To Muhammed

You were my friend. It is too bad that someone decided that they should “warn you” about my past and possible intentions. My only interest in you was exactly as I represented. If you consider our conversations you may recall that I never once attempted to probe your sexual preferences, or attempted to steer the discussion toward your sexual exploits. In fact, we never talked about sex at all, not even by implication, that I can remember. I enjoyed your company because of your unique and unusual experiences as a foriegner in America. Your youth and good looks never even occurred to me as a motive for knowing you. At least, not until the day you suddenly and without explaination, returned the laptop I had loaned to you for professor Slater's research project. When you did that it dawned on me that someone had told you about my past. And judging by the extremely uncharacteristic cold shoulder that I got from you when we met in the IACC for you to hand over the laptop, I could tell that they must have convinced you that my interest in you was not purely academic. That's too bad. They not only deprived you of the use of a laptop for school, but a genuine friend as well. I was seriously considering just letting you have the laptop, because I never used it anyway and did not need the money I could have gotten from selling it. I think about this incident with that laptop often. It was very typical of the kind of rejection I could expect for the rest of my life because of other people's fear and unwillingness to even attempt to understand. You gave me no chance to defend our friendship. You just dumped the laptop off and left, not even answering my inquiries as to your well being (at first I thought maybe you were in trouble for some reason, I could not otherwise understand why you were giving up a perfectly good computer). I can't help but sometimes wonder how your rejection of me effected me on the unconscious levels of my mind. The same levels that seem to determine my motives and drives toward anti-social behavior. I'm not trying to blame you for what I did later. I'm only trying to understand myself. In fact, I don't blame you at all. If I blamed anyone, I would blame the person who felt you needed to be “warned” about me. Or better yet, I would blame the social system that makes such “warnings” seem prudent. But, I don't blame anyone any more, not even Allah. You were my friend, and I only hope that you do not become so Americanized that you forget even what friends are for. If you let it, America will convince you that friendship is something that is to be bought and sold, just like any other commodity. I hope you will go back to Egypt before you let that happen.