It was my last night in Iran and as I made myself comfortable in his arms, my eyes were wide open and my brain raced as I recounted all the summer trips to Iran that I had made and all the ‘last nights’ I had experienced. I turned to him; the tears in his eyes made them look even more beautiful than the first time I saw them. He pulled me in closely and in his broken English asked for me to stay. He loved me, he promised he did, and in that moment I felt my throat closing up and my eyes filling up with water ready to burst when instead I buried my head into his arms. I wanted to be in a relationship- I wanted to move back to Iran, pick one culture, pick him, and finally settle down.
My family and I migrated to the states when I was six years old and every summer since, we’ve spent the entirety of our summer vacation in Tehran. As one could imagine, the older I grew the more I became accustomed to their system of doing things-which I must add was entirely different than what I was used to. I was 16 years old when I had my first of many summer loves in Iran. A BMW filled with three guys stopped in the middle of the street and asked my cousin and I to hop in and go for a ride. As someone who’s grown up in LA, I was not only frightened but confused as to how girls in Iran could ever find this romantic. Before I could figure out an answer to my own question, my cousin hopped in the car and pulled me in with her. The entire car ride I envisioned the end of the day playing out like a scene from Law and Order or Criminal Minds where I would end up dead on the side of the freeway.
Fast forward 5 years and 100 something cars later when I met him. I spent the entirety of the summer sightseeing the most romantic places in Tehran with him. We went everywhere from the infamous Borje Milad, one of the biggest towers in Tehran, to the North of Iran where we spent a secretive 3 days together. I guess what intrigued my American side was the fact that dating in Iran simply wasn’t allowed. Fear overtook my body at the thought of spending a night in jail if we were caught holding hands or kissing; but at the same time it was this very same fear that pulled me in closer. Fear can do that to you sometimes, it can make you feel alive. As the summer came to a close I had already prepared myself for the goodbye that was awaiting us but this time…this time it felt different.
As someone whose been raised in two different cultures, I found myself at times conflicted as to whether I was more Iranian or American and in accordance what my values were. The sound of his I Love You’s lingered in my head the entire 24 hour trip until I reached LA. We had decided to give it a chance, try long distance, and see where it would go. As much as I want to be in a relationship with him I struggle with the idea that we will never be able to talk about childhood memories because we grew up in two different worlds. Who could I talk to about how ridiculous Barney was? How the Wiggles were probably the most annoying group of guys with the dopest songs, or how Disney Channel had the best movies. It begs the question: how much do we value the past? Is love dependent on how closely our past emulated one another or is it about the present. The truth of the matter is it’s both. Our past is fluid, it seeps into the cracks of our present and as much as we want to fight it, it determines who we are today.
Needless to say, our love story ended the moment I came back to LA. He had fallen in love with the girl in Iran and not the American girl who had seen and experienced a world that was all too foreign to him. I tried to date, to find someone else so that maybe it would hurt less but what would the point be? Just like Mohammad they would only fall in love with half of me and never understand the other half.
No one ever really tells you that as an immigrant you’re never really going to feel at ease in one place. You’re going to love the country you migrated from and the country you migrated to, and if you’re anything like me where you’re extremely in tune with both cultures, dating will never be easy. You will find yourself constantly fighting an internal battle as to which culture you’re going to let dominate you more than the other and it is because of this conflict that you either learn to settle or wish you were never an immigrant to begin with.
My family and I migrated to the states when I was six years old and every summer since, we’ve spent the entirety of our summer vacation in Tehran. As one could imagine, the older I grew the more I became accustomed to their system of doing things-which I must add was entirely different than what I was used to. I was 16 years old when I had my first of many summer loves in Iran. A BMW filled with three guys stopped in the middle of the street and asked my cousin and I to hop in and go for a ride. As someone who’s grown up in LA, I was not only frightened but confused as to how girls in Iran could ever find this romantic. Before I could figure out an answer to my own question, my cousin hopped in the car and pulled me in with her. The entire car ride I envisioned the end of the day playing out like a scene from Law and Order or Criminal Minds where I would end up dead on the side of the freeway.
Fast forward 5 years and 100 something cars later when I met him. I spent the entirety of the summer sightseeing the most romantic places in Tehran with him. We went everywhere from the infamous Borje Milad, one of the biggest towers in Tehran, to the North of Iran where we spent a secretive 3 days together. I guess what intrigued my American side was the fact that dating in Iran simply wasn’t allowed. Fear overtook my body at the thought of spending a night in jail if we were caught holding hands or kissing; but at the same time it was this very same fear that pulled me in closer. Fear can do that to you sometimes, it can make you feel alive. As the summer came to a close I had already prepared myself for the goodbye that was awaiting us but this time…this time it felt different.
As someone whose been raised in two different cultures, I found myself at times conflicted as to whether I was more Iranian or American and in accordance what my values were. The sound of his I Love You’s lingered in my head the entire 24 hour trip until I reached LA. We had decided to give it a chance, try long distance, and see where it would go. As much as I want to be in a relationship with him I struggle with the idea that we will never be able to talk about childhood memories because we grew up in two different worlds. Who could I talk to about how ridiculous Barney was? How the Wiggles were probably the most annoying group of guys with the dopest songs, or how Disney Channel had the best movies. It begs the question: how much do we value the past? Is love dependent on how closely our past emulated one another or is it about the present. The truth of the matter is it’s both. Our past is fluid, it seeps into the cracks of our present and as much as we want to fight it, it determines who we are today.
Needless to say, our love story ended the moment I came back to LA. He had fallen in love with the girl in Iran and not the American girl who had seen and experienced a world that was all too foreign to him. I tried to date, to find someone else so that maybe it would hurt less but what would the point be? Just like Mohammad they would only fall in love with half of me and never understand the other half.
No one ever really tells you that as an immigrant you’re never really going to feel at ease in one place. You’re going to love the country you migrated from and the country you migrated to, and if you’re anything like me where you’re extremely in tune with both cultures, dating will never be easy. You will find yourself constantly fighting an internal battle as to which culture you’re going to let dominate you more than the other and it is because of this conflict that you either learn to settle or wish you were never an immigrant to begin with.