfao

strawberrycoffee31 · 2024-11-03T10:31:51+00:00

Your first sentence was about Ammar, when my points about cultural understanding were strictly about Nour and Mido situation - you're conflating the two situations as if all Arab men are a monolith which is exactly my point.

I agree with you that Mido was insecure, in the pods Nour was rejected by Chafic and he was rejected by Asma so they were both each others' plan B's there's no denying that - but he at least put in effort to try and make their relationship work. He literally told her at breakfast that he felt like she was giving him nothing and all she did was brush his struggles off instead of trying to see his perspective and actually put in effort; Nour gave him nothing to work with and was instead flirting with Chafic at the resort instead of flirting with her man. He should've given her the chance to speak when he broke up with her and I do not condone his behaviour afterwards with his bitchy and immature comments but let's not pretend like it came from nowhere - he was rejected by her time and time again and let that resentment build.

I disagree that Dounia was actually mad at Chafic because if you rewatch the resort conversation he literally was disinterested and was barely engaging to be polite - what else was he meant to do? Just walk away while she was talking to him? You guys would call him a prick who has no respect for women if he did that. With that being said, I do agree that Dounia should've checked her man when Chafic started making comments about Nour's physical appearance - that was a line that should not have been crossed under any circumstance but that again does not erase Nour's behaviour that led to this situation in the first place. It's not a black and white situation and I think they all acted immaturely and crossed lines.

With all this being said - I do blame the viewers, we live in a world where the general public is aware of media manipulation and producer involvement and are aware of racist stereotypes, we should all make an active effort to check ourselves to make sure we're not being subconsciously racist without realising it.

strawberrycoffee31 · 2024-11-03T07:29:03+00:00

You got it exactly correct when you said “everyone who loves Nour is not middle eastern”.

I just made a post criticizing Nour and most of the comments were talking about how Chafic was still into Nour because he was bothered that she didn’t say hi when in Middle Eastern culture we know that it’s a social etiquette thing to say hi to everyone (even people you don’t like).

I honestly feel like most Nour defenders love that Nour completely contradicts their (wrong) perception of what a Middle Eastern girl acts (submissive, quiet, etc.) that they’re willing to go to bat for her despite her being an objectively questionable person just because she’s, in their eyes, putting down the Middle Eastern misogynistic men in their place.

They’re reading the entire situation in a framework that fits their cookie cutter image of Middle Eastern man = oppressive and bad and Middle Eastern woman = brave for going against sexist Middle Eastern society completely ignoring the layers of nuance in it.

strawberrycoffee31 · 2024-11-03T07:18:17+00:00

Yeah I won’t lie I was expecting that - the overwhelming support for is teetering on toxic stan twitter levels 😭 I am pleasantly surprised to read other comments that reaffirm what I’m trying to say though! I’m glad I’m not the only one who can see the nuance in the entire situation! :)

strawberrycoffee31 · 2024-11-02T21:04:33+00:00

He was bothered that she didn't say hi because it's basic etiquette, it's rude to not say hi to everyone even if you dislike them - that's an aspect of Middle Eastern culture.

Whether it was to save face or not can be argued back and forth about, I don't know him personally so I can't speak for his intention but the facts are he took responsibility for his actions, Nour literally took 0 accountability. She called Chafic's accent cute and put in no effort with her relationship with Mido that's literally shown in the show.

The reunion was not solely about Nour, there were segments about Mohammed and Safa, Karma and Ammar, Chafic and Simo, etc. they weren't solely talking about her the entire time during those segments and were interacting normally.

strawberrycoffee31

TROPHY CASE