Successfully Finding a Filipina Wife

Filipinos are all people from the Philippines or living in the Philippines. Filipino is first of all a term that has no gender. A male is a Filipino and a female is a Filipino as well.

The term Filipino is then divided into gender based versions. A male is a Filipino. A female is a Filipina. Notice the "a" on the end of the word. Think of a letter "a" as a softer letter than an "o".

Here's where it gets weird but you must memorize this. A female from the Philippines is a FIlipina but she is also a Filipino (the non-gender version of that word). A male from the Philippines is a Filipino because he's male but he's also a Filipino because of the non-gender version of the word.

Two more words that have been coined and are used frequently, especially in recent generations, are Pinoy and Pinay. A Pinoy is a man from the Philippines. A Pinay (remember the soft "a" letter) is a female from the Philippines. At one time these two words were somewhat resented and distasteful because there were words assigned to people of the Philippines by foreigners. Recent generations either don't know that or don't care and the use of Pinay and Pinoy have become very common among the people of the Philippines.

Personally I prefer to use Filipino and Filipina to give everyone maximum respect but it may be overkill to do so because many don't really care one way or the other.

By the way, your Filipina wife is also your Asawa, which is the word for spouse or wife.

Hello! I assume you are searching for a great wife and you're sick and tired of "Women's Lib" and the power struggle that men experience with U.S. women in general. When I got divorced from my American order-barking, criticizing, bullying, cheating, domineering, controlling, nagging, bossy, miserable excuse for a wife of 30 years, I felt a huge weight lifted from my shoulders. I realized I had been in a constant state of minor depression for the last 25 years.

When you are in a state of depression, you don't realize you are. But when it's gone and you feel what it's like to be without it - you either become a bit scared of the large change in your life and try to get the depression-causing situation to return (possibly rejoining the X) or you feel energetic like you could climb Mt. Everest, run a marathon, or even just breath deeply any time you want without being criticized for doing so.

"Old School" Values Are Still Prominent - Elsewhere In The World

I didn't want to go out into the singles "meat market" in hopes of meeting someone. I had a constant flow of women through my retail store and that allowed me to candidly view a literal parade of what's out there. Out of the thousands I met and talked to in a platonic (neutral) way, I only found maybe two out of thousands that I would even ask out for a dinner date. Even those two were not "in sync" with what I wanted for a life companion. So that led me to a logical conclusion that I could spend the rest of my adult life until my last dying breath still looking for Mrs. Right or as some say my "soul mate" in our U.S. dating market.

It's not that I'm set in my ways and incapable of change or compromise. It's actually the opposite. I was, and am, willing to modify myself in most ways (except my core moral principles) to please my soul mate. I'm peaceful, compatible, easy to talk to, compassionate, helpful, teachable, loving, and affectionate. I don't drink or smoke, I read a lot, I am wise in business founding and management, I'm into common hobbies that don't keep me away from home a lot. But every American woman I met in my store and in public places (I play in a rock band on weekends) was looking for thrills, adventure, excitement, new experiences, parties, getting drunk, getting high, getting expensive gifts they choose, and expecting me to be everything that I'm not.

To be perfectly honest, my mindset is from the era of the "Leave It To Beaver" television show. Ward Cleaver went to work in the family's one car (that was paid for in cash by the way) to make the family income and June stayed home most of the time - making sure their domicile was as perfect as possible for her loyal Ward - the love of her life and the one she would spend her life with. There was no talk of "You need to take me out to have lots of exciting fun or I'm going out dancing with my friends." There was no talk of "I don't know what happened. He danced with me and because I had been smoking pot with my friends I was too weak to resist. I'm so sorry I slept with him every afternoon for the last 4 months while you were at work. By the way, it's your boss." June Cleaver would use a cleaver on herself rather than cheat on Ward - or even let a thought of cheating on him enter her brain.

Ward had proper manners and thanked her for things she did and complimented things he noticed that were changed at home. She felt appreciated and fulfilled by pleasing her husband and him saying so. She wasn't set on pleasing herself first and everybody else loses out. June Cleaver didn't suffer suppression, lack of self-worth, starvation for fun and excitement, or chronic depression. She was secure financially with her faithful husband and they didn't fret over debts because they didn't have any except a home mortgage. She was included in every family activity, could do volunteer work if she wanted to, could hang out for the afternoon with neighborhood married friends, or just enjoy life in the home she decorated before the kids and Ward came home. She didn't look at her home as a prison to escape from because all the fun and excitement were somewhere else. She didn't think her husband was a controlling bastard who was out having all the fun and progressing as a productive member of society at her expense while she rotted in a prison of his making. She saw all the things she had and enjoyed as a nice life to be proud of and her family was most important. She knew that being a mother of well-raised children is as productive as you can possibly be.

The Cleaver kids got along quite well, did their homework, got good grades, didn't talk back to adults, respected their teachers, dressed nicely to be socially acceptable, seldom got in trouble but were punished at home when they did, and they had dinner with their parents each evening. They struggled to please their parents.

Yes, it was just a TV show but it also represented, in a completely purified and sterilized way, what most of society in the U.S. was actually doing at the time. I was a product of this generation as are all my friends.

The Negative Effects Of Greedy Advertising On U.S. Culture

I'm not insane enough to think the U.S. could ever go back to the ways of the 1950s and 1960s but there were a lot of morally proper and decent actions and reactions that have gone to hell in today's generation.

Our westernized civilization following TV campaigns like, "If it feels good - just do it" have created a path of degradation that has worsened dramatically over the last 30 years. I blame the "me" generation of the 1980s for starting this, advertising agencies for encouraging and acting out extremes of social degradation and shear stupidity in movies and on TV to push the envelope of sanity and boost sales, and MTV for doing everything it could to homogenize our teen and preteen generations into dumbed-down herds of immoral sheep being led to intellectual and social slaughter.

I saw a documentary a few years back about how advertising agencies have been going to great extent to add sexual attraction to things as simple as food, soap, and cosmetics. They've been pounding us with ads a bazillion times a day on TV.

Ad agencies have been perfecting their techniques since the early 1960s. They smear on a layer of "lack of self-worth and self-esteem" for the viewer that can supposedly be reversed if they buy the product being sold. This builds a society of zombies who march directly to the store to buy the product without even knowing why. The brand name is imprinted in their brains. Unfortunately it also builds an audience who begins to think that the spectacular and absurd lifestyles and actions in advertising campaigns are reality. A few examples:

• A girl wraps her long hair around something on the side of a building and pulls it down.
• A guy drinks Mountain Dew and does impossible moves on a skateboard that you'd more likely see in Mission Impossible or Transporter movies.
• An old lady or an old man outplaying professional basketball players.
• Betty White is tackled in the mud during a football game with teenage guys when she's in her late eighties.

The creators of these commercials think they are funny and create excitement as they cleverly sell product. Corporate officers agree the commercials create something different than competitors and okay the campaigns. The ads are funny to those who are aware they aren't reality - but younger generations don't have the common sense yet to comprehend reality from danger. You don't tackle an 88 year old woman or drink Mountain Dew and try skateboard tricks that can kill you if you aren't wearing a helmet. I recently saw a YouTube video of cell phones positioned in a circle and when they all rang together popcorn kernels in the center of the circle popped. This re-created a worldwide scare that cell phones create so much RF signal that they overheat the ear and side of your head and then cause cancer. It was actually an irresponsible fake manipulation of the video with trick editing. Cell phones cannot pop popcorn after all. The CEO of the blue-tooth device manufacturing company who used this advertising campaign was interviewed and never once felt or expressed remorse or regret for scaring possibly millions of people in an attempt to sell his crap product. Disgusting greed...

A number of years back several football players went out and laid on the striped center lane of a highway to do what they had seen in a movie to build tolerance of fear. Some of them were killed and others were crippled for life - all because an irresponsible movie producer, director, and other responsible parties who made the movie thought it was cool and exciting.

Irresponsibility, immorality, lack of caring about what is happening to viewers, and a desire to make society more liberal and spend more liberally is now corrupting foreign countries where satellite and cable carry American channels - just like what happened to the U.S. The worst fake Hollywood images of life in the western hemisphere are violating the rest of the world now because of global satellite feeds and ruining their morality and common sense too. The Philippines is one of the countries slowly being corrupted.

U.S. Sexual Morals Are Permanently Down The Toilet

I'm old enough to remember that girls in my large school system basically remained chaste and clung tightly to their "virtue" until they found the guy they wanted to marry and many times until after they married. A few exceptions, who were well known to hormone-poisoned boys, would "put out" but they weren't the girls that you "took home to Momma." They were quite popular with the boys, of course, and were all nicknamed "slut."

Today most, not just a few, American girls are eager to lose their virginity as soon as their hormones kick in - and they do so with hardly a second thought, guilt, or remorse. Eleven year old girls are caught giving oral sex to several 13 year old boys at the same time so the boys will "like her." Although this is labeled a "christian" country claiming to have "morals," girls are just not taught that virginity and virtue are sacred and can't be replaced when they're wasted on recreational sex.

The ratio of U.S. virgins to non-virgins was about 100 to 1 in my rural school system in the 1960s and 1970s (when my brother went through the same school system). Today I'm sure it's completely reversed with probably 100 non-virgins to 1 virgin. The majority of American girls 40 years ago had plans for their lives - either go to college to get a good job and then get married to someone they loved - or graduate from high school and get married to someone they loved who had a good job to support their new family. No female with a life plan wanted her plan to fail by accidentally getting pregnant because of brief recreational sex so they remained virtuous which made them prime candidates socially to marry men who were also prime candidates socially. Prime male candidates were those who were morally and socially upstanding, went to college or got a good job straight out of high school, possibly served in the military instead, and knew how to "woo" a woman with actual romance.

Today's prime U.S. male candidates for relationships and/or marriage are those who make big bucks and spend all they make plus charge up even more expenditures, drive the coolest car, have the most toys and games, carry an I-Phone, have the loudest car stereo, ride the most expensive Harley or fastest crotch-rocket without a helmet, wear the most "bling" even if it's fake, cause the most problems in life, reject fitting into society by getting tats on their heads and necks, and talk the best talk in Ebonics slang. Fifty year old men are walking around with sideways hats, sagging pants with their butt cracks showing, and trying to look like MTV to be "cool" with generations they aren't part of.

Today's prime U.S. female candidates are the ones who have butts that move like two puppies fighting to get out of a paper bag when they walk around in their pajama pants, have breasts hanging mostly out of their blouses, wear piercings and tats, and talk with an Ebonics slang whether they are the correct ethnic group to have it or not. Sixty year old women are wearing whacked out hair styles and colors, getting large tattoos on their breasts, lower back, hips, and calves to try to fit in with their MTV daughters and grand daughters - generations they don't belong to.

There have always been party girls looking for the next shot of Jack and/or the next guy to bed but it was a minority and not a majority. Does this mean that I believe girls/women should not have fun and they should always buckle down and put nose to the grindstone? NO!!!

But there's much more to life that is fun other than getting drunk, getting several tattoos or piercings, and getting laid. That's where parental protection from predators, adult conversation with one's child, and a life plan thought-out during pre-teen years should occur but in the U.S. that is no longer the case. Kids are on their own. They clone the worst and lowest-level that society has to offer so those who promote being part of the worst become wealthy and move themselves out of the wasteland.

Filipina Morals Are On The Downslide But They're Still Mostly Good

Most (not all) females in the Philippines have life plans of faithful lifelong marriage and having children with one husband very much like women and girls in the U.S. used to have in the 1950s and 1960s. This is partially because their country is 90% Roman Catholic. Old style strict European Roman Catholic too - not the watered down kind we have in the U.S.

I acquired a child-raising training brochure distributed to the general public by the Philippine government in the mid-1990s and it's practically word-for-word what you would have heard from the Roman Catholic Church in the 1940s and 1950s. That brochure proved that the moral fiber of their society isn't destroyed - yet.

But worldwide satellite TV shows from the U.S., American manufacturers of consumer products, American produced TV commercials, American-based magazines, and other media that cause young generations to obsessively crave what they don't have at the moment are slowly starting to eat away at their good and replace it with decay. The only protection they have against total decadence that we are plagued with here is the fact that the Philippines is basically a Third World country still in its Agricultural Era. A large portion of the people don't have access to the vile stench of finely-honed American advertiser's pressure techniques that will eventually change their society for the worse - and forever.

Guilt, family shame, parental rejection of pregnant daughters, fatherless children being adopted out, and much of the same attitudes we had in the U.S. 40 years ago still stand as normal in the Philippines. Whether their life plans come together or not is determined by how hard they believe their dreams can come true, luck in finding a job to pay the costs of making their dreams come true, and how much work they put into finding a good stable marriage candidate while remaining moral and family oriented.

The U.S. as a society in general has moved away from morals controlling one's actions and guilt when one acts immorally. The statistics on pregnant teenagers in the U.S. (as young as 12 years old) are staggering and continue to rise. There is no divorce allowed in the Philippines but divorce is 1 out of 2 marriages in the U.S.

Because of having life plans and morals in place from their pre-teen years most girls in the Philippines are taught to please their parents, never consider activities that could shame the family, remain moral and upstanding so everyone in the area knows they are "good girls", fear the wrath of their angry fathers, dress appropriately so as to not appear to be a "loose girl," and have an overall "straight-laced" life until they find a good candidate for a husband.

They work for very low wages as housekeepers or whatever they can get (equal to $10 to $20 a month) to make enough to go to high school - because one pays for high school there. Completing high school is crucially important to social image there. Fiipinas know they won't amount to anything or get anywhere in life without graduating from high school. Many Americans have forgotten that.

I've also learned that they think American men won't want them unless they have a high school degree and that American men will want them more because they have a college degree. They become "working students" to make enough for tuition, room and board near the high school which is far away from their home, go to class whether they're exhaused or not, and spend hours doing homework after they get done with their job responsibilities. The best students do all of this with ambition and hope for the future that they can get a good job - to do their duty and help support their families.

College is out of the question for many Filipinas because of economic conditions but some students work their brains out to just barely survive and make it through college. They don't go on drinking binges until they hurl, stay out all night with friends, have frat parties, go to class drunk or any of the debauchery that goes on in U.S. universities. Their parents don't and can't pay upward of $160,000 to pay university expenses for each of their children. Students from the U.S. couldn't possibly endure what Filipino university students go through to graduate - including being close to starvation and total exhaustion from too much work and not enough sleep.

Survival Of The Fittest

What I'm saying is that most children, teenagers, college students, and adult single women in the Philippines must work hard and fight for their survival. Their survival is based on family sacrifice, supporting each other with self-sacrifice, and even 14 year old children going out into the world to live and work but still sharing at least 50% of their income with their immediate family "back home" and not keeping it for their own enjoyment. A family member who gets sick with a potentially fatal disease like malaria may choose to die instead of harm the family unit by putting the family into huge debt.

If you want to call their family-oriented attitude "behind the times" or "uninformed" go ahead. But men from the U.S. and other countries are flying in droves to the Philippines to find loyal, committed, easy to please, submissive (not subservient), shy, non-aggressive, mostly quiet (but still with opinions and feelings to express) wives who are perfect mates willing to put great effort into marital success - if the man doesn't abuse her willingness to be everything for him that he ever wanted out of marriage.

Just like in any other country, finding your Filipina fiancee and eventual wife in the Philippines can be tricky. You can easily get conned and ripped off. Your search is just like dating in person but you must rely on Internet communication mostly because you have no choice - unless you are rich enough to go 10,000 miles away and live there for several months. I'm not rich so it was necessary to define a set of characteristics that sort the good from the maybes and the maybes from the bad. I somehow accomplished this without getting stung because I very carefully thought out my preferred set of characteristics before I started looking for candidates.

You have to consider many factors before selecting what kind of Filipina girlfriend you are looking for. You need to set your parameters (characteristics you are looking for) and stick with them. You might have to read 500 profiles but you will finally settle on about two dozen who fit your preferred characteristics list. That's not to say there aren't others on the site who are just as good for you or who would work out just fine. But you have no choice in the dating website world. You must select a few very feasible candidates carefully. My characteristics that I chose to search for were:

1. No smokers - not even occasionally - implies the individual bows to peer pressure.
2. No drinkers - not even casually - implies the individual bows to peer pressure.
3. No Muslims or Atheists - some form of Christian only - compatibility with my beliefs and moral code. Catholic acceptable but preferred Protestant.
4. No children - I wanted to start my own family not take on someone else's. This is up to you but I felt this could be a woman desperate to support her child(ren) after being dumped by an irresponsible boyfriend, which is not wrong. In that situation she's not necessarily choosy about who the supporter is. I didn't want a desperate spouse who would eagerly accept just any man from any country with enough money to solve her dilemma.
5. Singles only - there is no divorce in the Philippines (annulment is possible for rich people like senators, actors or TV celebrities but not for commoners). You can't get a visa to leave the country and marry a U.S. foreigner unless you are single and can prove it. So there's no reason to consider married or separated women as candidates for engagement or marriage although they list themselves online anyway.
6. Family oriented - preferably still living with their parents and siblings or at least with a sibling because of the family needing her financial support. This typically means family is more important in their minds than independence. This is true of women who are looking to support their kids too but I still had to abide by #4 concerning children. Some men don't care if the woman has children and I applaud them for their courage in taking on that responsibility.
7. Decent and moral - shy and not portraying themselves as sex objects in their profile pictures. Those trying to be overly sexy are more likely to be shallow gold diggers trying to get out of the country by "selling" themselves to lusty foreigners or tricking the lusty foreigners into sending them money regularly.
8. Smiling and genuinely friendly - I prefer non-studio photos and not stiff posed portraits to see what the candidate's persona truly is. Some girls use web cam photos of themselves, some use shots taken by family members at their homes or at scenic sites. I like those better than portraits done in a studio with borrowed premium dresses and jewelry. I want to see candidates in their basic form - not "gussied" up to be something they aren't.

Additionally, I preferred to only accept -

1. A candidate who was at least 10 years younger than myself. I realized that most couples I know who have been happily married for many years had at least a 10 year age difference. Not all - but most.
2. A girl or woman who is far more beautiful than I could possibly ever have in America. I'm not ugly or disfigured but according to the standards of American women I am too tall, too fat, too old, too poor, too basic, lacking catalog model appearance, I don't drive a brand new sports car, and I otherwise don't match a list of absurd characteristics that is far, far too narrow. Movies, TV, models, and magazine ads tell beautiful women in the U.S. what they should have in a man (money primarily) and to not accept any less. They supposedly deserve it because of their beauty. Thus a lot of these women end up with shallow worthless relationships with the most handsome rich men but neither of them are happy and cheat on each other. Filipinas don't think they are beautiful because they typically don't like their dark skin, black hair, and short pug noses - all of which are almost identical to most other females in their country - so they don't believe they deserve the best looking most handsome man because of inherent beauty. The good girls just want to be taken care of at some level above poverty and loved eternally by men who are enjoyable to be with, laugh with, and love selflessly. The man's looks are secondary to his inner self and attitude about life although Filipinas aren't going to accept a complete hog or dog as a husband so you need to be the best you can be for them just like you would for any other woman. The Philippines is a literal ocean of gorgeous women to choose from - but you will only succeed in getting a good one for your wife if they have the inner beauty to match their outer beauty. Fortunately there are a lot of those as well.
   
3. Someone who mentioned in their profile that they are looking for love, family, children, marriage, and faithfulness for THEMSELVES and a willingness to give same in return. That's very different than giving a list of what they'll provide and not saying they want or need it themselves. A list of what they will give is more likely to be a list copied from someone else.
4. Someone who mentioned being God-fearing or looking for a God-fearing man. That doesn't mean I was looking for a religious fanatic or missionary. It just implies she has morals, decency, and virtue because of her upbringing. She's looking for someone who will treat her with respect and won't hurt her because he has morals and decency too.
5. Someone from the countryside (known as the 'province' there) - possibly with a farming background - who had some city experience but did not have a lot of extra time to watch MTV and U.S. television shows on satellite and clone the worst characteristics of U.S. women while thinking that's the way U.S. men like women to be. My best candidates would be westernized to a point by having slight contact with city retail stores, malls, magazines, books, and localized TV while visiting friends or family but not "ruined" by the media that has "ruined" women in the U.S. (this is my opinion and the opinion of every man I've met who has an Asian wife).

My Search Began And Ended Quickly!

With those factors in mind (write yourself a list if need be) I started my search. It's a little embarrassing to admit but for me the search had to start first with the photos on the profiles. The justification is "I have to wake up and see this woman every morning without makeup on and I don't want to ever think about what I would change about her. I want to wake up daily and thank God for letting me have this gorgeous human being as my wife." I personally wake up in the morning and look at my adorable wife sleeping and I'm stunned at how beautiful she is.

I started by selecting the most beautiful women (in my opinion) from the approximately 300 photos on the website I chose to use. That reduced 300+ profiles down to about 40 saved to my "favorites" list. That was an exhausting session so I quit for the night.

The next night after work I was refreshed and recognized my vision had been blurred by being tired the night before. I had picked about 10 who weren't in the same league as the other 30. Of those remaining 30 my eyes kept going back to one who was standing in a hallway made of gloss painted plywood with her arms outstretched to her sides with hands raised as though she was saying to the viewer, "Hello! I want one special man to contact me because I have love "this big" to give the right man who will become my husband forever."

That may not have been her intent but the photo came across that way. She had beautiful long black hair down to her butt, the biggest sweetest smile I'd ever seen, and a modest blue chiffon blouse over a white T-shirt and white shorts. I couldn't help but look at her adorable face and find that I liked every single feature of it. I felt comfortable with that small Asian face immediately. I had favorites saved with equal beauty but her persona came through her facial expression and that's what attracted me like a magnet to steel.

Then I eliminated all "favorites" who smoked or drank. Again that's your preference but it's not something I wanted in a spouse. Next I eliminated those who had children. Then those who were Muslim or said "religion: none." When those factors were taken into consideration there were only about 10 to 12 candidates left. The angel in blue chiffon was still in top place.

I clicked on her profile once again and everything she said about her ultimate candidate for marriage was exactly what I wanted in my ultimate candidate for marriage as well. I printed her picture and studied it over and over again. There's something about reading or seeing something on paper compared to a computer screen that is entirely different. Her smile was addictive. Her face was pleasing to me and I knew she was a natural beauty without the need for makeup. I found out later that she had been in two minor beauty pageants in the Philippines. Would I ever have a chance with a U.S. beauty pageant contestant? Not in a million years!

She was my one final choice and I wrote to her with hope that she would write back and I wouldn't have to start my search over again. She was as perfect and moral and conservative as I had hoped for and today we have been happily married for over three years. Our love has deepened as we have "learned" each others' ways, we are more attached than ever, we are more comfortable with each other than ever, and we both know we made the perfect choice in each other. We've never had a fight other than some misunderstandings about cultural differences back in the beginning. Those weren't even fights but just some hurt feelings for a couple days. We kid and joke around a lot. We have the same goals for our life together and now we have a baby boy who is two months old and growing like a tree.

BIGTIME WARNING!

HELPFUL HINT: DON'T pick your candidates by:

1. Oh my God, look at those breasts/legs/hips,
2. Oh my God, look at that sexy pose. I can just picture myself in bed with her.
3. Oh my God, look at the way she's dressed. That's soooo hot.
4. Oh my God, look at that hair and the way she wears it.
5. I can barely wait to get her in bed.

This just isn't good selection and you'll be the loser if you go in this direction. If you're looking for sex with long black haired, small bodied, hot, sexy women, just go to the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam or any other Asian country and buy the services of some hookers until you wear yourself out. You can have any size or shape of hooker you want for less than $20 two or three times a day for a week and fly home exhausted after spending about $400 on women, $200 on a motel room for a week, and $1200 on a round trip ticket.

DO NOT pick a wife to spend your life with by thinking of her as an object or slave instead of a human person equal to yourself. She IS a human being and equal to you in every way - possibly even morally better and smarter than you. For example, my wife speaks two very different Philippine languages that have no words in common and speaks English quite well. She can also understand a bit of Spanish although not much.

ABSOLUTELY DO NOT pick a wife to bring here based on sex and looks only. Appearance is only a fraction of the characteristics you should choose her with. You would be choosing with lust only (as they say, being led around by your smaller head) and you will get conned and suckered, ripped off, and dumped before you even know what hit you. Many of the hot Filipinas are becoming aware that they have a beautiful commodity to sell because they get a bazillion e-mails from crude foreigners who talk dirty to them. They hone their con job skills and trickery until they can create a nice full-time income from duping foreigners with lies and false stories.

If you find a good, honest, moral girl to bring here but choose her for sexuality and appearance only, you will have betrayed her trust, violated her heart, ruined her for another better man than yourself, and hurt her deeply because she came here with the best of intentions of loving you completely and being loved completely for life. If you chose her by appearance only you will likely treat her like a pretty toy, a pretty house maid, or an inanimate sex doll to play with and that's just not right to do that to her. She is a thinking, feeling, loving human being deserving of being treated like one.

CHOOSING WRONG CAN GET YOU RIPPED OFF, DUPED, CONNED, AND BETRAYED

I haven't been wasting my typing fingers telling you about a careful process of choosing a marriage candidate so you can just jump out there and pick the first cute girl you see on a dating website. You MUST be careful when choosing because, just like in the U.S., women in the Philippines don't all have the exact same mindset. Some are evil but seem to be good. Some are sex maniacs pretending to be virgins or say they only had one boyfriend long ago that she slept with once but have actually been with many. Some are living on the streets while pretending to live at home with a family you will never see because they don't exist. Some have children while pretending they don't. Some are in college paying tuition costs with your money while not really interested in marriage or engagement. Some are ugly but use pictures of beautiful women in their profiles until it's time to use Instant Messenger with you and suddenly they vanish. There are even some who are male transgenders and transvestites who pretend to be female until you can see them on Instant Messenger or in person and find out their secret.

There are plenty of con artist women who:

• Are looking for an American no matter who it is. America is considered the "land of milk and honey" where they're sure they will find success and money not available in their country. All Filipina women in the dating-for-marriage market are looking for support from their husband but there's a big difference between a gold digger with no conscious about taking advantage of the situation and the "good girl" candidate with strong family values wanting to make sure she isn't going to come over here to the U.S. and live in abject poverty and misery. You need to know whether getting to America is your candidate's prime motivator or whether she actually loves you. If she's obsessed with American products, American TV, American movie stars, and you are repeatedly asked questions about American life and product availability of stuff they saw in magazines, that's not a good sign. If she's money and possessions obsessed she may leave you at the end of two years when she gets her permanent residence in the U.S. and has a job to support herself.
  
• Are looking for ANY foreigner no matter what country he is from. Again it's your job to find out if leaving their country is your candidate's prime motivator or whether she actually loves you. If she doesn't love you first and foremost, she will not be a good wife, and may leave you when she gets her permanent residence in two years and has her own job to support herself - or a new man with a higher income who will.
  
• Are looking for one or more foreign cash cows to support her family without actually committing to marriage with any of them. She may be using phone loads that you bought to talk to other men in other countries and have them send her money too, or to her far away friends. She may be using money you send her for everyday needs to buy Internet time and cell phone loads for talking to other men, using your money to buy new clothes to impress or meet other men, and using your money for partying and going to discos (yes, they still have disco fever) with Filipina friends to meet Filipino guys.
• Keep one or more foreigner financial supporters on hold for as long as possible by moving very slowly, or not at all, to get police reports, passport pictures, birth certificates, etc. so they can stretch out how long their foreigner(s) send(s) money. With several foreigners sending money she can make a better-than-full-time income, support her whole family, build a savings account, buy one or more houses, wear all new clothes, etc. She is actively selling her beauty online to make an income without working.
  
• Get engaged to a foreigner and move slowly on getting documents for visa paperwork, continue dating Filipinos, get pregnant and have a baby or two, use foreigner's money to support the baby (which she might claim is his) and her boyfriend, build a new house, and then cut off the engagement to the foreigner suddenly for no obvious reason so she can marry the Filipino instead. And...then sell the engagement ring the foreigner bought for her too...
  
• Have a Filipino husband already and they work as a team to milk foreigners out of as much money as possible until they find out or suspicion what's going on and then she cuts off contact. They know foreigners can't do anything about it because there is no law enforcement concerning shafting foreigners who use matchmaker sites.

Some signs that you have picked one of these women are:

• She uses sexy talk, sexy clothing, and other sexual innuendos (flirtations) to keep your heart and other parts throbbing with excitement so you'll eagerly send more money.
• She uses illness or a need for doctor visits and medication as a way to get more money out of you although she was just fine a few days earlier (and actually still is).
• She mentions regularly that she is running short on daily expense money although the amount of money you are sending is 10X more than what was needed for the lifestyle she was living before you met her. If a family in her region of the Philippines exists on approximately $150 a month (and you can find this out from Google sources if you want to) and you have sent her $500 a month for several months, and she's saying that's not enough - it's because she is pushing the envelope to get the most she can before you catch on. I know a guy who sent a Filipina a little over $30,000 in one year although living expenses where she lived only required less than $2,000 a year. I'm sure she's living in a brand new luxury home in a gated community with a swimming pool and all the food and money she could ever need - plus probably has another sucker hooked now to continue bringing in even more money.
• You catch her in several minor lies about her life in emails, during phone calls, and on Instant Messenger. If she's willing to tell you a bunch of small lies, she's also willing to tell you big ones.
• If you confront her about a discrepancy concerning something she said to you and she gets overly angry as a front because she has no real explanation that she can think of quickly.
• You can't get any detailed information about her family, her life, her childhood, her adult years, etc. which are small details she doesn't want to spend time on. She's keeping it a surface relationship so she doesn't have to remember who she said what to.
  

If you have a potential candidate who fits these criteria or any combination of these, you better be careful, investigate what's going on, ask questions, and consider starting over with a different candidate. I can't even count how many horror stories I've heard but yet there are more testimonials of success. Don't let your ego, or lack of self-esteem, or fear of losing the best looking woman you've ever had a chance to connect with get in the way. If you connected with a hot Filipina candidate once, you can do it again with one who is honest, reliable, and not using you for everything you have.

A BRILLIANT WAY OF TESTING WHETHER YOU HAVE A CON ARTIST OR A REAL POTENTIAL CANDIDATE ON THE LINE

I was on a conversation board named Topix recently and found an excellent idea for testing a contact you have made to see if she's a con artist without her knowing you did so. Someone wrote in and said he had met a wonderful potential Filipina candidate who seemed perfect and she talked of falling in love with him and how she would just adore and worship him in their marriage and a lot of other positive things that seemed too good to be true. He wondered why a beautiful young single girl would be interest in him - a divorced American guy in his early 50s with three children under the age of 10 - the key being his three kids that he felt would normally detract from the attractiveness of himself as a potential husband. Someone suggested the following litmus test:

Setup a Yahoo or AOL e-mail account in a different name, different city and state, different age, different online name, and vastly different profile - even with a different picture. This is very easy to do and nobody can verify whether you're telling the truth or not. Introduce yourself to the same Filipina on the same dating service she is using. Talk to her as a potential candidate as though you are someone new and completely different (avoid using any cliche comments or phrases that you typically use in conversation). If she takes the bait and starts saying the same "falling in love" "adore you" "worship you" and other positives or sexy comments - you've found a con artist who is repeating the same things to you and possibly many others and doesn't mean a word of it.

I think this is a brilliant test strategy and I'm surprised at myself that I didn't think of it before. I depended on dumb luck or providence to guide me to the right potential candidate and I hit on my perfect choice quickly without getting stung.

After thinking about it, I also realized that con artist Filipinas are shielding THEMSELVES from this test strategy when they say "call me at 063+xxx+xxxx" and I'll tell you more. I finally understand why there are so many dating site participants who want you to call them before they'll have a conversation. It's con artists avoiding getting caught in their con by being conned in reverse.

If you wanted to test and catch a con artist in the manner I described above you wouldn't be able to hide your voice as a different person in phone calls unless you had someone else make the call for you, on their phone from a different state, to pretend they are your alter ego. It's not likely that you will go to that much effort and they know this.

A SHOCKING REVELATIONS MY WIFE RECENTLY TOLD ME ABOUT

In direct contrast to our needing to be careful about the females who want to use and trick us, I have learned that the girls in the Philippines also have to endure perverted foreigners with web cams who want to use and trick them. I suppose there are some Filipinas who enjoy it but there are millions who are innocently looking for a good man to have conversation with and possibly a quality relationship and they DON'T enjoy what I'm about to tell you.

It's apparently common that men will contact cute girls of any age, talk to them on web cam for a few minutes, then ask if she'll get naked for him. Any self-respecting Filipina female worthy of dating, engaging, and marrying would never do such a thing for anyone unless it's her Fiancee who has already met her and spent time with her. These sick men are obviously not looking for marriage. They and their actions are a vile insult to those of us who treat Filipinas with respect. Never focus on sex, sexuality, undressing, or any of that kind of thing if you plan on finding a good girl to marry and bring to the U.S.

The very worst is the foreign web cam pervert who chats with the girl for a few minutes, stands up without pants on and sticks his genitalia in the cam and may even masturbate slowly to erection. This is totally inappropriate to do to ANY Filipina unless she's just online to get a sexual thrill and implies or says so. My wife and both of her sisters were vulgarized by men who did this to them by surprise.

Worse yet, my wife's younger sister was only 15 at the time and had never seen a man's genitalia. She shrieked in horror and turned the computer monitor off as quickly as possible. I suspect she may have even had nightmares about it for a while. This activity is no different than a perv exposing himself to teenage girls on the street. Unfortunately there's no way to jail them when they're on the international Internet. How repulsive can a male be?

After checking out opinions of friends, bloggers, and reviewers on the large variety of websites available for meeting Filipina girls from the Phiippines, I settled on two of the biggest and best -

www.filipinacupid.com (formerly filipinaheart) and www.cherryblossoms.com.

I only viewed those two back and forth briefly until I settled on the one that interest me the most - www.filipinacupid.com which has sister sites for eligible female candidates from other countries as well. I can't really describe why FilipinaHeart (FilipinaCupid) interested me most. Maybe it was divine guidance... I actually believe divine guidance was involved because the outcome of my search couldn't have possibly been any better and the direction my life has taken since we married is all positive and full of love and hope for a great future.

Yet I've heard good things about CherryBlossoms and there are many successful relationship and marriage testimonials on their website to prove that everlasting relationships CAN and DO start on dating websites.

Many months of conversation and learning about each other. You will email with her - hopefully daily. Save them all and her replies to you - you will want to print out some to send to governments during the visa application process.

You will Instant Messenger (IM) with her live - hopefully daily.  Save all of those as well.  IM has drop down menus at the top of the box to customize it. Look for a menu choice that allows you to "archive" all conversations. After archiving them (saving them to your hard drive) you can print them out if you need to - again for the visa application process.

You will talk to her on some form of phone - cell phones are very common there but cost you a fortune for long conversations originating in the Philippines. If you call her cell phone from the U.S. - you can do so for 17.9 cents per minute and she isn't charged for incoming calls on her cell.  If she calls you she gets charged a lot per minute, you'll have to "reload" her phone regularly and that could be upwards of several hundred dollars per month.

Yahoo has an IM phone system where both of you use microphones and headphones of your computer and it's absolutely free. Skype has a similar system that is free as well if you use Skype on both your and her computers so you are Skype-to-Skype communicating. That may not be possibly if she's on a public computer at an Internet Cafe because Skype software must be installed on both computers.

There is a new device called MagicJack which plugs into a USB port of any PC computer. They are now available at Radio Shack, WalMart, Target and many more chain stores. It is $39.95 but includes a year of $19.95 PER YEAR service for free. This is an incredible deal.

If you buy two MagicJack units ($80 total plus tax), assign them two phone numbers in your own U.S. area code, attach one to your computer and a wired phone, send one to her so she can attach it and a wired phone to a USB port of a PC computer over there, you have instant free phone service between the two MagicJack units for as long as you want to talk - every day. The MagicJacks think they are both in your home area code but are transmitting over the Internet for 10,000 miles to and from the Philippines. It works...

After 6 months of getting to know each other through these various means of communication, you will have a candidate who has proven herself to be willing to spend the time to build a relationship and has been willing to wait until you both feel comfortable with each other before meeting in person. You don't want to go to her country to visit her until you are fairly sure she's the one. That's an expensive proposition with a round trip and expenses being $1800 to $2500 to visit her for a week to 10 days.

You can't know she's "the one" until you have built a platonic friend-based relationship on the Internet and she is faithful to you during that time. If she's in too much of a hurry and can't wait to get to know you, she's probably in a hurry to get out of there with anybody and that's her main concern. It's also a sign that she could be communicating with other guys who are moving faster than you are. If that's her desire, then you aren't the one she should get. Remember... this is the most important choice you have made in your life. Follow the rules and make the choice well or you will suffer the consequences.

You then will spend a lot of time in the air... flying to the Philippines to visit her. The flight there is however long it takes to get you to the West Coast, then to Japan, then to the Philippines. It's approximately 20 to 23 hours total flying time from anywhere in the U.S. - each way. You are going to hate airplanes when this is over because of the length of time you are sitting cramped in a small plane seat.

I recommend staying at least a week. If you have more time, use it there so you have time to bond with her - or have time to learn that you don't feel a bond occurring. This decision to marry her or not marry her is a life changing event and you must know everything you can about her before making the decision. She wants to know everything about you that she can so she can make her decision as well. The longer she has to spend with you, the more she'll be confident you are a good choice.

Rooms in the Philippines are cheap (think $20 to $25 in the south for a nice resort bungalow but as much as $90 in Manila if you want a 4 or 5 star hotel near the airport) and food is cheap as well (think less than $8 to $10 for two of you in most cases for a sit down dinner). A flight there and back is quite expensive though. So you will spend at least $1800 and could feasibly spend upwards of $3000.

So let's make the trip worthwhile.

After you have gotten to know your prime candidate for several months (I recommend at least 6 months) you (will desperately want and) need to meet her in person and spend time together.

ONE THING TO DEFINITELY NOT DO

Some guys try to play it safe and maximize their worldwide travel dollars by getting to know two or three candidates for several months and then visit them all while in the Philippines. I don't recommend this for several reasons:

1. How do you get on a plane to leave the country after visiting each one if you aren't leaving the country? Don't you think they'll wonder why you didn't contact them a day or so later about how much you miss them now that you're back home? Starting a relationship with lying to your candidate is wrong.
   
2. You can't and won't let yourself hand your full emotional package over to any one of them until you've spent time with all of them. That's unfair to them. Each will feel that you are being coy or uncommitted with her and may also react accordingly in a non-positive non-committal way by remaining shy with you. You won't bond emotionally and spiritually with any and none will not commit to you completely because you aren't letting go of your emotions with them.
   
3. If they're naive enough to feel your relationship deserves taking the extra step while you are lying and planning to see other girls, the candidate may sleep with you after a few days when she becomes comfortable enough that you are a good man and not an axe murderer. She will be doing her part to create a bond with you that you are not committing to. It's completely unfair for you to sleep with two or three or more candidates while they are thinking that giving you their bodies is a bonding activity to cement your relationship while you are not bonding or committing. This is a huge lie in the midst of starting a lifelong relationship that is supposed to be pure and void of lies. You will also be tempted to, and probably will, pick one of the candidates based upon how well she performed in bed. That's also not fair to any of them. As a matter of fact, you might wonder why she's so good in bed if that's the case. If one or more of your candidates are virgins you will have taken the most precious possession they were saving for their future husbands. You will be leaving them violated with nothing sacred to give the real man who wants to marry her later - as well as leaving her emotionally damaged. She won't understand why when she was doing the best she could to be what you want, and giving her all to create a love bond with you, she was dumped instead. This is very wrong. Only immoral hormone-poisoned two-legged dogs in heat do this to a trusting human being.
   
4. You will likely head back home at the end with no commitment to anyone, no preparations made for a visa application with anyone, and experience nothing more than several female companions on a long tropical vacation. If you choose the first one you met, you won't go see the others and they will be hurt. If you choose the second one after sleeping with the first one, the first one will be hurt because you dumped them for no reason they could control. And the ones after the second will be hurt. If you choose the third, the first two will forever wonder what they did wrong after committing themselves to you and being dumped. None of this is fair to these nice human beings who trusted you.

Don't do it...

SOME THINGS YOU SHOULD DO

If you go to the Philippines to meet one candidate who totally interests you like I and most men looking for a wife did, not only do you need to test the "chemistry" between you and see if the strong friendship you have built online and on the phone has the potential for romantic love but the Philippine and U.S. government require that you spend time together and have pictures to prove it. This is to assure you actually have a personal relationship with physical contact and have not "purchased" a "mailorder bride" you never met from an illegal organization (yes they still do exist although most governments are trying to stamp them out).

So make sure you have a digital camera with you (preferably one that can date stamp the photos taken) and that you have nice bystanders (not-nice ones will steal your camera and run), her friends, or her relatives take digital shots of:

• You and your potential fiancee in recognizable places of her country. If there is a well known cultural center, nature park, shopping mall, or zoo, have someone take several shots of the two of you with arms around each other in front of the sign at the front gate or door of that place. Take some shots of both of you doing things in that location. Maybe something funny like standing next to a statue as if it was real. Or you standing near a monkey cage making a face like you are a monkey. Have a good time with your girl and make her laugh. It's easy for an American to make a Filipina laugh because we have such different facial expressions than they do. if you're a humorous guy you can amuse a Filipina for a long time with surprise facial expressions. A Filipina is looking for a husband who can make her laugh! Take some candid shots of her laughing and enjoying herself. Don't use a KFC or Pizza Hut as your back drop, for example, because those are everywhere in the Philippines but also everywhere in the U.S. and other countries. They are not recognizable landmarks for government purposes.
  
• You and your potential fiancee with her immediate family. That should be family shots with both of you in it. This proves to the two governments that you have the blessing of her family to marry their daughter/sister. If your potential fiancee is old enough that her family is dismantled and located in far away places, at least get some shots of the two of you with her elderly parents or her brother or her sister if you can.
• You and your now fiancee (probably with other family members) together at the airport when you must leave to return to the U.S.

When you book your flight and hotel rooms, you will more than likely want to get a room for yourself and a second room for her and her chaperon(s). This really doesn't cost much in the Philippines to be proper. The chaperon may be her sister, cousin, mother, best friend, or other female or a brother, father, or uncle.

Remember, they don't know for sure if you are a fake and maybe only came there to rape and kill her or if you are a nice guy actually there to marry her. After the first day or two the chaperon(s) may bow out and go home because they actually have other things to do. You can then cancel the second room they were staying in with your candidate and she can move into your room with you. But ask her if that's alright first. She will either enthusiastically agree or not. Her moving into your room doesn't assure you are going to have sex with her but it's one step closer to a growing intimate relationship. On the other hand, her chaperon(s) may stay and keep a close eye on her so her "virtue" remains intact until you take her to the U.S. That's less often the case today though it still does happen. Before you go to the Philippines you can ask her about if she'd like to have you get a room for her and the chaperon(s) or not. Always been courteous about these things. Courtesy goes a long way. Don't let her whole family come to the hotel and eat 24 hours a day on your tab (some families will!) but limit the number of chaperons to no more than two or three.

Your candidate will want several people to meet you so that they can confer about their opinions of you and whether you are good enough for her. They almost always conclude that you are good enough and will tell her so. The conclusion will not typically be based on weight, height, handsomeness, or age. It will be based more on your personality, your kindness, your generosity, your demeanor, and your happiness to meet them. They want to be family to you. What you are inside is far more important than what you are outside. You can be wheelchair bound and the family may think you are wonderful if you have what it takes in your heart and she wants to be with you. After family and friend approval she can then feel good that she made a good choice and continue getting closer to you.

If you show up with tattoos all over you, a pony tail, and a grizzly three-day beard while talking loud, obnoxious, and using profanity they may feel you aren't what they were hoping for and tell her so. It's a westernized country so they know our profanity. You may also not impress her either if you don't clean up your act. What goes over as cool in this country is precisely the look of a prisoner incarcerated for a violent crime in their country. Personally, I flew into the international airport in Manila and had a layover of several hours. I had been in the air and a layover in L.A. for more than 20 hours so I paid for a night a local motel near the airport and took a long shower, shaved, and put on new clothes for about an hour to look and smell my best when I got to my potential candidate in Mindanao.

By the way, some Filipinas absolutely refuse to date or get engaged to a man with tattoos so you better be honest with her and show them to her on web cam while you are still at home and not reveal them after you are there because she might just reject you on the spot and your trip costs will be wasted.

Try to act like you're going for a job interview. Dress nicely for your first visual impression to be a good one. If you typically wear a pony tail, dreads, or a long beard, your candidate knows that from your web cam sessions but it's very different when you meet in person. Don't scare everybody in her family and her with these. Trim your beard to a short executive length. Cut your hair to a professional style and lose the pony tail. Clean shave the bare parts of your face and drop the Don Johnson grizzly thing.

You can grow your grizzly stuff back when you get home so it's not like you are losing your persona permanently. Try to look as close to what people 10,000 miles away have been shown on TV and in magazines that a clean-cut American man looks like. It is NOT beneficial for you to look like a wrinkled pig with sagging pants and smelly sweat stains 8-inches in diameter in your armpits, stringy wet-with-sweat shoulder length hair flopping around, and a grizzly face that looks like their typical homeless street bum.

My wife's aunt met her American candidate at the airport for the first time long before the web cam era. He came out with uncut hair, a grizzly face, a shaggy beard, and dirty clothes. He works in gravel excavation work and his everyday appearance was simply a hard working dust-covered grizzly man's man look driving a rusty old car to and from the work site. He didn't know any better than to stay pretty much that way when going to the Philippines.

When she met him she was shocked. She didn't taxi him to her family's home; she took him directly to a barber, a clothing store, and to a hotel to clean up and change. Luckily she was not a young hottie but a mature woman so she took him under her wing and mothered him into better appearance and actions so he could meet her family. She knew her family would look dis-favorably on what he represented as he got off the plane although he is a good man, became a good father, and has always been a good provider. He made probably $60,000 a year at the time which was as much as her family would make in 30 years but he just didn't come across as a good choice. They wouldn't be able to get past his lack of personal pride and see the good inside him and she knew that.

Remember, most of the Philippines is typically 75 degrees at night and 90 to 100 degrees in the daytime with very high humidity and strong sunlight. Tropical to the max. Unless you are from a southern U.S. state or Hawaii where you have this weather all the time, you are going to be suffering for your whole visit with weather you may only endure for a day or two in the U.S. during our summers and you hide in air conditioning when it happens.

While you are in the Philippines you will definitely want to visit her family at their home (even if some of them chaperoned the two of you in the beginning:

• Have lunch with them - spending most of the day until you must get back to your hotel before dark (highly suggested) - or staying with them for the night until the next day. Buy some or all of the lunch for them and splurge on a roasted pig called a "lechon" pig. They will adore you for buying a lechon pig for them. Buy too much food and drink and let them keep all the extra food and drink. That shows your generosity.
  
• Be proper and if she is young enough to have parents ask her father to let you marry her - if you have decided she is who you want to spend the rest of your life with. That shows your respect for her parents.
• Take small U.S.-made gifts worth about $10 each for every member of her immediate family in your luggage. A $10 gift is MAJOR in most of their country except the big cities like Manila or Cebu City where people have larger incomes than the people in the countryside (the province). Find out from your candidate what her family members do for hobby or what they need. Some examples are solar or wind up wrist watches that don't need batteries for many years, South American or North American cigars, perfume, Avon products, American chocolate candies that won't melt easily (I took M&M's personally) and such other things. If your candidate lives in the "province" (farm country away from any major city) make sure you have something like a bag of 50 lollipops for about 30 - 40 neighborhood and family kids that you can take to your luncheon. You are American and may be considered a spectacular example of a strange species in their locale. If you are a white American you are even more spectacular and kids will stare at you and try to touch your skin like you're a Chinese Panda in an American zoo. Handing children who don't ever get candy a small souvenir like a lollipop will make you very, very popular in your candidate's neighborhood and they will talk about you for months after you're gone. This shows your desire to share your "milk and honey" American culture with them.
  
• Smile and be happy with them a lot. Don't complain about or criticize anything in their country (except maybe the heat and humidity because they'll think it's funny that you can barely withstand it) because they are a very proud people who don't want to be thought of as anything but your equal. NEVER talk down to anybody. You may live well on $100,000 a year here but they can live just as well relatively on $10,000 a year there. Even if you are sitting in their bamboo shack with a thatched grass roof, they have pride in the fact that they own a home or farm while others don't. I've heard comments like, "My dog has a better house to live in than her family." and if you have that opinion you better keep it to yourself forever because of the damage you could do to your relationship with a wife who is very devoted to her family back home. You will cause yourself hell if you speak anything of that nature - ever.
  
• Sing Karaoke with the family if they ask. Whether you are good or not, it's a right of passage and makes you closer to them. Virtually every family with electricity in their home has a Karaoke rig of some kind even if they don't have a refrigerator. Or a neighbor with electricity has a Karaoke system that you will end up singing on.
  
• If you want, you could ask her to marry you and give her an engagement ring while you are with the family. I planned on doing that but I knew my wife was the one for me within an hour after I met her, so I jumped the gun and we got engaged 9 hours after we met and visited her family 3 days later. I still asked her father to allow me to marry her though because it was proper.
  

By the end of your trip to the Philippines you should:

1. Be familiar with her immediate family members if there are any,
2. Have received their approval that you may be a good spouse for their daughter/sister/grand daughter,
3. Be engaged to your candidate with a ring on her finger,
4. Have grown an unmistakable romantic love relationship that you both feel intensely,
5. Spent most of every day together from the moment you got there until the moment you leave,
6. Slept together, at least platonically (without sex), to bond and learn if there is chemistry between you,
7. Possibly made love which should be the ultimate bond as a loving couple. If she was a virgin she has given you the most precious gift she had to give and has chosen you as her lifetime partner forever. Don't disappoint her!
   
8. Taken plenty of pictures of the both of you together in familiar places, with family, etc.
9. Had four passport pictures taken of her by a photography shop so that you can take them home with you.
10. Gotten a copy of her birth certificate for the forms you must fill out and send to Homeland Security when you get home.
11. Be absolutely positive this is the woman you want to spend the rest of your life with and she is absolutely positive you are the man she wants to spend the rest of her life with.
12. Feel horrible as you get on the airplane bound for the U.S. because you must leave her behind and probably not see her again for more than 5 months. That used to be up to a year but the governments are getting faster about processing (and more expensive too) so it is much shorter now. Personally, my wife and I sat and clung to each other and both of us cried and looked into each others eyes in a taxi for an hour and a half (her distant cousin owned the taxi and nicely let us sit in the AC to stay cool while he went somewhere else). We had become inseparable and getting on the plane to go to the U.S. was the hardest thing I ever did in my life. She cried for an hour on the bus back to her hometown and my eyes were moist for the whole trip back to the U.S. and I felt like my world had collapsed on me for several weeks after I got back.
    

SOME MORE THINGS YOU SHOULD NOT DO

• DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES GET MARRIED TO HER WHILE YOU ARE THERE! If you do this you are sentencing your girl and yourself to more than a year of solitude because immigrating a wife is MUCH harder and takes MUCH longer than a fiancee.  I have a friend who's religious beliefs made him feel he couldn't have sex with a fiancee so he married her.  It took him almost TWO years to get her into the U.S.  He went back to the Philippines and visited her for a couple weeks twice more before he made a fourth trip to get her and bring her home to the U.S.  That was the most miserable 2 years he ever spent in his life.  She was miserable too.  AND he spend more than $8500 on air fares mostly for himself and a one-way trip for her.  If you want to bring her to the U.S. then marry her, wait until she has permission to travel outside the country, then return to the Philippines to officially marry her there too, that's fine.  But DO NOT marry her before she has immigrated into the U.S.
  
• Don't leave her wondering what the outcome of your time together was. She needs comfort and security in knowing that you didn't just come to her country and use her. She will naturally think that she'll never see you again because she has heard rumors about girls that got duped and used. You MUST tell her you love her many times while you are there. Do not try to hold in your feelings, restrict your expression of feelings, or pretend to not care because you will ruin everything you came to accomplish.
• Don't visit her for less than a week during the first time. You need at least a week to bond. If you can't go for a week right now, plan for a time when you can go for a week. She wants to know you a lot and time is the way to get to know each other a lot.
• Don't be a braggart. If you work at WalMart for mimum wage, you have 10 times as much income as most Filipinas are accustomed to. If you make $100,000 a year they can't really comprehend it so don't brag about your financial status. Their Peso to Dollar ratio makes it hard for Filipinas to comprehend American Dollars and the dollar's buying power here in the U.S.
• Don't be a pervert and try to get her into bed on the first day or within hours of getting there. She wants to be treated as a person, as a human being, and as a friend. Then she'll enjoy being a really good friend, then romantic partner, and intimate romantic partner in stages. Coming out of the shower and dropping your towel in front of her while she's still holding her purse and watching TV is not the good-mannered method.
• Don't leave the country without giving her an engagement ring. It doesn't have to be $3000 but it should be a nice one that she is proud of and can show her friends and family. Remember our Dollar to her Peso is very different. A $600 ring in this country is 30,000 Pesos in her country and that's a major ring. A nice Filipina is not the gold digger of the U.S. that you are accustomed to who demands the most popular jewelry store with the biggest name brand, highest carat rating, and highest price. This is a girl who has never experienced a piece of jewelry worth more than $25 to $40 and a $500 to $600 diamond ring is a major piece for her.
• Don't leave unless you have established touching, holding hands, kissing, and other such intimacy. She needs to be able to remember your smell, your feel, your facial skin, your aftershave, your hair texture, your eyes and eye contact with her, your skin color, your everything. Whether you make love is between the two of you (let her decide - don't force the issue) but don't just do it for recreation. Do it slowly and gently to express love to her and make sure she's receiving pleasure. If you don't know how to do anything but simulate an air hammer in bed, get some books and learn how to be sensitive, loving, tactile, sensual, and giving before going to meet your candidate. She won't be addicted to Mr. Power Drill but she'll be addicted to sensitivity and passion and want more from you.
• Don't antagonize anyone of authority. They'll jail you just to get money out of you. A high percentage of police officers are corrupt and will fleece you if given the chance. They'll even overcharge or fleece their own countrymen because they have a position of power to do so.
• Don't dress in known brand names like Nike, Adidas, Abercrombe & Finch, or any U.S. team jacket, hat, or shirt. Don't wear an expensive watch or excessive jewelry. Don't draw attention to yourself with huge laughter, acting the clown, or other exaggerated movements while in public places that people turn their heads to see.
• Don't flash money around. If you take $800 with you, convert half to Pesos and stash the other half away for later. Not in a hotel safe where employees have the combination or keys. Not in an obvious place like a refrigerator or your main suitcase. Personally I bought a strong leather money belt to wear inside the waistband of my pants. Even after you have half your money converted to Pesos, don't carry all of those Pesos in your pocket either. Stash most of the Peso money in your hiding place or money belt. Carry something like 3000 to 3500 Pesos most of the time. Trust your new girlfriend to carry 3000 to 3500 Pesos as well. If you get pick-pocketed or drop it, you will only have lost about $60 or so. Have your fiancee do all the talking and price negotiations for you with taxi drivers, store owners, fruit and vegetable market operators, restaurants, etc. Service providers will definitely try to rip you off because they know you don't understand their money well enough. I had taxi drivers try to charge me 10X the amount of fare that it should have been. I waited until my wife-to-be got there and she handled them.
  
• Don't give coins to beggars or begging children. It's a sad situation but if you do it for one you will suddenly be surrounded with a circle of them all begging and pleading. Most Filipinos ignore the beggars and carry on with life. I wish I could spend millions of dollars to help Filipino kids living on the street but I don't have it.
  
• Don't ride buses, bicycles, tricycles, motorcycles, trike motorcycles, Jeepney truck taxis, or other small vehicles for transportation. When possible, use a car taxi with air conditioning and try to plan your day so you can keep using the same car and driver for the whole day if you can. They're glad to have one customers pay them for multiple hours instead of having to find a lot of Filipino customers who don't have much money to go very far.
• Don't drink tap water anywhere except in a large city and even then you might consider not drinking it. They have different parasites and bacteria in their water than we do. So what doesn't bother them could make you deathly sick. Virtually every grocery store and even some large drug stores sell bottled water. Get yourself a couple gallons and stay healthy until you get back. This includes ice cubes in cold drinks. They are made from the city water.
• Don't promise your girl something and then not do it or not get it for her. Always fulfill every promise you make - maybe even to excess.
• Don't leave the big cities and the main roads unless you get excitement from endangering yourself. Terrorists in the southern part of the Philippines regularly hijack buses, take hostages, steal jewelry from bus passengers, bomb the bus, shoot people just for fun, and other such things. That's not to say all parts of the Philippines are dangerous but you are a foreigner and must be careful where you don't know the territory.
• Don't go to the Philippines during a national election. That's when faction groups, Muslim terrorists, and other wackos do things like kidnapping of foreigners, setting off bombs in shopping malls, and much more.
• Take a bottle of mosquito repellent or Avon Skin So Soft in your luggage (not your carry-on) to escape any possibility of getting Malaria or Dengue Fever which are common in the "province" or as we say "out in the country." You can either get immunizations before you go or if you plan on staying indoors most of the time you aren't required to do so by either government.
  

So... that was quite an adventure.  Your back is worn out from sitting in that damned plane seat with a metal frame not covered with foam rubber well enough for another 20+ hours.  Unless you took noise canceling headphones you'll be partially deaf for a week or so.  You've lost weight because you're so in love you forgot to eat sometimes and you were afraid of some of the things you were offered to eat the rest of the time.

You've got a stack of 4X6 prints of your beautiful fiancee that you look at many times a day.  You show her pix to your friends and family with excitement.  I sat a picture of my sweetheart on a chair next to my bed so I'd wake up to see her smiling face looking at me each day.

You have to go back to your normal life for a while before she can come to be with you but it's not the same now.  There's a big void in your life.  What used to be fun in your U.S. life now seems not so much fun anymore.  You are ready to introduce her to your best friends but you can only show them pictures and try to describe her personality.  You want to hear her voice in your ear but you can only hear it on the phone or computer.  You remember the smell of her hair and that makes you eager to smell it again as soon as possible.  If you took video of her talking to the camera you watch it over and over trying to re-live those moments in your mind for a short time and it works just enough to keep you sane until she gets here.

Your next step is to fill out all the proper paperwork to send to the U.S. government, add the correct material and pictures they request, send a check with it, and wait..wait..wait until they process paperwork.

If you're worried about doing the paperwork yourself you need the help of an immigration lawyer or immigration organization doing the same work without high lawyer fees.  I did all of our paperwork myself but I also do my own income taxes and run businesses because I'm good with details.  Some people don't want to get into that or can't handle it and they should use an immigration specialist.  They're in your nearby big city phone book.  If not, go to an Asian market or Asian grocery or Asian restaurant to ask employees and customers there how you can get hold of your local Filipino Association chapter.  Somebody will lead you in the right direction and you'll find an immigration specialist.

You will continue communicating with your sweetheart and you'll now have more to talk about, remember fondly, and discuss.  It's a lonely time for a while but the anticipation keeps you excited for the near future that should only be about 5 months away.

I'll get into the next steps of your journey in another hub.