I read an article recently that got my blood boiling. It’s an old article, dated December 2004, prior to the passing of IMBRA, the International Marriage Broker Regulation Act, about the state of the so-called Mail-Order-Bride business. Overall, the article objectively portrayed the sincere efforts of a few agencies to help good men and women find each other through international introductions. A few quotes, however, from some of the so-called experts whose shabby research contributed to Congress to imposing IMBRA on us in the first place got me really – well, pissed off!! You all know how I love to rant – so here I go again.
The quote that got my back up so much was this, referring to the infamous study that Congress commissioned which states that no less than 100% of the men who participate in international marriage through agencies like A Foreign Affair are predators seeking women they can completely control.
“In general, I found the women were honest and sincere and the men were generally nuts,” says Robert James Scholes, a retired University of Florida professor and the author of a 1999 study for Congress on mail-order brides. “I said, ‘Screen the guys or get them to a shrink.’ ”
Give me a flippin’ break.
Although completely right about the vast majority of women in the process being of good character and intention, the conclusion that the majority of men who seek foreign brides are dangerous is, in my opinion, inherently flawed and absurd. I don’t know where this guy conducted his research but he somehow missed the hundreds of nice guys and their now happy foreign brides I have had the pleasure to know during the past 7 years since my first exposure to the foreign bride experience. If one man (that being me) alone could have found hundreds of happy couples how could a University of Florida prof conducting research deemed worthy of Congressional action have missed finding any of the thousands of satisfied foreign ladies who have married American? Perhaps he missed them because he wasn’t looking for them. Happy foreign brides are not hard to find – they populate forums all over the internet.
Yes, there are a few jackasses who find there way to this process – the search for a wife abroad. (They too populate forums all over the internet.) I have written before that men with obvious personality flaws who have no business looking for a wife anywhere on the planet somehow find their way to International Marriage Agencies. They enter the process, fail miserably because of their poor judgment and lack of character then come home and write volumes throughout the web on the supposed “truth” about foreign women. But these men do not represent the vast majority of nice guys, with good family values, who view this as their last hope of finding an equally family-oriented life-partner. These guys deserve to meet someone and many of them do.
I realize this study is almost 10 years old, and this is an old quote – but it speaks to a common, current, culture-wide misperception we Americans have towards men who seek out foreign women in search of lasting love. It’s the same ugly stereotype that causes me to not engage most everyday people I meet in any discussion around how I met my wife, Viktoria. By my not bringing it up, or dodging their questions when they ask, I don’t have to tell them we met on an AFA romance tour back in 2001. They don’t have to give me that dirty look I despise so much, and I don’t have to tell them to go to Michaels, buy a rubber stamp kit, arrange letters that spell “limited” and stamp it to their foreheads. You see – by avoiding the topic altogether in public, I can be seen as the friendly, kind and forbearing man I really am. J
Look, enough of the bashing of foreign bride finders. We all know good men and women who struggle for some reason to meet the right person. We have brothers, friends, neighbors and coworkers about whom we say “Man, if only he/she could just meet someone nice. He/she has so much to offer.” If that person we know is YOU, or a lovely foreign lady half way around the world, why shouldn’t there be a way for you two good people to find each other? And why can’t the rest of the world take its collective head out of its collective ass enough to figure that out?
One definite reason for the false perception of us guys is the unrealistic, fantasy-oriented appearance of most agency web-sites which choose to display profiles of young, scantily clad women claiming to want to meet men more than 25 years their age. Noone, this author included, believes these profiles to be authentic yet they attract a number of men hoping to find a sexy pen-pal worthy of Sports Illustrated over the thousands of more realistic possibilities. Looking at these profiles, and realizing the kind of fantasy appeal they are intended to have, it’s a small wonder the world jumps to conclusions about us. Yet most serious men who inevitably go on romance tours (at least in my considerable experience) are just everyday guys with good intentions trying to fall in love, get married – and stay married. Most have no faith they could meet a happy, healthy, monogamous and commitment-minded life-partner here in the states, and that’s why they go abroad. We’re talking about hundreds and hundreds of guys every year. HOW DOES ANYONE DOING CREDIBLE RESEARCH ON THE FOREIGN BRIDE TOPIC MISS THAT???!!!
The more I read the apparently biased and flawed opinions of others about the foreign bride experience – the more I want to do all I can to empower each and every one of you lonely nice guys. I want to show you how to step beyond the discouraging stereotypes of others, including well meaning friends and family, and into the self-realization of finding that one special life-partner who loves you, appreciates you and is thankful for you every day. The number of seemingly dangerous men I have met in my brief 7 years in this business I could count on one hand. The number of true gentlemen I have had the pleasure to know number in the hundreds. Let’s lock arms guys – let’s hold each other up and empower one another to keep moving forward and forward until we are all face to face with someone we always knew was out there for us. Someone we were unable to find until now. Let’s do this because we can and because as true nice guys who want nothing less than love and happiness, we deserve to find them.
