There is unfortunately a big lack of communication between the two sexes in this country. This is not very true for those who live in better neighborhoods. As they call them, they are the white Turks and I think I fall into this group. We tend to stay away from the restrictive aspects of life. We have a totally different understanding of religion, friendship and life in general. Sometimes, we are blind to the realities of this country. We tend to have idealized notions about Turkishness.

Many a typical Turk honestly describes himself  as an opportunist who takes advantage of every opportunity for the bread money. Europe  therefore, is quite attractive to him. He fancies a world where he can live his own life at the expense of others. I have encountered many young people from poorer circles who sought exactly this form of life abroad. There are exceptions for these people as well. They are extremely faithful to their own family and kinsmen. They consider foreign women as a stop over on the way to marriage, a good opportunity to taste the pleasures of life before stepping into a usually arranged marriage with a person who can be approved by his family. Of course, there are people of other kinds too but this is sadly the general outlook.

You can´t expect people of this sort to have genuine friendships with the other sex. They are usually sly enough to take full advantage of the naiveness of their foreign friends. Of course, in such matters no one cares about what kind of a fame Turkish men in general will gain as a result. The fame is currently quite bad and it is getting worse. If your boy friend wants you to pay a debt, send him a phone, you should really be suspicious of him.

I know this is getting a bit off topic but since this is becoming rather irritating, I wanted to say a word of caution.

I too have many female friends and there is no such thing like it being impossible between different sexes.  After a certain age, sex is no longer a primary objective in life. Of course, this does not apply to hormone driven teenagers.

The funny thing is, close friends I have in Turkey are nearly all male. Yes, they are friends of Kadir, but I have known them for 4 years now and some of them have really grown to belong to my best mates. For some reason I have never been able to establish such a close feeling of friendship with Turkish girls. I guess it has to do with freedom a bit. I am more of a guy according to Turkish standards of freedom of speech and behaviour

really funny. open ur eyes and think why you cant establish friendship with turkish girls. freedom is not a good reason. the only reason that u have male friends is u have a different looking, and turkish guys like blondes

What a sexist, offensive comment. It shows that you truly cannot see women as humans.

You are not a woman, Janissary, so please don´t make ignorant comments about women-women relationships.

 if you noticed, I made a comment about men-women relationships also

Truth hurts þekerim I dont think my comment is offensive or sexiest. I just wanted her to look from other side and see things with a different view instead of accusing other side. actually I would like to write more than my post but I dont want her feel worse. u say I was offensive, what about delikýzýn? she thinks she cant establish friendship with turkish girls coz they are not free like her. your comment also shows double standard of you.

All three comments made by Delikizin, TheJanissary and catwoman are extremely prejudicial. Delikizin considers herself more like a Turkish man from personal freedom point of view which is only proper for rural or small town Turkey and quite wrong for majority of women in the big city. TheJanissary made an assumption that men in Turkey show over indulgence in blondes. That is true in all societies where blondes, brunettes or red heads are rare. If that were the only factor, there would be multiple love affairs and fighting over her hand which I don´t believe is the case here. Most people are sane enough to know their friends. Catwoman on the other hand made a nose dive into the matter driven by a singular stimulus: feminist sensitivity.

To put the record straight, Turkey is behind Europe from personal freedoms point of view but by only a certain percentage. It is wrong to assume Europe sets a model for all. In fact, Europe must take substantial steps in order to educate its people in matters ranging from sexuality, racism and xenophobia and all the prejudices it creates. We should also stop considering Europe as a singular entity. There are various cultures and values in it too. Furthermore, we should stop pointing our fingers at unfortunate others. Just as you cannot help poverty and ignorance in your ghettos, you can´t help poorer or less fortunate countries.

From what I can observe, the greatest step ever made towards this point of view in the last few decades has sadly been the song: We Are the World, We Are the Children. Everyone is keeping their power for themselves and the world turns into an arena where there are lambs facing lions.

Vineyards, I am not sure I understand why you said that my comment was prejudiced. I kind of feel like you attribute my comments to "feminist sensitivity" just because you know I´m a feminist, because I disagree with you that that´s what it is, but I´d really like to see your train of thought, because maybe you´re actually right.

I think that it is true that Europe is not a monolith, and Turkey is not a monolith either. But I think that as long as you are aware of that, you can still make some generalizations, and see that on average women in Europe have more freedom.. I also think that singling out Europe for its racism and xenophobia, and implying that Turkey does not have that problem is simply not true. Turkey has been denying the very existance of Kurds for ages and you have been calling them "mountain Turks", which is as racist as you can think. There is plenty of evidence of religious intolerance in Turkey. And I can´t imagine what would happen if massive numbers of foreigners would come to Turkey, with different cultures and languages and religions, how the tolerance level would look. I don´t think it would be pretty!

With that said, I do think that we all need to be criticized and constantly challenged, so I do appreciate your comments of disagreement.

Turkey is not officially calling Kurds as mountain Turks anymore. This was a political mistake that is left behind inthe 80´s and 90´s.  Even then this notion was advocated what we can call as ultranationalist groups based on the present conjecture. True, many restrictions existed in the past that made it impossible for the Kurds in the country to express themselves.  It is usually not easy to have a correct judgement about these kinds of matters. On one hand we have a community of tens of millions of people a considerable portion of which is either directly or indirectly involved in an armed conflict.  I remember very well that back in the 80´s that these people were putting up a mutiny as a protest for the torture at the hands of law enforcers and soldiers. They were  calling for greater freedom and recognition of the Kurdish identity.  Turkey though extremely slowly has addressed a great number of these problems many of which were stemming from the  mindset of the people in charge. The terrorist organization has also hampered efforts to develop the region economically which would upon its realization would automatically solve some of the profound problems in South East Turkey.  Today, they are pointing their fingers at the hatred that has accumulated over the years within society. The armed conflict has converted the ordinary Turk into a Kurd hater and vice versa. In cities like Izmir, businessmen don´t hire Kurdish people. On the Internet,  there are flame wars everywhere with Kurds calling Turks names and again vice versa. Kurds readily associate with anyone (eg Armenian and Greek extremists) hating Turkey or Turks.  This is no longer a war for justice. They just want a part of a sovereign country.

I know you only say this to annoy me, not because you think this is true. After all, you told someone yesterday that you think I am gýcýk.

 the funny things is everybody knows everything about turkey outside of Turkey. we dont know what is racism, we learned it from europe (so-called modern countries) which is still going on. Before criticizing others first you should clean ur house every turkish ppl aware of the thing which is being played for many years on Turkey. in the beginning they used religion differences but they failed. now they are trying enthicity.

and dont worry there are enough massive numbers of foreigners with different culture, religon etc than u can imagine. and what about massive numbers of foreign ppl in ur countr or in europe?

freedom of speech is not the telling the opposite. it s the telling of the truth! I advice you read my post without horse glasses caným

 My comment was not prejudicial, since I did not try to make a conclusion that is applicable in all cases. It was a comment based on MY friends in Turkey, both female and male. And from that I can conclude that the reason I am more closely friends with my male friends in turkey than the female, has mainly got to do with freedom. I have noticed much conservativeness in the speech of my female friends in Turkey and therefore could not experience the sense of friendship I have with Dutch friends. I however do feel that sense with my male friends in Turkey. I do not understand where you feel the need to respond to my personal experience with ´only proper for rural or small town Turkey and quite wrong for majority of women in the big city´.  Because my comment was for MY situation based upon experiences with MY friends (as for rural-city turkey, this comment was based on friendships with girls from Ýzmir, nothing rural there.).

And you may want to reconsider the age group I belong to before making a comment. Girls around 20 who still live with their parents during their university do not have that much freedom as I have been used to since I was 15.