I move on to the next page of my Arabic textbook: ‘So where are you from, ya Nadia?’

‘Libya,’ she says, as if I didn’t know that already. My follow-up – Where exactly? – is met with a shrug. I’m starting to run low on questions, and she certainly doesn’t seem to have anything to ask me. Family? No, bad idea; there might be a brother lying in wait. Music then? She likes music. Good. What kind? All music. Right. Next topic.

‘So what do you think about the Italian Club then?’ Nadia lifts her shoulders and continues playing with her hair.

While I’m figuring out what to say – and how to say it in Arabic – Nadia suddenly turns to me, with the same look that swore me to secrecy. She leans over the table and whispers with what sounds like genuine curiosity: ‘Why are we here?’

Eh dah, what’s this? Surely this is a trick question. Aren’t we here for the same reason? To avoid being unnecessarily honest, or philosophical, I take the easy way out: ‘Well,’ I stammer, ‘because you didn’t want to go anywhere else.’

Nadia shakes her head. ‘Why are we here?’ she repeats. ‘Why don’t we just go home?’

Okay, now I’m really confused. Did I understand her correctly? Did hell freeze over, or does bayt (house) have another meaning I’m not aware of? Many Arabic words mean different things in different situations. Just this morning, according to my Google-addled breakfast menu, I ‘went through a pimp’ with ‘beat off eggs’ and finished off with ‘a period of cream’. So surely I’m missing something. Because this does not compute with my experience of Arab women at all. When I went on a date with a Coptic Christian girl last month, she asked how many babies I wanted before we even sat down.

So is Nadia really asking me to go home with her, just like that? I’m no zealot for the three-date rule or anything, but we didn’t even have a proper conversation!

My confusion must be showing, because she repeats the phrase again, slowly, as if talking to a child, and no longer as a question. ‘Let’s-go-home.’

I’m dumbstruck. I have to admit I’ve become somewhat wary, if not downright afraid, of any sort of interaction with Arab women. Even saying hello is a challenge. A few weeks ago, during a work visit to a medical clinic, I automatically offered my hand to the ‘ninja’ who opened the door. She didn’t just leave me hanging – she flinched as if I were a leper and started hyperventilating. A doctor intervened and took me to his office, where he explained – with a grin as wide as the Nile – that my infidel touch would condemn the poor woman to carrying scorching coal on Judgement Day.

Maalish, lesson learned. I still kiss the men of course, and pretend we’re great pals, but now whenever I meet a woman, I just nod silently and look at the floor like a pious Muslim.

(And just to show you can’t win, I’ve been called out on several occasions by women from the more Westernized strata of society for not greeting them with a ‘normal’ kiss on the cheek. ‘Are you one of those weird European converts or what?’)

So Nadia’s blunt invitation to ‘just go home’ comes as a bit of a shocker, to put it mildly. But a most welcome one, to put it even milder. There is really nothing left for me to say except ‘Yallah – let’s go!’

Nadia looks at me approvingly. ‘Good. Come out in ten minutes,’ she says. Nadia gets up and without so much as a glance in my direction, walks away with a confident feminine swagger, her long black hair swinging gently from side to side. The waiters’ envy is, at least, entirely justified.

I remain behind, sipping my beer, still dazed by Nadia’s sudden straightforwardness. The waiters watch her exit with a mix of lust, resentment and satisfaction, and then scatter happily. The waiter who served us comes by the table to pick up the untouched glass of water with a big malicious we-won smirk. I give him a generous grin back.

Let’s see who has the last laugh…

Eduard Padberg is a Dutch journalist who spent nearly a decade reporting from Cairo and the wider Arab world. He wrote for Trouw, De Standaard, De Groene Amsterdammer, Knack and Het Parool, covering politics, protests and everyday life with sharp instincts, dry humour and a knack for spotting the Arabic absurd in the everyday. His time there taught him how to navigate street politics, media and the tricky business of saying hello to an Egyptian woman without causing a minor crisis.

Book on the above is forthcoming.