Nada Eldawy *Call me cleopatra the 

way I’ll conquer your heart <3 *Serial Netflix 
watcher *Love my cat more than I’ll love you: 
I had planned to start this piece by saying I 
downloaded Minder (Muslim Tinder) for 
purely journalistic purposes, a last-ditch 
effort to contribute to Love in Color before 
graduating as a chronically-single senior. But 
in all honesty, the application was on my phone 
weeks before the inspiration to write this piece 
struck. 

I never really felt like love was meant for 

me. Whether that’s a symptom of growing up 
without a huge Muslim community or just a 
product of insecurity, it was never really on my 
to-do list. However, like most people reading 
this, I found myself with all this time on my 
hands after quarantine, too much of which 
was spent aimlessly scrolling through my 
phone, before I realized — maybe halal dating 
could fill this gap. I downloaded Minder for 
a total of twenty minutes, including the time 
it took to create my profile. I barely began 
scrolling. One second, I saw a familiar face, 
the next second, the app was deleted off my 
phone and all traces of my profile’s existence 
were gone. Then I came across a Vice article 
of three people swiping right on Minder for 
a month, and before I even finished reading 
it, I knew — if I couldn’t stay on Minder for 
myself, I could at least do it under the guise of 
research. I forwarded the article to Maya, and 
the rest is history. 

The second time around, I was relaxed 

enough to appreciate all the app has to offer. 
From checking off your Islamic priorities, to 
getting straight to the point about willingness 
to relocate and marriage timing, your profile 
included all the no-nonsense communication 
to avoid games and keep things halal. While 
seeing marriage timelines of “less than 1 year” 
was terrifying and made me question my entire 
existence, it also gave me all the necessary 
information to get to know someone seriously 
without having to guess their intentions (and 
also very valid reasons for swiping left). If this 
was my Google Play review, I would give the 
Minder profile setup a 10/10 — and if you’re 
off-put by the reference to an Android, don’t 
worry. So were most of my Minder prospects.

The profiles themselves are a different 

story. I only made it a day on Minder before 
the guilt of my ulterior motive of writing this 
article ate me up, and I added it to my profile. I 
went for a cute and quirky, “Here for an article, 
but swipe right if you still want to chat!” Most 
people ignored the tidbit or asked about it in 
shock days after they reached out, leading me 
to believe that men don’t actually read what 
you write. Prove me wrong.

As for the profiles I saw, there was a severe 

lack of creativity. Along with the classic set of 
questions, Minder lets you choose three extra 
prompts to put on your profile. I cannot express 
the sheer amount of men who chose the 
question “What do you love about your mom?” 
and I’m still wrapping my head around how 
many of those answers were along the lines of 

“Everything, she’s an angel.” I’m unclear about 
whether the whole brown boy obsession with 
their mothers is sweet or alarming. There was 
also a huge demographic of non-Muslims just 
there with the motto, “‘If she’s white, don’t 
swipe right’ -me, 2019” (a direct quote from 
a fratty-looking white man). To be honest, 
I’m not sure what these self-proclaimed non-
Muslims expected to get out of Muslim dating, 
especially on a platform that exists explicitly to 
meet other Muslims. You could call it interest 
in other cultures and religions, but I prefer to 
call it what it is: fetishization. On the other end 
of the spectrum was the plea of, “Please no 
girls who are westernized — no makeup, must 
wear hijab, and not be a protester in the streets. 
If you support BLM or Gay Rights, please 
astaghfirullah just unmatch.” (This wasn’t 
supposed to be an exposé, but here we are). 
That, too, was a huge red flag. All too often I 
feel like my religiosity is written off because 
I don’t wear a hijab, so any profiles explicitly 
mentioning the hijab ate away at me bit by 
bit. But more than that, I was appalled how 
<Unnamed Muslim Man> expected women to 
swipe right on a person who explicitly opposed 
the most integral tenet of Islam: standing up 
for justice and helping the marginalized.

Every once in a while, I would come across 

a regular Muslim guy who was chill and woke, 
and we’d chat. I went through many of the 
same conversations consisting of someone 
asking me about my favorite Netflix original, 
me answering and conversations fizzling out 
naturally. A couple times I took conversations 
off the app, looking for the elusive “click,” and 
while I met some really great people, things 
never panned out for one reason or another. A 
couple people were just geographically too far 
away — a side-effect of me setting my profile 
to national to avoid only seeing people from 
our Muslim Students’ Association. One guy 
accused me of friend-zoning myself right off 
the bat (he wasn’t wrong).

Another blocked me after a pretty standard 

conversation, which took many days of 
friend-therapy for me to realize I hadn’t 

done anything wrong (That is a PSA: Saying 
you’re not interested is infinitely better than 
blocking someone). There was a time or two 
when someone checked all of the boxes, every 
single one, but the thought of spending my life 
with someone scared me so much I exited. 

Honestly, while I deleted Minder and do not 

foresee returning back to it in the near future, 
I do not regret the experience. By the end of 
my month-long trial, I no longer felt the urge 
to throw my phone at the wall when I saw 
someone I knew, and I gained some important 
communication skills in the process. Especially 
as a Muslim woman, it was valuable for me to 
destigmatize talking to people romantically. 
There is so much internalized judgement in 
the Muslim community surrounding dating, 
but as long as your intentions are pure, there is 
absolutely nothing wrong with getting to know 
someone or exploring your feelings. In another 
world where I was a bit more emotionally 
ready, who knows? I could’ve found my naseeb 
on Minder.

Maya Moka *Looking for my Arabic 

ting *If this doesn’t work out it was a dare 
*A life goal of mine: to go viral on TikTok: I 
consider myself a hopeless romantic. I grew 
up fantasizing about the Hallmark, cheesy 
relationships I saw on TV and dreaming of the 
day I could someday come to experience a love 
of my own, catapulted by a quirky meet-cute 
and followed by love letters and dancing in the 
rain. I blame Taylor Swift for a large portion 
of this. Being Arab and Muslim, however, 
and growing up with rigid expectations of 
what love looked like and the sequence of 
events that it should follow (meet someone, 
immediately get parents involved and start 
planning your future together), I never really 
saw that type of love in the cards for me. Still 
though, a girl could dream. It wasn’t until I 
grew up that I began to see things were not 
all black and white when it came to religion 
and dating, and that things could be done 
in a more modern way while still being kept 
halal (well, depending on who’s definition 
of “halal” we’re using). I still had, and to 

an extent have, crazy high expectations 
for love and hopeless romantic ideals, and 
the short-lived relationships I’ve had can 
definitely speak to that (If I’ve ever made 
you a playlist, you owe me a V-Day present). 
So, when the idea of a Muslim dating app 
came up, I was very reluctant at first because 
I had never considered meeting people in 
such a systematic way before. I liked love to 
be spontaneous, hitting you out of nowhere 
— on a study abroad or on a random night 
hanging out with a group of friends when you 
realize there might be a little something more 
between you and another person. But for the 
sake of quarantine, and writing this piece, 
I decided to give it a shot. Similar to Nada 
though, while I downloaded it under the guise 
of MiC content, I secretly hoped it would lead 
to something akin to real romance. 

I have had the app for about three months 

now. That’s three times longer than I originally 
planned to have it, and I hate to say it, but I 
have indeed not found love. I bought the three-
month premium membership because I had a 
crippling fear of being found by people I knew, 
which may stem from the irrational feeling 
that dating apps are a “last resort” when I know 
that’s not true and the sheer embarrassment of 
having to announce to the world that I’m single. 
I have found a friendship that could have maybe 
eventually turned into a relationship if he were 
more serious and if we didn’t live on opposite 
sides of the country. It started off great, but sort 
of fizzled out as things often do when someone 
stops putting in as much effort and it begins to 
feel like more trouble than it’s worth. In terms 
of Minder, it proved to me that I could indeed 
vibe with someone I met online and that I do 
have the capacity to sustain something with 
distance and delayed gratification if need be. 
It also dispelled the notion I had ingrained 
in myself that romance can’t be real if it has 
intentional, planned beginnings. In terms of 
guys my age, it proved the usual — diving in 
too quickly still isn’t the right move for me and 
pretty words often amount to zero actions or 
follow-through. 

I have also found several short-lived 

conversations that ended abruptly, a couple 
reasons to change my phone number, many 
cheesy bios, many weirdly hypersexual profile 
pictures and a much clearer picture of what I 
do and don’t want in a potential partner. And 
that counts for something, right?

What struck me the most was the 

discrepancy between the types of guys on 
the app and what they wanted, as well as how 
many men simply do not know how to talk to 
women — be it from shyness, impatience, not 
being serious about the app or whatever else. 
Some of them genuinely sounded like they 
had never talked to a woman in their entire 
life. Don’t get me wrong, my expectations 
for men on a dating app were not unrealistic, 
but where was the charisma and charm that 
Taylor Swift wrote hundreds of songs about? 
While some of my matches asked right off 
the bat if I would send nudes or was into 
something more “casual,” others brought 
up marriage within the first conversation. 
And then to echo Nada’s point, there was the 
outrageous laziness and lack of creativity in 
bios: About me: Just ask.;The key to my heart: 
food. What keeps me up at night: Netflix.

Thanks, Ali. That, coupled with your 

shirtless mirror selfie, really sold me. 
However, guys’ lazy bios and cringey photos 
are a running joke on most dating apps, so 
I definitely don’t chalk it up to religion or 
demographics. 

All in all, the experience was quite fun and 

interesting, and I appreciate Minder for what 
it is: A place for Muslims to get to know each 
other and clearly articulate what they want in 
a partner and relationship. It definitely plays a 
role in destigmatizing dating in our religion, 
and we deserve a place where we are the norm 
and not an exception or a fetish, but I think my 
overall disappointment is less about dating as 
a Muslim and more about dating apps more 
generally. 

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Michigan in Color
4 — Wednesday, February 24, 2021 

The L-word

Love in color: Minder edition

Pink happens to be my favorite color. 

Yet, I’m not that excited to see stores boast 
hues of pink and red as this time of year 
approaches. 

The l word didn’t exist for me until 

Valentine’s Day. As a kid, I was always 
excited by the prospect of Valentine’s: how 
lovely it is that we have a day dedicated to 
showing affection and care for those in our 
life. I dreamed of dramatic confessions, 
endless bouquets of roses and taking 
time to appreciate one another in typical 
romantic-comedy fashion. I believed that 
Valentine’s Day enabled people to be brave 
enough to say “the l word.”

Since then, I’ve been tying some sort 

of magic to the day. A couple of years ago, 
I would have been hoping for my own 
Patrick Verona to walk through the door. 

In high school, I might’ve thought about 
the boy in my geometry class sending me 
a candy-gram — anonymously of course — 
to jumpstart our high school sweethearts 
story. Last year, it would’ve been nice to 
grab Starbucks with someone. But you see, 
none of these aims ever came true. I was set 
up by the rom-com industry and Hallmark 
holiday that is Valentine’s Day. And before I 
knew it, “the l word,” whether in text or out 
loud, left me feeling sick. 

Recently, I’ve been thinking about why 

it’s so hard for me to even say “the l word.” 
Maybe because it’s sacred to me. Maybe 
because my mom never said it. Maybe 
because I’ve only seen it on a television 
screen. Maybe because I don’t think it 
belongs to me. Maybe it’s not even real. My 
friends and I often say that your perception 
of “the l word” is based on its presence 
around you. So, I’ve been searching for it. 
For love. Yes, love. In old photos, hand-me-
down clothes and in every fold of a love 

letter. And I can tell you, it’s real.

I see it when my mom silently leaves 

a plate of peeled mandarins on my desk. 
My uncles who fight to pay the bill at a 
restaurant. Friends that send each other 
songs that remind them of each other. 
Sending audio messages over texting. My 
favorite is when partners hold onto each 
other’s belongings so gently while the 
other is occupied. Plus, all the moments 
we can’t see or don’t know about. Like 
how you think of someone in your Duas 
(prayers). Or looking forward to their 
name under your notification bar. 

It’s not the break-out-in-song-and-

dance or Taylor Swift’s “Love Story” type 
of love that I’ve always envisioned, but it 
is love. While it’s nice to hear and see the 
word this Valentine’s Day, it doesn’t always 
have to be said aloud. Hidden amidst the 
pink hearts and bubble lettered l word, it’s 
the beautiful action of love that finds itself 
everywhere.

ZAFIRAH RAHMAN

MiC Columnist

Valentine’s Day is stereotypical

My 
mother 
taught 
me, 
however 

unintentionally, about love through her life 
stories. She would tell me how when she was 
younger, her father would make extra money 
by fixing other people’s broken household 
appliances. She explained how when her 
birthday was approaching, he would pray that 
people’s appliances would break so he could 
afford to buy her a dress, even though she never 
expected anything. My mother showed me home 
videos she found from 1998. The videos consisted 
of my parents being completely and utterly 
mesmerized by my older sister, who was just one 
year old at the time, doing nothing besides sitting. 
My mother was the one who taught me that love 
is gentle, kind, patient and forgiving. She taught 
me that love has the ability to grow and change 
over time, so that it can become stronger. Love 
takes effort and is ongoing. 

With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, 

I can’t help but note the differences between 
mainstream society’s expression of love 
and my mother’s stories about love. Society 
dictates that men are frantically browsing 
stores, trying to figure out the perfect gift 
for their significant others. They search aisle 
after aisle, wondering if their wife or girlfriend 
would want chocolate, flowers or jewelry. Or 
maybe they want it all. Of course, the basic 
expectation is a nice dinner, so that has to 

happen regardless of what gift he chooses. 
These men consequently feel as though the 
pressure is on when it comes to Valentine’s Day. 

Much of society and the media claim that 

Valentine’s Day is the designated holiday 
to proclaim love and appreciation for the 
important people in our lives. In theory, 
Valentine’s Day seems like a wholesome way 
to express love, and giving gifts is a method 
of depicting your love on this holiday. Though 
society has largely accepted this, the holiday 
can easily turn into a performative, shallow 
way of appeasing your supposed loved one 
through materialistic items, which ultimately 
goes against everything I believe love stands 
for. It is just as important to celebrate your 
loved ones every single day in simple ways, 
whether that be through actions or words. 

Since when did the magnitude of love 

become quantifiable through gifts and how 
much someone spends? Love is not measured 
on a monetary scale. Celebrating a holiday 
that directly or indirectly supports this notion 
can and will never depict the amount of love 
someone has for another person, whether 
that person is a parent, sibling, friend or 
significant other. The modern meaning of 
love, as suggested by Valentine’s Day, is not the 
same love my mother taught me. When you 
really love someone, you show it on more than 
just one day. It is seen through actions rather 
than materials. This type of love appears to 
be absent from the stereotypical notion of 
Valentine’s Day.

MEGHAN DODABALLAPUR

MiC Columnist

NADA ELDAWAY, MAYA MOKH &

 LORA FARAJ
MiC Contributors

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

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Janice Lin/MiC

Design by Janice Lin

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