When Mina, an Iranian, met Mohammed, an Emirati, at a university in Dubai, she was not aware that he originally was from the Lârestan region of southern Iran, whose parents were naturalised Emirati. The region of Lârestan maintained continuous relations with the southern shore of the Persian Gulf well before the 20th century, most notably in the form of migratory flows which had their influence on both home and host countries. Upon the creation of the Arab states along the southern shore of the Gulf, the majority of individuals originating from the region were granted the newly founded states’ nationality. In the United Arab Emirates (UAE), after the creation of the country in 1971, and particularly in Dubai, new migrants originating from cities throughout Iran now defined as “temporary workers” joined those already settled in place. Mina and Mohammed falling in love with each other under this context, the discussions around forms of belonging, family relations and women’s role in society came to nurture their bond and soon affected it to the extent of jeopardizing the relationship. Through the portrait of this love story in Dubai, based on fieldwork conducted in 2012 and 2013, this paper will attempt to analyse on one hand how transnational relations between the two shores of the Gulf, encountered by Mohammed’s family, and to certain degree by himself, followed by the experience of nation building in the UAE after 1971, forming his vision of an Emirati citizen and his relation to the home country of his parents. On the other hand, how Mina discovered a different Iran through her relationship with Mohammed, that of the periphery, and its continuation beyond national borders, in Dubai. Love, as a form of social relations, is used here to help us understand how national and transnational identities are negotiated in the everyday life of the now citizens of the modern nation-states in the Gulf region.