“I have fourteen brothers and eleven sisters. My father has four wives. I once asked him, ‘Dad, which one do you love more? Certainly you have one that is special to you.’ He said, ‘No, I love all of them.’ But I don’t think anyone can have a hotel heart, splitting it between four wives.

In our country you cannot talk to girls. You cannot study with girls. You cannot date girls. It’s freaking hard for me as a Saudi guy. How do you want me to marry someone I’ve never met?

There was one guy, when I came back to Saudi Arabia from the United States, that said, ‘Oh, dude, I’m going to take you to a restaurant.’ I said, ‘Okay, let’s do it.’ We got to the place and I found out it was kind of a new one. Girls and boys all go to that place and chat. At the time it was Christmas, the 25th. On Christmas in Saudi Arabia all the police go outside because they don’t want anyone to celebrate. So there was a police car and I took a picture of it. I was just chatting on Snapchat and sent it to my friends. A girl came up to me, ‘Hey there, how are you doing? Give me your Snapchat. I’m going to chat with you.’ I was fine with that. It’s not a problem to ask for my Snapchat. When she took it and left, all the sudden a police guy came up to me. He said, ‘You! Come over here! Give me your ID.’ I said, ‘Okay, what’d I do?’ ‘Shut up! Hurry up! Give me your ID!’ So I handed him my ID. It was a Utah license and he didn’t speak English at all. He looked at it, ‘This is not the ID I’m looking for. Where’s your Saudi ID?’ ‘I don’t have it. I just came from the United States.This is the only one I have. And this my name, you can search it on your laptop in your car.’ ‘I don’t have a laptop in my car,’ he said. ‘You are a police,’ I said ‘you don’t have a laptop in your car? How do you look up people’s background?’ ‘Oh we don’t do that.’ he said, ‘We take you and we go to our place and we’ll put you in the jail for 24 hours. During the 24 hours we’ll be searching about you.’ ‘Well, okay,’ I thought, ‘I’m going to be having a special day.’ I wasn’t mad. I just wanted to know what he was taking me for. I had talked to the girl so I thought it was for that. But it turned out he just thought I was celebrating Christmas.

Later I talked to the guy in charge at the police station and he said, ‘Oh yeah actually we got you because you were talking to the girl.’ ‘Well actually the girl came up to me.’ I said, ‘Are you guys not taking the girl?’ ‘No because she is a girl so we won’t take her. And when she came up to you and asked for your Snapchat, you should have said no and not given it to her.’ ‘But this is my Snapchat, not a public Snapchat for all Saudis,’ I said. They kept me there in jail for 24 hours for no reason. They made me sign a paper saying I would not repeat it. I’ll probably repeat it. I just wanted to get out.”