What has become of this world, a returning expat complains

 Fic. Obviously.

What has become of this place, this is not the town I knew this is not the place I grew up in, I don't recognize the people they have become the people that live here now. This is a strange foreign land, stranger than the foreign land I left it for when I first went. And now I'm of nowhere, the foreign land is not mine, and where I thought I belonged I don't anymore. The world has shiften under my feet and I remain confused bewildered lost. A child for this modern world.

Who let this happen?

I left twenty-five years ago. You wouldn't find women in pants those days walking around, even skirt was unusual the knee-length ones. When men talked to women people looked with suspicion and distaste, unless they could prove they were married to each other. Somebody found out you had a girlfriend you were done for parents wouldn't give you their daughters, friends' parents would stop sending their sons to spend time with you. The families would gather in a grave somber ceremony, the girl and the guy's and they would decide upon the date of the wedding and force you to get married. That's how relationships evolved, by being forced to marry. There was no in-between, you remained single and got married a bit later to somebody you didn't care for, or you were in a relationship and were forced to marry the person you were seeing whether you saw a future with them or not. It is culture they said, we don't follow the ways of the west. We respect our elders, our society is important for us, the great traditional values of our books and gods are what make us, and disrespecting them would mean there is no distinction between the coweaters and us.

Then it was ten years ago I went. Things had changed a lot. Boys and girls held hands together, went to disco at 7 in the morning before their colleges. They dated out in the open, teased and flirted shamelessly. You went to any restaurant it wasn't safe any dark corner or alley or hidden spot was occupied by horny teenagers and men and women in their twenties fondling each other making out feeling each others' bodies. It was shameful really quite shameful. The skirts had become short, shorter than mid-thigh, pants had come in and got tight, and shorts even men and women both wore shorts tight shorts that barely covered their asses. I haven't seen this much making out happen in America in public, I told a friend then, people are quite private about that there. Unlike here, I mumbled, because there was no care for privacy. What were the parents doing I wondered, had they given up on all sense of decency and control, did they not care for discipline anymore, to check upon their daughters and their sons?

And now this, it doesn't happen except even in America besides New York and San Francisco probably and even there it can't be happening like this. All out in the open, in front of the gods, in front of the elders and nobody bats an eye. Where are those that worried about culture, tradition, and the fear of having the culture destroyed. Do they not care I wonder, why is this happening. Why does this make me so anxious, confused worried, why have I started hating myself. What is happening to me.

Everywhere I go, I see this. Young men and women. Everywhere.

They hold hands, they make out, openly as if they were in Europe. Women with their hairs blue green and pink, sit on each others laps, bite their friends' lips, bite their ears and make out, nobody even giggles or laughs, it's normal. Young men, so fashionable and well-put, not even the mundre types, they are good boys from rich middle class families, expensive haircuts nice shirts no tattoos or nose rings or earrings, just holding hands together, hands on each others asses, smiling at each other, shamelessly flirting, kissing making out fondling, all in public. The air is dripping with sexual tension with potential, it glows blue with the sparks that fly between men and women, women and women, men and men. They seem to not care.

And to think nobody knew this could happen merely two and a half decades ago.

What has become of us.

Is this our culture, is this what we are, what do we do, how can we change things, should we not become a clean culture, why are we aping the ways of the west the oversexualised way they interact with each other why can we not treat everybody like a brother and sister like we did that back in our day, why must everything be about sex. I'm not a homophobe so why do I feel so strongly about this, about this fine young men, so sharply dressed so well manicured not at all effeminate or counterculture in any way just casually being so friendly with other men. Am I seeing what I want to see, are my glasses tinted, or has the whole world turned green red and blue. Who are those people and where did they come from?

Who am I and where did I come from?

Where is the world going to?

What bothers me so much?