I was not sure if it were appropriate to say so much ininvitedly. I will definitely visit your blog more often, I sometimes check it every day, sometimes forget for weeks. I’m a mess! Reading the other more recent posts after commenting here I realized your situation actually is more complicated, and you too. But in a good way. I got insecure on what I’d written. So I am glad it did fit to say these things at least in some aspects.

That’s the sweetest comment anyone spent time writing on my site, like ever! So cute. Thanks for the words of wisdom. I really enjoyed reading them and I really don’t know what to say. I do agree with you, but if you have been reading my site, I am depressed in a weird secluded way from people. Why I chose that path or ended up in that path, no clue. But that’s my life I guess. I will one day snap out of it. Really.

As for the paragraph before last that you wrote, about Arabs in Europe, Arabs in Canada are the same. It has become a trend here in Canada for Arabs to only marry someone from back home. They prefer it because the guy and his family don’t want to deal with Arab girls here in Canada. They think we are bad or are too much to handle. So they end up bringing someone who is below the age of 20, doesn’t speak English, because Arab men would rather “raise her under their hands,” as they say in Arabic.

Anyways… again thanks for your encouraging words, but it will take time. I just have to snap out of my mood. Again, thanks, and I hope you will always visit my site and give me your encouraging words of wisdom.

Hmm I can relate to you because I do not know at this point what I want to do with my life, professionally, either.
I quit my job at university (which wasn’t amazingly paid either ) for doing my doctorate. Not progressing since about the time you started your job search I believe!

So I can feel you.
My advice, professionally, would be: Read a lot on job related things. Weekly journals on socio-economic and political stuff might be a source. do not stop where you normally would (like maybe global politics or literature or whatever), but search for the job stories. The job market. Science. Innvations etc.
Maybe the feuilleton if you think you might want to be a writer.
Do not limit yourself, but do not waste time. Try to find your “self”, the job you might want to do for 6 months, not for the rest of your life. One of the few top manager females in the country I live in, who I interviewed for a student newspaper, said her advice to me would be to dare try out things. To not think the job I take now is for the rest of my life.
You do sound depressed – my advice is pull yourself out of it (notice: no “try to pull yourself out” ). Maybe you are already doing so, and I misjudge you.
If not: Take your time, but DO something with your time. Read whatever you consider potentially more beneficial than not beneficial in telling you what to do with your time. Maybe the career part of a weekend newspaper edition, or whatever day of the week these appear in Canadian newspapers.

Speaking of self-employed:
Why not? Find your niche. You’re creative? Approach theatres, performing troupes, artists in music or other domains and develop concepts in catering to their needs the mainstream IT consultant or web designer would not specifically adress.
Think of what you like to do and if you want to be self employed and creative for the months to come, find a niche.
And then pursue it. It does not pay off immediately, and the first months are tough. But it can be very rewarding. I have friends who specialized in jazz labels and newspapers and their sites. They were not IT specialists, but musicians (unemployed starving musicians in Paris). They taught themselves the necessary IT stuff in a couple of months and are pretty successful (and not starving) in their niche.

Regarding happiness and love life:
I can only tell you my story.
If you find what I say offensive or not interesting to you, I apologize.
You said you were not going out.
I did go out as a young adult. I went on holidays with my girl friends. My parents fervently opposed it, as you can imagine. They were understanding enough they had to trust me. I met my husband on the vacation, he was there with friends too. When we went to study in a different city (coincidentally the same one), we went out and spent time together to get to know each other. At first it was not official, and we were very afraid to tell both of our parents.
We are now together for 10 years. We met a bit more than 10 years ago and are married only for 6 years. No kids yet
What I want to say:
In my very personal opinion, the man from our culture a girl who wants to work and is self-determined and maybe a bit assertive and critical at mind and free-thinking would want is the kind of guy you’ll most likely meet outside. It s not that you have to go to foggy, smoke and alcohol cluttered clubs. (I tried it out but did not like most of them.)
There are other ways of going out and getting to know a guy that even some hijabi friends of mine have used in finding a partner (or finding out a guy who looked like a good fit at first really wasn’t). Going to a café with friends from university, hearing a concert..
I could not be with a guy who thinks a girl who’s out with friends to a nice café or Arabic restaurant at midnight is not a good choice. Most of us more self-determined ones could NOT live with such a guy, anyway.
Let me tell you about my smaller sis. She let my parents talk her out of going on vacations with friends, of going out etc. The guy she almost married, not knowing him well, was a disaster. Now she’s VERY unhappy, which breaks my heart.
But I must say she knows and sees how I found happiness. It was harder for me being the oldest child. It would be in her hands and courage to pursue this way for herself, if she wanted it.
I can say I am happier than I ever thought I would be, and the day, God forbid, something happened to the man I adore I could not know how to go on living.
Our parents might have been worried about our running around too much – in the end their trust was deserved and we found the ideal our culture normally should have. A very good marriage, and that at an earlier age than many of the people sitting at home being unhappy. And unwed And not in love!
Oh of course we finished our degrees, very important in this culture isn’t it?
So what is worse I ask you: being out on the search for someone, or maybe on the search for yourself, and finding the significant other on the path. Or take a risk with a marriage, end up in divorce and unhappiness with unfortunate children. I do not know about Canada, but here in Europe Arab marriages are not as stable as the elder people would want them to be. The stable ones are those where the bride is imported, does not speak the language of her new home country, and is awfully dependent. Now that is an achievement keeping this marriage together! (Or rather keeping HER together.) The other ones, arranged or free-willed, where the bride and groom were not so free in getting to know each other often do not approach the 10 year mark my partner and I have reached. So what is worse?

So my maybe brutally honest advice, take it or not:
Be the master of your fate. Professionally and personally.
With much love,
Dina