Clique-ety Clack

So I arrived in Doha in 2007 with nothing but the phone number o the GM who employed me. I had a couple of emails of "friends of friends of friends" and nothing else.

I sat in my hotel room that first night and thought, OK, so this is it. I can be pathetic and sit here night after night and eat my way through the really bad room service menu. Or I can get out and find friends.

With that I, alone and wearing a red dress, went to a meeting of the local Australian business group. I knew not a soul in the room and recognized only the Australian accent. At that event, held at the dearly departed Rydges Doha, I met someone who will be a part of my life always. In the ensuing weeks, through other means, I also met two other people who I now also count as among my closest friends. All three people I can (and have) depend upon in tough times and rely on to slap me around when I get Hollywood Style hysterical or when i refuse to leave my flat.

So it was hard work. It went against every only child tendency in my system. And it also amazingly rewarding and sometimes downright scary. Other people I came to meet in my journey, it seems had an easier road. Many people come here, recruited by large companies and organizations with in built social networks of drinks nights, events, parties. I felt slightly envious of them to be honest. No hard work was needed.

One such network I ended up on the periphery of in the first year I was in Doha and frankly found it so cultish in their desire to live, work and so it seems sleep with each other, I thankfully retreated to safer and less incestuous pastures.

I am a trained observer and I have seen and met many types of people at work in Doha. It's a small place. The expat population is even smaller. It's like a microcosm of any large city, just richer and dustier.

Four years here has led me to identify several species in their unnatural habitat:

CHRONIC NETWORKER: This person networks for the sake of networking. Attending event after event and "working the room" for no apparent tangible benefit other than perhaps a free drink and a handful of business cards of people who may or may not remember them.

SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTER/SOCIAL CLIMBER: We all know them. We may even be one. Those folks in everything (magazines, bars, your personal space) but a bath all seeking to further their careers or maybe not even their careers. Big fish in a small pond.

WAITY KATIE: This is the "friend" who can't commit and says they "will play it by ear" meaning "I'll hedge until something better comes along". Terrible disease very prevalent in Doha.

PARTY HEARTY: Every hour past 6pm is "happy hour". These folks are fun fun fun. Often seen holding up the bar at Admirals. Please don't call before 12pm on a Saturday though.

THE GROUPER: Seen only in a large group of people at any given time. This group must only be made up of people from their workplace because they are the coolest, hippest most connected and with it folks ever. Also, how else can you get the discount?

THE DORY: Catch this person for five seconds, because that's all you have before they move onto someone else. Always scanning the room for fresh prey.

EMBASSY SWEETS: These are those in the large diplomatic corps in this country as well as the ecosystem that has developed around them. Lovely people. Well traveled. Amazing parties. Can get pork.

THE EXPAT EXPAT: Anyone you know, they've known longer. Speak Arabic? They speak it fluently with a Qatari accent. Oh, and they also tend to get shouty with the "help" and remember when you could get a villa for QR2000 a month.

Where do I fit into this analysis? Let's be honest, any expat can see a little of themselves in every one of these groups. However, I maintain the right to judge.

Worrier Princess

Here's the opening of a blog post you probably wouldn't expect.

So I am reading Rob Lowe's autobiography...Stories I Only Tell My Friends...(OK i was a huge fan of St Elmo's Fire and West Wing...so shoot me) and in it he talks about how all his life he has had a vague sense that something could go wrong any minute.

He describes it as a feeling he has, most of the time and can sometimes be all consuming.

It's not often I identify with a celebrity (except for Lady Gaga, the similarities clearly obvious), but here is where rob and I were clearly destined to be as one.

Since childhood, I have lived with this gray shadow, that something, inexplicably will go wrong at any moment. Not big things like nuclear war (I am a child of the 1980s, thanks Mr. Regan) or natural disaster. But small things...everyday things.

When I was a teenager we had a beautiful Tricolour Collie dog called Sam. He was Lassie reborn, all sleek long hair and aquiline nose. But he'd also had a tough life and he was a rescue dog. As a result poor Sam was a worrier. He would pace up and down our back yard. My father always said that poor Sam would wring his little paws if he could.

I am the same. I always thought it was an only child trait. Rob Lowe assures me that it isn't.

I had a blissful childhood with stable and loving parents and extended family. I was good in school and had an active social life. Yet, I worried that things would go wrong.

On most days I get a small, slightly odd feeling deep in my belly (it's not the dodgy shwarma) that something is amiss.

As a writer and communications professional, every time I hit send on an email with an attachment I worry they will hate it.

Today I worry even more.

What if I lost my job (err actually i did...twice...but still)? What if a client hated my work? What if my exit permit doesn't work (actually, this is a fair point of concern for anyone living in Qatar).What if I lost everything and died poor and in bad shoes?

Yes, as one of the dearest people in my life tells me daily, I know this is irrational. I know this is wasted energy. I know this is almost certainly the reason why I only sleep five hours a night.

This is what I do, it's ingrained in my DNA.

But the question I have, if I worry so much and it takes up so much energy, why am I not a size 8?

Something new to worry about!