Interreligion Dating: Dating A Muslim

People always talk about the difficulties of interracial dating. I’m not particularly well-experienced in that aspect since the only non-Filipino guy that I’ve dated was this one Chinese guy and that story didn’t last long enough for it to be worth discussing. The rest of the guys were pure Filipinos.

So instead, I’m going to talk about something close to my heart instead: Interreligion dating.

I’m a Roman Catholic. Both of my parents are Roman Catholic. As such, my parents expect me to end up with a Roman Catholic. Unfortunately, we live in a city where Muslims comprise about half of the population. It is no surprise therefore that even if my parents may forbid it, their daughter was bound to date a few Muslims along the way.

As of to date, I think I’ve dated about four Muslim guys. Lacoste has become one of my closest “best-est” friends, I haven’t seen Bare-naked in a long time but we have exchanged messages with each other a few months ago, I have been hiding from and thankfully managed to avoid Lasa by changing my new number and I’m still seeing TFO regularly.

Excluding all the traditions and activities that their religion requires them to fulfill, dating a Muslim isn’t really any different from dating someone of the Catholic faith. After dating two Muslim guys for quite some time (of course, not at the same time! Heller!), I used to think that Muslim guys are not into smart independent women since they are brought up to prefer women who are docile, homely and submissive. I used to think that maybe their conservative upbringing had something to do with why they aren’t as sweet and affectionate in public as they are in private. This had something to do with the fact that during those dating periods, I was missing being hugged by a guy while in a huge crowd, being kissed on the lips upon seeing me arrive, holding hands with me or slinging his arms around my shoulder as we walked together. I lived for that kind of affection and somehow, both of these guys just weren’t dishing it.

And then I met another Muslim guy who proved me wrong by giving me all of that and more.

Suffice it to say, the stereotype was viciously thrown out of the window and forgotten.

So it turns out, they are just like any other Roman Catholic boy I’ve ever dated. Some can be a little too conservative making me promise that I don’t get too drunk when I tell them I’m out drinking with some friends. Some can be just as naughty and mischievous as any hot-blooded male. Some can be too lenient that even if I’m dating someone else already, will continually bug me about meeting up with him. Some can be pretty jealous but will refuse to show it until I wonder why the hell he’s not replying to my text messages anymore.

Sure, they have to pray at least five times a day. But isn’t that considered a good thing since there’s no such thing as too much praying, right? And sure, we can’t exactly spend time with each other for an entire month because of the Ramadan, except for maybe, a smile and a wave from afar. But that’s what text messaging is there for anyway. And sure, they can’t eat pork. Well, pork has chockfuls of fat anyway.

A crazy story. I was dating this Muslim guy whom I haven’t seen for quite some time. When we finally did, we decided to have lunch at Jolibee, my treat. After a few minutes of deliberating what to order, since I love mushrooms, I decided to order their “Crispy Bacon Mushroom,” completely forgetting that he couldn’t eat pork and he would of course have to kiss me a lot – pork breath and all. I was quite embarrassed when he leaned close to my ear and told me to change my order because it has pork. I was so ashamed of myself and I worried that I might have offended him… Well, you can’t blame me really. I’ve been mostly around Roman Catholics all my life and it was the first time that I had to do the ordering during a date with a Muslim guy… Still, I felt so darn insensitive and wished that the earth would just open and just swallow me up. Thankfully, he was pretty cool about it and didn’t make the whole thing into such a big deal.

So, dating someone from a different religion shouldn’t be turned into such a circus. They’re just like any other person you’ll date, except that there are certain things that the two of you can’t do together like go to church every Sunday or enjoy pork barbeque at Boulevard. Even if my parents may forbid me to date outside my religion, I personally don’t put religion as something extremely high up in my list of qualifications. Marriage, on the other hand, now that’s another story. I’m not putting a total X in that box since I believe that love cannot stand against religion. If someday I would have to convert my faith to Islam and say goodbye forever to wearing short skirts and eating pork just to be with the man who turns out to be the love of my life, then, I probably would.

I figured, I’ll still be worshiping the same God, He just has a different name.

Still, if I had a choice, I would still prefer to marry a Roman Catholic such as myself, if only to make my parents less disappointed with me.