Fraindship Rings →

Saba Imtiaz · The Magazine ·

“In the summer of 2011, I had a near meltdown as my then-cell phone — a MotoRokr that never quite lived up to its shiny, happy ads — would not stop ringing. It was like that episode of How I Met Your Mother when Barney Stinson advertises his number while at the Super Bowl and finds himself deluged with calls from women who want to sleep with him.

“But my ringing phone, and those of women across Pakistan, isn’t because we advertised our phone numbers. Instead, the ringing is a prelude to endless text messages, all from a series of unknown numbers from men who’d like to ‘make fraindship.’…”