Driving update

So, it’s time to give you a bit of an update on my driving lessons. In the fifteen days that I have now been taking lessons I have had eight so far. During these eight lessons I have seen my driving instructor express himself in an impressive range of personalities; from excitable puppy to love struck teenager, from tantrum throwing toddler to sulking hubby and the creepiest of all would have to be borderline stalker.

My first driving lesson was definitely a sign of things to come and by my fourth lesson I had been forced to draft in Adi. It was really only to make sure that the driving instructor understood that I did have a boyfriend and that I was not making it up as he seemed to think. His behaviour carried on the way it had started with his silly attempts to flirt with me asking if he could call me sometimes just as ‘friends only’. Often I have felt a bit like a trophy as every time he has taken me to the driving school he has stopped at an instructor friend of his and introduced me as the ‘beautiful English’ girl (which is not quite true as I am half Chinese too). He will then proceed to say something in Arabic to his friend with both then giving me a good look up and down, then nodding their heads in a manner I am not quite sure how to interpret; confirmation, approval, I don’t know!

I can’t help but feel a bit freaked out by my instructors behaviour, he is particularly good at unnerving me whilst driving on the highway ; he has stopped his in your face distraction techniques opting instead to disturb me by staring at me…silently. I can see him from the corner of my eye just watching me, I had hoped that I had perhaps got it wrong and he was staring at something through the window on my side, but a few times now I have turned my head to check exactly what he is looking at and caught him just staring at me, startled by this I will blush furiously nearly crashing into oncoming traffic! It makes me uncomfortable so much so I can’t control my steering as I start twitching nervously and the car proceeds to swerve from side to side and he then has the cheek to question my control of the car! I think I preferred him to be loud and unbearable which is at least entertaining…the staring is just damned creepy! I have since tried to ignore this keeping my eyes firmly peeled on the road but in doing so he had resorted to letting out long, exaggerated sighs. The other day he accompanied one of these sighs with a cringe worthy admission saying ‘I love this girl, I give her all the driving lesson she wants but she doesn’t love me back…what can I do?’ I ignore such comments pretending I don’t hear them and change the subject by discussing the weather instead.

Unfortunately for my poor stomach, it has got to the point where I seriously start to dread these lessons; I feel nauseous hours in advance, become overly anxious and constantly eat chocolate to calm my nerves. As every lesson approaches, I practically beg Adi to let me cancel. Of course Adi is not happy about my instructors behaviour, there was really no way of me not telling him as he can read my emotions like a book. And of course being the hot-headed maniac he is, he was furious and demanded to speak to him. My instructor may be pleased to know that he is inadvertently disrupted our lives (in a minor way of course) causing frequent arguments between Adi and myself. Adi would like to have a polite word (which means knock him out) and I don’t want him to cause any scene or even worse a fight and subsequently leave me without an instructor. We settled on Adi showing his face at the end of my fourth lesson. It was to be a very casual meeting, as if he caught us on the off chance taking out the rubbish or something. So we put our well orchestrated plan into action at the next agreed opportunity. Sure enough, as I pulled up, Adi strolled by very casually with a black sack of rubbish in his hand, ‘Oh hi…didn’t see you there’ he said, not so casually I might add. I introduced him to my instructor and they had a conversation debating whether I was a good driver or not. The exchange was brief and perhaps a tad awkward but at least my instructor knew I had a real boyfriend now. Adi left us so my instructor could fill out the details for my log book. ‘So who is this man?’ asked my instructor, ‘I just told you…my boyfriend!’. ‘Aaahhhh…a friend who is a boy?’ ‘No….BOYFRIEND!’, ‘Ahhhh…but not your husband!’ and laughed as if he just told the funniest joke in the world. I left the car with him telling me that in Islam a boyfriend means nothing!

Five lessons in and I decided I needed a few days break from my instructor. So I told him I would be busy for the next few days and would call him to arrange my next lesson. With slight protestation he accepted this and gladly the nauseous feeling in my stomach subsided. However, he obviously didn’t except it as the very next day I had received 3 missed calls from him. Not feeling quite in the mood to deal with him, I switched off my phone for the entire weekend (a long weekend of 3 days) and was blissfully happy until I decided to switch it on for god knows what reason. As soon as I switched on, my phone bleeped I had a message, it was from him and in big, stern letters it simply said ‘CALL ME’. The nauseous feeling returned as it seemed he thought it was okay to start invading my personal space with text messages which I didn’t appreciate. I switched off immediately and pondered the remaining days whether I should try to change instructor or not. I decided not (I know you are thinking I should but really it would be the biggest mission ever!)and nervously called him the next morning to arrange a lesson.

He came for me at the arranged time and instead of being greeted with the usual ‘hello, how are you pretty!’ I got a rather angry ‘where have you been for the last 3 days!!?’ It turns out he had been calling me every day about 10 times a day, I didn’t like his tone and I really didn’t like the angry look in his eyes so I lied I had been ill. What a mistake! ‘Oh, what’s wrong!?’ he cooed, ‘Do you want me to look after you? Do you want me to get you some medicine?’ I told him I wanted to drive and managed to divert the conversation to something he seemed to enjoy talking about; Islam. It turns out that my instructor is very religious and goes to Mecca in Saudi Arabia to perform the Hajj every year. This surprised me since his sleazy behaviour would suggest the contrary, and as if he read my mind, he announced that he did however have one weakness; women! You’re kidding I thought to myself! In Islam, according to him, any one man is allowed four wives, he will have his first wife as his lifelong partner and the other three he can make arrangements with to whether they be married for two, three years or whatever. Women are apparently like fruits he told me, you may enjoy an apple every day (ie the lifelong wife) but there will be occasions when you may fancy a banana, an orange or even a pear. Right now, he fancied an orange, a nice-juicy- orange, and then he looked at me and asked me if I understood, ‘errrrmmm…yeah, I guess’. I was scared by the twinkle in his eye, was he really envisioning me as the orange? I did wonder whether this practice still takes place or it was just wishful thinking on his part. I asked Adi about this later on and he told me that it is not very common for a man in Islam to have four wives and it is now considered an out dated practise.

Things have come to a head recently which has resulted in a bit of an argument between my instructor and me. He seems to have a real problem with me cancelling lessons with him and acts like a little boy whenever I do so. Again this weekend, I fancied a break from him as I didn’t want the butterflies in my stomach to put a downer on my only day off. So I cancelled by text apologising that I was busy and I would call to rearrange. I switched off my phone and enjoyed a pleasant Saturday. I called him the next morning and was greeted with a very huffy ‘yes?’ I was my usual, polite self and asked him if he could give me a lesson today ‘No chance! I am busy’ he exclaimed in a tone that made him sound like an evil child. Okay…‘Tomorrow?’, ‘No chance! I am busy’ Okay, so I wasn’t going to humour this adolescent and lose my temper with him, I opted instead to remain calm and asked him politely if he could call me when he next had some time. Two days later and he still hadn’t called, I didn’t want to call but I didn’t want to lose my instructor so now I was the one chasing him! I called him and between gritted teeth asked him when I could have my next lesson ‘I don’t know, I am busy like you!’ he said. Ahhhh, so he was angry with me for cancelling and now he is sulking. Fine…’do I need to change my instructor?’ I asked him. He was not expecting this response and promptly started to protest with no, no, no! He came to pick me up an hour later where it was very obvious he was sulking; he was just sat there with his arms crossed against his chest. The atmosphere between us was awkward and he was very frosty with me when giving instructions. After 10 minutes of a long, uncomfortable silence on the highway, I asked him in a roundabout way what was wrong. ‘Why you want to change your instructor?’ he asked me. Now I had to backtrack and told him that I didn’t but thought I should ask just in case he was too busy to teach me, ‘But you don’t like me anymore’ he simpered, it almost looked like he was going to cry! He looked so crestfallen that I started to feel sorry for him, how did this happen!? I reassured him that of course I liked him trying to be diplomatic by stressing that I liked him teaching me and not him himself. After 5 minutes of me trying to convince him that I was telling the truth, he seemed to except this and we moved on. The lesson came to an end, he signed my book, and I thought we had actually made it to the next level when he didn’t stress how much he was going to miss me. I walked away feeling calmer and less nervous. I got into the lift and was startled when my phone started to ring…it was him, I answered cautiously, ‘Oh I just had to hear your voice one more time!’ exclaimed my instructor. Great, we were back to square one.

And so I am waiting for my ninth lesson after cancelling on him three days ago due to work commitments. He wasn’t happy but duty calls. I have been calling him daily since, every day he says he will call me back, but everyday he doesn’t. It remains to be seen whether I will ever have this promised lesson, I will let you know.