Have I changed?

This week I got a phone call from a friend from Holland. I met him when I was younger and I was following Arabic and Islamic classes. We weren’t really friend back then, but when I went to high school I recognized him and we started talking. We had the same humor, so we got along very well. We have been good friends ever since. During my stay in Spain we have been sending each other a lot of (voice)-messages through WhatsApp. This week, he called me, and during our conversation I noticed that I have changed my way of thinking a lot.

The people here in Spain are very openminded. You can do whatever you want, no one will judge you. For instance, I don’t drink alcohol because I am religious, not even when I go clubbing in the weekends. But I almost sure that I have more fun than most of the people, that is because I enjoy what I do, I enjoy music, I enjoy dancing, I enjoy myself when I am surrounded by my friends, so I don’t need alcohol to enjoy. Sometimes, when I am in Holland and I tell people at parties that I don’t drink, I feel kind of judged. ‘’Reallyyy? Why don’t you drink? Isn’t that boring? O my God, I could never do that’’. While here in Spain, people don’t care, even though it is very normal here as well to drink. They sometimes ask me why, and they understand my answer. I have had a deep conversation about it with some people, it is different than most of the people I have spoken in the Netherlands. Of course not all. Another example is that in the Netherlands I have to consider my actions, because when you go for a drink with a guy, there will be people talking that it

is your boyfriend. While in Spain, no one would even care. Now I might exaggerate, but I just want to explain the difference that I have noticed here.

So when my friend called me, he told me a story about this woman who tried to do a good thing, but wasn’t doing it right. And I kept quiet, because I realized, that I have changed. I have been more open minded. What the woman did, might be wrong, but you never know the other side of the story. Maybe she didn’t know, maybe she was new, and maybe… It is not up to us. We don’t have anything to do with it, and the woman at least had good intentions. Why should we talk about it, expect others to be perfect, but in the meanwhile, we are forgetting ourselves. We aren’t perfect either.