My first marriage proposition.

I experienced my first marriage proposition on Thursday. Part of the long process to get a resident permit includes fingerprinting. So, like the interesting field trip to the Qatar Medical Commission a couple days earlier, several of us Education City newbies took a field trip to the fingerprinting place. I experienced here yet another lesson in classism. I was considered a 'VIP' and thus was taken to a large room with AC, clean bathroom, more than enough staff, high tech technology (no ink), etc. The process took all of us only minutes to complete. Anyway, back to the marriage proposition. I was the last person in my group to go. The fingerprinting police officer dude took my papers, we made some small talk ("Hi, how are you?" blah blah blah), and all seemed normal. Then he asked me if I was married. This is a rather frequent question here and thus I now do not think much of it. However, after I told him I was not married he told me (in a very low voice and so I could barely hear him) about his wish to move to America and how he believes he can only move to America if he marries an American girl. I wished him the best luck with that thinking he was just making more small talk (really, what do you say???). He then stopped taking my fingerprints for a hot second, looked at me and said, "What do you think?" I smiled and sort of laughed back and told him, "No, I do not think so." So he went back to taking my prints, but within 10 seconds he asked me if I had any friends in America (never the U.S. or United States, but America) that would marry him. And I gave him more sort of laughing 'dude, not gonna happen' answers (I did not want to be flat out mean to a government dude). Thoughout this experience, again all while he was taking my fingerprints, I thought he was sort of joking and/or having fun. But at the very end he took out a piece of paper and asked for my phone number! I told him I did not have a phone number (which is basically true right now). But this did not deter him. He figured he would just give me his number. I had to put a stop to the madness at this point and told I was not going to help him in his pursuit to marry an American girl (but good luck!). Thankfully, he obliged. The whole thing gave me a good laugh (along with the other EC newbies, all senior staff at Northwestern, in the van). I am getting used to the stares from people and have been told about the various propositions and such I will likely receive, but this was my first blatant one here and I frankly did not expect it to come from a government official. But it was quite the way to start a day!