"Knocking on my tour guide's door, brochure and notebook in hand, I was keen to ask him a question about our itinerary. But, as I opened my mouth to speak, he pulled me inside and tried to kiss me.
The scene was laughable, really - me, a retired estate agent from Sussex and him a young Syrian tour guide tasked with the job of escorting our group on an eight-day tour of his homeland.
'I must have misread the signals,' he said calmly, as though I had in some way suggested I was interested in him. I rolled my eyes in despair. The truth is, there were no signals - apart from me being a divorced Western woman holidaying alone in the Middle East.
The next morning, before I had a chance to relate my experience to the others on the tour, a lady I will call Sonia divulged that she too had visited Samir's room with a question about the tour the night before.
From the breathless excitement with which she spoke about the experience, it became clear that this time Samir's attentions had been met with a far more welcoming reception.
Indeed, by the end of the tour Sonia was hooked, returning to the UK on cloud nine believing that she had found her perfect match. But, when she returned a few months on, consumed by love, she found Samir indifferent to the point of actually ignoring her.
Having spent ten years living and travelling in the Middle East, this is a scene I've witnessed time and time again. Sonia's story is one of many such quixotic romances that I know of.
've lost count of the seemingly sensible and middle-class British women I've met who have fallen for no more than a pair of flashing, dark eyes, a mouthful of white teeth and an endless stream of compliments.
My friends and I have even coined the phrase: 'My Mohammed is different', which illustrates the delusion with which each woman believes that her man won't hurt her and their love is genuine.
Each time another of our contemporaries falls for a young tour guide or waiter, we smile knowingly at each other and say: 'It's another case of MMD', knowing it's just a matter of time until another heart is broken. I hold my hands up - I've been guilty, too. I speak from bitter experience.
I fell for an exotic, dark, handsome man from Jordan on a trip to see the historic architecture of Petra that I had taken myself on to cheer myself up after my divorce.
In what now seems like a terrible cliché, Ali was my tour guide. An archaeologist, with an irresistible moodiness and aura of intelligence, he pursued me throughout the four-day tour.
Given his film star looks, it was hard to resist. Ali was from a high-class Bedouin family and was the son of a sheikh.
He made me feel special and important and I was completely taken in. We were both divorced and Ali, at 48, was only five years younger than me. I flattered myself that this was a relationship of equals.
Still, aware that the cultural differences between us were bound to impact on our relationship, I resolved to be as pragmatic as possible about our future. I was determined not to push things and so settled for a grown-up - but exclusive relationship - where we maintained our own lives, only seeing each other for a two-week spell three times a year. "
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