Saudi Youth Use Cellphone Savvy To Outwit the Sentries of Romance

After three hours on the phone the first time they spoke, Spoiled and Thobaity decided to take the next step: a face-to-face meeting.

Two days later, they met at a Japanese restaurant atop the Westin Hotel, a quiet and cozy spot overlooking the Red Sea. They arrived separately just after 10 p.m.; she told her family and her driver that she was meeting friends. She entered the restaurant fully veiled. They took pains to make themselves appear casual, like siblings meeting for dinner.

"There is always tension on a first date, so I didn't ask too many personal things," Thobaity said. "I was waiting for her to talk. I didn't want to embarrass her."

After 10 minutes, she let the veil down and he saw her face for the first time.

Thobaity was hooked. He recalled later calling his best friend and shouting, "She's beautiful! She's beautiful!"

"We are perfect for each other," Thobaity said. "We have the same mind. The same thoughts, like soul mates."

Over the next couple of days, they talked on the phone for hours and met twice more: once for a boat ride, once for a few hours driving around in his car.

A week after their first meeting, they were sure of one thing: Somehow they would get engaged.

Thobaity joked that the tough part would be figuring out how to get their mothers to meet and decide on their own that their children should marry. Spoiled said her mother might understand and support her, but it might be impossible for her father to accept a marriage not arranged by family members.

But somehow, they agreed, they would find a way.

" Inshallah ," Spoiled said. God willing.