gavinmac

I disagree. Any American who just wanted sex with a poor young woman in the Philippines could skip the online courtship, the sending of gifts, the night in the leaking rat-infested family shack, and the mouthwash buying, and just go to a strip club/hooker bar in Manila or Angeles City and pay $100 for the skank of his choice. Ed wants a younger, attractive wife and knows he can't get that in the USA. He's in this for the long term. They will get married, she will leave him in 2-3 years, and he'll be crushed.

He's afraid of Maria. She doesn't look like a 12 year old, and if he confronts her about the money she could "snap" into a Filipina death stare rage and tell Rose not to marry him.

There's a real documentary done about one of those sites called "A foreign affair" which I think is also loveme.com. It's well worth watching. Anyway, here's he documentary: I also recommend the 2004 film "Mail Order Wife": https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0377088/

I would say because it's a TV show and the producers like drama, and they fabricate the impoverished families of Usman, Akinyi, and Annie supposedly "agonizing" over whether to approve their marriages to the American.

I can imagine why Ed is annoyed about the ulcer. Imagine making plans online to buy a puppy from a breeder, and putting down an advance deposit for the puppy, and traveling a long way to collect the puppy, and then when you get there the breeder says "Here's your puppy, and, by the way, he's got distemper." That's how Ed feels. Because he thinks he's buying a puppy.

I can't imagine he traveled with a huge bottle of Listerine and new toothbrush and then didn't use them for three days and gave them to her. Recall that he met Rose and promptly declared "You should take a bath and an STD test." Then he smells her breath and decides he needs to buy her some mouthwash. But he's surrounded by producers all the time and, so when he tries to slip out to a 7-11 they say "Where you going Ed?" And when they find out he's buying Listerine, they insist he give it to her on camera and tell him it will be great TV. Every couple has a "conflict theme" and the Ed/Rose theme is that he's constantly criticizing her and telling her how to dress and groom herself, despite being a legit troll. There's no way the producers would let him give her mouthwash on the down low.

Old people in the developing world can't work and don't get social security. They are dependent on their children to give them money. Almost all parents in Africa would be thrilled for their sons to move to the USA, where it is assumed they could earn enough money to comfortably support the parents and other family members.

He's running the Geoffrey/Ash/Pole/Jorge playbook. Bone first, then discuss the difficult issues that could be potential relationship dealbreakers. Like kids, criminal records, prenups, are you scamming me, that sort of thing. That's second date discussion, after the boning.

He gave her the lingerie and bikini and said "I got you a couple of other things" and my mind was really racing at that point as to what was next. The toothbrush and mouthwash he gave her next weren't the most thoughtful "gifts" but they were better than the butt plugs that I expected. Of course, if he really cares about her health and wants to cure her bad breath, he should have taken her to a dentist or a doctor, rather than giving offering her Listerine and a cheerleader costume or whatever else is in his Sexy Suitcase of Horrors.

She told him she wants to marry him. She asks him for money and he has sent her $100,000. She repeatedly says she wants to meet him and makes plans to meet him but then says there was a death in the family or she needed an emergency operation. She even told him that she wants to meet him to get a photo together for their fiance visa application so she can move to the USA with him. This is as clear as a woman can be that she's not interested? I agree that he should know he's being scammed, but I disagree that a naive or stupid person who gets roped in to a romance scam is "creepy." If con artists don't want weird old dudes showing up in their villages to propose marriage, they shouldn't five their address to those weird old dudes and tell them that they want to marry them.

She won't get a fiancee visa to the USA unless the U.S. Embassy in Russia is satisfied after reviewing Geoffrey's petition and criminal record that he's entitled to import a foreign fiance. The K-1 petition has a lot of questions about your domestic violence history, arrest record, marriage and divorce history, financial status, etc. The 20 year old drug trafficking conviction wouldn't disqualify him, and the Home Depot theft wouldn't disqualify him, but the kidnapping and domestic violence charges might, especially if he's convicted. This could work in Vary'a benefit. She could arrive in the USA and marry him and then leave him after a month and say "This psycho beat me, please give me a green card despite not staying married for two years pursuant to the Violence against Women Act exception." No one would disbelieve her.

Or you could say a woman continuously tells him she loves him and wants to marry him and wants to meet him and gives him her address and he goes there because he doesn't have her number and she didn't showing up at their agreed upon train station meeting, so he's worried about her or thinks there was a misunderstanding. The only way to call his conduct towards her "creepy" is to say "You should have known she was a criminal scamming you out of large sums of cash with no intention of meeting you like she promised, and it's bad form to show up where scammers tell you they live, it violates their privacy." She could have ended this relationship years ago (if she exists) instead of constantly sending him messages saying "I do still want to meet and marry you, just keep sending me money and it will happen."

I'm going to defend David and say this is less creepy in Ukraine than it would be in the USA. Ukraine is culturally about 30 years behind the USA. They don't worry as much about stalkers and personal privacy there. At the risk of outing myself as a creep, I will share that back in 1990, I was studying abroad in Europe. I recalled that a girl I was friends with at my university back in the USA told me that she would be studying abroad at a university in Spain. I was traveling through Spain on a school break and stopped in that city and went to the study abroad office and asked for her number and/or address. At the time, it did not feel creepy and the lady in the study abroad office didn't treat my request as creepy. A guy can also get away with stuff like this as the "dumb American" in foreign countries. If you give me the photo of an American woman and I hang around her apartment complex in the USA asking for information about her and claiming to be her boyfriend, many people will refuse to talk to me and/or call the cops. My success rate would be much higher in the developing world, assuming the neighbors spoke English.

I don't see any reason why Geoffrey would want to move to Russia. Moving to Russia isn't something you do just to get a fresh start like moving to Mexico or Costa Rica or Thailand. As a general rule, Americans and Western Europeans don't move to Russia unless their employer tells them that they have to. Russia is a very hard place to adjust to if you don't speak Russian. It's cold and gloomy and few people speak English there. It would be very hard for him to find a decent job. He would be dependent on Varya for everything.

Too funny.

Since we know the producers "script" some scenes, I have to imagine that this whole story line is made up. I know many Americans are victims of love scams. I can see the possibility of a naive, dopey lady like Yolanda being catfished in this way. But David has been "dating " Ukrainian women online for 10+ years and would have seen every scam already. He seems pretty smart and successful and I just don't believe he'd be led on by Lana for seven years as she blows him off over and over again. I also don't see why a catfisher would agree to meet him for lunch instead of coming up with an excuse. I'm just not buying it all.

I think your points are all valid and I probably overstated how easy it is to get a K-1 visa. However, I've heard consular officers say/write that don't see their role as a protector of Americans against doing something stupid. If a sixty year old, successful American-born man foolishly wants to marry a 30 year old Ukrainian whom he barely knows, they are generally going to let him and not try to c*kblock him. If a poor sixty year old Vietnamese-American wants to marry the 30 year old niece of his former neighbor in Vietnam, then bells will go off that maybe it's fraud and that the girl's family is paying him to do it. I would hope that by the time David and Lana had their embassy interview they'd have proof of more time together, but who knows. It's odd to see a guy acting giddy about a woman who blows him off for seven years and then says "I'll meet you but only because it's necessary for me to get a visa." As you know, he also needs to submit a letter from her with his initial K-1 petition saying "I intend to marry this old American dude" so if she exists he should get letter from her that when he gets the necessary hostage photo.

Proof of one meeting in person within the last two years is a minimum requirement of the K-1 visa application. If David could show that photo along with evidence of 7 years of online chatting then he'd have an excellent chance of her getting the K-1 visa. The consular officers generally defer to Americans and let them choose whom they want to marry and liberally issue these visas unless there's a genuine suspicion of fraud.

Haha that's probably better.

Is relationship coach an Australian term for gigolo?

David's got a nice head of hair though. Like a 60 year old Sean Cassidy.

I had to google it, but apparently, it's customary to give a Russian/Ukrainian woman an odd number of flowers. David knew that. He can't say "please" or "toal-yet" and doesn't realize that a woman who has been avoiding him for 7 years won't meet him, but he's got the flower buying customs down pat.

The federal court documents that would show the details of the drug rimes Geoffrey was accused of appear to be sealed. But it looks like he was originally charged with using a firearm in a drug transaction. The online docket refers to a "machine gun." That charge was dismissed when he pled guilty to the drug trafficking.

Well, if it was just $600 that would be about 4-6 months salary for the average low skilled Filipina.

When did we get to the point in our society where "slut shaming" women for promiscuity is never acceptable but "prude shaming" women for showing interest in a mate and then deciding not to have sex is totally acceptable? If Stephanie had gone to Australia to meet Ash and then decided after meeting him that she wasn't comfortable having sex with him, would anyone be condemning her as a c*cktease? No, everyone would be praising her for being independent, taking control of her body, etc. But because she was interested in a WOMAN online and then wasn't so horny for her in person, now everyone is jumping all over Stephanie for being a tease and a prude and a fake lesbian. Isn't it possible that chubby Erika and her ridiculous nose ring and Lucky Charms bowl cut hairdo just look way worse in person than on a computer screen, and there was no "spark" between them, and Stephanie is still gay for women but just doesn't like Erika? Because I like chicks as much as Jodie Foster does but I find Erika pretty unattractive.