With everything else they have to deal with, I didn't want my Iranian friends to worry about me.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates—The chorus of people telling me I should leave Iran started up shortly after June 14, when Slate published this piece about the first day of postelection riots. A week later, it had grown to a noisy, untuned symphony of well-intentioned worriers. It started with people I didn't know, then they were joined by friends of my mother's, then their friends, until finally, on Sunday morning, I got a call from my dad.

For several days I'd been trying—without any luck—to make a phone call to the United States. Keeping my family informed about my safety was an annoying priority. Short e-mails were best. Not going into much detail cut off the potential for people to chime in with their opinions about what my next move should be.

When the phone woke me around a quarter to 8 on Sunday, I wasn't sure who to expect. I hadn't gotten many calls in recent days as people were avoiding the lines they believed to be monitored (including mine). Some of the calls I did get were bizarre requests to appear for questioning from agencies I'd never heard of before. Simply put, the phone was no longer my friend.

When I answered Sunday morning, though, it was my dad coming through crystal clear.

"How are you, Baba?"

"I'm fine, Dad," I mumbled, probably sounding exhausted.

"Well, I've been a little worried. Seems like last night was busy. We've been seeing a lot of disturbing things on TV. I'm glad you're OK. Think about taking a trip for a few days."

My father is not a subtle man, but when it comes to giving his sons advice, he realized long ago that soft, diplomatic suggestions are the only kind that work. After a week of ignoring frantic "your mother loves you so much; please don't put her through this any longer" calls from people I'd never met, for the first time I considered leaving Iran.

I had already been told by the authorities that I could no longer do any reporting from Iran, but I decided to stick around because I had watched this entire election season, and, like the rest of the world, I desperately wanted to see what would happen next. But being reduced to a voyeur was stifling.

I had watched public sentiment go from one of apathy a few weeks before the election to the point at which many people felt they had been robbed.