How We Met: #Instagram
- Hannah
- Sep 18, 2016
- 2 min read
When you imagine or dream of your future husband or wife, most of us have an idea in our mind as to how he/she will be. In my case, I imagined more of the personality traits that characterized my love more than anything else. Realistically, I assumed my future husband would be close by in my city or maybe in my state. I was incorrect.
A friend of mine went on a work trip as a photographer through Rustic Pathways to Morocco to introduce traveling and life abroad to a group of American high school students. I was very proud of her for taking on such a huge role and life experience.
I perused her Instagram feed as I usually did to see her photos of her travels, and I saw a photo of myself from a recent time we spent together. To amuse myself, embarrassingly and a bit narcissistically, I looked at the Instagram users of who “liked” this portrait of myself. I found a boy, or “Instagram user” with an Arabic name. I was intrigued.
I somewhat quickly found myself at this “Arabic-name-boy’s” Instagram feed. I first saw he was very attractive and then I saw that he was indeed Moroccan. I scrolled through his photos and decided in my mind to speak to him. I always wanted a foreign pen pal and I wanted to one day make a visit myself to Morocco.
It was around 9pm in Indiana and at this point, I didn’t put two and two together that Morocco was 5 hours ahead, so I thought to myself, “What do I have to lose?” He’ll be awake.” I suavely sent a quick Instagram DM (direct message) to his account, which read, “Hi there! My friend worked in Morocco this summer for two months and I’ve been wanting to visit since. Are you living there now?”
He didn’t respond. Not until the next day that is!
I woke up to a notification from Instagram and I fought through the morning fog and remembered “Arabic-name-boy.” His message read, “Hi, good morning. Yes, I live here now in Tetouan city.”
This conversation, unexpectedly, lead us to migrate to WhatsApp, which lead us to Facebook, which lead us to an international friendship that became very special to me.
Our conversations were daily and we learned so much from each other. I never knew so much about the religion of Islam and I felt very enlightened and refreshed from what the American media portrays. The more we spoke the more I couldn’t wait to book a ticket to Morocco.
Save
Comments