I had lunch the other day with a female professor in accounting. She was in her early 30s. I'd say about 5'6 and if I was guessing a 150 or 160 lbs. Likely a good 20 lbs from a healthy weight for her height. She seems like she is likely a good teacher. She is single. I believe she was engaged but for whatever reason it didn't work out.
So the topic of travel did come up. She was interested in taking a trip to Europe and I discussed the various places around the globe I had been. The fact that I have been to both Costa Rica and Colombia was a pretty big surprise to her (mostly colombia). I didn't go into very much detail other than to say me and my friend met a lot of nice people and had a great time.
Anyways her first comment was old men go there all the time to find young subservient women. I just basically listened to her go on. Our government isn't doing enough to protect these poor women from the male predators. Anyways you get the idea. She talked very poorly of marriage agencies and thought it should be illegal for anyone to use them.
I asked her what she thought of an American and colombian marrying who were the same age and were both attractive. She clearly hadn't thought of a response. When you get past the feminist anti-international dating message there isn't much content there. I suggested I met a lot of awesome women there. What if I wanted to bring one back? At that point she really didn't know what to say. She probably thought this lunch might lead to a dinner date or something (hell no) and the thought that I'd go down and snag a colombian girl didn't sit well with her.
This is one reason I don't like being labeled liberal. Guys going through colleges today are subjected to a lot of feminist female teachers. Women and men of course are to be treated equally under the law (which i fully support), but men and women don't do everything equally in practice. For instance they basically teach college students that men and women only act differently and like different things because of culture. Basically girls play with barbie because they are forced to and guys play with GI Joe instead of barbie because they are forced to. They are very big on everything is equal and its all culture. So I asked the female professor if she had seen an NBA game either on TV or in person. She said she had. I then asked her if she had seen a WNBA game. She had and by that time the class was laughing pretty hard.
This leads me to my point that when it comes to international dating young guys and young girls coming out of school are basically programmed the same. When either sex sees the words marriage agency, mail order bride, or any of that terminology they are instantly turned off (and you have no hope of reaching them). Young people are the biggest users of the internet. They are the biggest users of internet chat boards and quite frankily they are the greatest amount of single people. And yet you see very few young guys on here interested in international dating. However many of them are in serious relationships and are getting married.
That leads me to conclude that if you are pro international relationships being an acceptable social norm then you are against the feminist principles that are basically out to make international relationships between american men and foreign women wrong, unaccpetable, or worse illegal.
To be blunt I think terms like marriage agency and mail order bride hurt any attempt for men to get out from under being labeled derogatory predators by society. In fact its much harder for feminists to label men in this fashion if they visited a message board for international traveling and relations. It is also much more difficult for feminists to go after websites like amigos because they are no different than what many desperate american women use in match.com (and others) here domestically to find their mate.
In short while I have used a couple marriage agencies my problem with them goes beyond that some of the packages are too expensive compared to better options like dating sites and social networking sites. My problem with marriage agencies is that they are exactly what feminist women point to as the problem. With the internet men interested in international relations and men with wives from another country can promote their message that international dating should be a social norm. That old bald fat men meeting women in a foreign country is in fact a stereotype. I know this because I am 25, skinny, and have a full head of hair.
That is exactly how you break down barriers for an issue. When the woman says that fat old bald men take advantage of hot young poor girls you go on the offensive. That is an offensive statement. What makes you think the guy is not young and hot? What makes you think the woman is not middle class or rich?
Basically that should fully explain how I think you can make international dating a social norm. More importantly it is about educating young men that while equal rights for men and women are a very good thing, that feminism has become a special interest group way beyond this. Men should know there rights and they should be protected. Marriage agencies and the whole mail order bride industry just adds fuel to the feminists' fire. I simply would like to extingush that and use the methods feminists use to make international dating (even by meeting on the internet) a social norm.
The End.