Mediterranean Springs
Prologue
Hello everyone. I am Elias. I was 12 years old at the beginning of this story, and I am going to talk to you a little bit about myself. The first thing is the fact that I was born and I still live in a religious, conservative setting. As a result of that, there were quite some grand differences between my life and the life of the average westerner, you know, stuff like growing up with six siblings for instance. The second thing is religion; religion played a big part of my upbringing. You see, my religion, Islam, preaches morals a lot, and I do not know if that was the case with everybody around that age, but I was obsessed with morals. Nothing felt like being an honest good kid to me. Finally, I am also a little bit obsessed about achievements and competition, especially the academic ones, because that is what I was good at. I can see that you are all picturing me as that snarky kid who goes to catholic school. Honestly, it has been 14 years, so I do not quite remember exactly how I was. Maybe you are right.
I discovered love at 12 years old. I would hear the word in music lyrics, maybe once in while in the censored cartoons that I watched, and the first thing that would come to my mind then is that it was something inappropriate. Still, I never really knew what it was, but it seemed somewhat wrong. It was much worse with sexuality since I only realized its existence when I experienced it firsthand, at 13 years old. Now I might have had an idea about these two subjects if I interacted more with people, yet I purposefully isolated myself from my peers.
Let me talk to you about the other player of this orchestra. This being the girls where I live. Well, girls, you know, are girls. They look good, they smell good, and at the end of the day, you would want to pick one up, proceed to have the time of your lives together and live happily ever after. Although, girls were a different experience for me than what you would picture. Why? You might ask. Well, for instance, the only place where a boy could interact with a girl was school, and by the only place, I mean the only place. You would rarely ever see girls in public places, and if you do, it is for mandatory stuff like shopping or going to the hospital. You see, a boy can interact with a girl at school, but that does not mean that the society regards it as an entirely benign thing. You can do it, but just not too much. As a result, boys and girls normally associated with circles of the same gender. Girls wore a very modest uniform to schools and behaved as innocent and modest as can be. Because, at the end. That is all that matters. Purity.
A girl’s purity is a big deal around here. The highly regarded and sought after model is a virgin girl who had no previous association to a male prior to her marriage, but no one is perfect right? Well, losing virginity is a tier S scandal with serious circumstances so almost nobody goes around there. Male-female friendships and even relationship are much more forgivable though. Yet not entirely. Then again, you cannot put gas and fire together i.e. boys and girls in a mixed environment like a school, then expect nothing to happen. In fact, everything happens, but nobody has to know about that.
This story is about the collection of every romantic instance I have been involved in, all while living in a conservative environment.
I discovered love at 12 years old. I would hear the word in music lyrics, maybe once in while in the censored cartoons that I watched, and the first thing that would come to my mind then is that it was something inappropriate. Still, I never really knew what it was, but it seemed somewhat wrong. It was much worse with sexuality since I only realized its existence when I experienced it firsthand, at 13 years old. Now I might have had an idea about these two subjects if I interacted more with people, yet I purposefully isolated myself from my peers.
Let me talk to you about the other player of this orchestra. This being the girls where I live. Well, girls, you know, are girls. They look good, they smell good, and at the end of the day, you would want to pick one up, proceed to have the time of your lives together and live happily ever after. Although, girls were a different experience for me than what you would picture. Why? You might ask. Well, for instance, the only place where a boy could interact with a girl was school, and by the only place, I mean the only place. You would rarely ever see girls in public places, and if you do, it is for mandatory stuff like shopping or going to the hospital. You see, a boy can interact with a girl at school, but that does not mean that the society regards it as an entirely benign thing. You can do it, but just not too much. As a result, boys and girls normally associated with circles of the same gender. Girls wore a very modest uniform to schools and behaved as innocent and modest as can be. Because, at the end. That is all that matters. Purity.
A girl’s purity is a big deal around here. The highly regarded and sought after model is a virgin girl who had no previous association to a male prior to her marriage, but no one is perfect right? Well, losing virginity is a tier S scandal with serious circumstances so almost nobody goes around there. Male-female friendships and even relationship are much more forgivable though. Yet not entirely. Then again, you cannot put gas and fire together i.e. boys and girls in a mixed environment like a school, then expect nothing to happen. In fact, everything happens, but nobody has to know about that.
This story is about the collection of every romantic instance I have been involved in, all while living in a conservative environment.