My wife's niece is 20 years old, hard working and never really had a child hood. Sometimes my wife misses her family back home so we decided to fly her niece over here to our island. Her mother agreed to let her come but would make these requests to find her daughter a nice foreigner to marry. It never really occurred to me to take her request seriously but she kept calling asking how things were going and if we had found one yet. As I started to get to know my wife's niece Mary I learned that she had been working 16 hour days for about 100 pesos / $2.50 a day. I also learned that Mary has some kind of heart condition and has collapsed from exhaustion at her job before. I had this banner up on this blog for awhile promoting cebuanas.com and I have never made any money off it but as I was sitting here with nothing to do I thought it might be interesting to have Mary create a profile to see if there might be anyone that she actually might be interested in. After all, it was my pc she would be using to browse potential suitors and I could always pull the plug if things got out of hand. We started with just a couple of simple photos and waited about 24 hours for her profile to be approved. Even though I had a banner up on my blog of this Filipina dating site I had no real clue as to what it was actually like. It seems as though the Filipina gets to use the site for free but the foreigners must pay a fee to use it. We could have went to any one of the social networks out there to find some random guy but this site was a better option because all the men were actually paying to meet the filipina of their dreams. We all know the internet can be full of wackos and perverts and so my wife and I decided that all interaction would be monitored by us from beginning to end. Once Mary's profile was approved the 3 of us started browsing men's profiles and looking for anyone that might catch her eye. Right away messages were beginning to come in of men interested in her. There were a few people I blocked right away. Some men looked to be much too old for her and whatever reason she had at the time for not liking them were blocked. I was hesitant but we moved on to cam chatting with no audio. Mary like many Filipinos was very nervous to be speaking English because it's not her first language and would be dreadfully embarrassed to say something wrong. The cam was pointed only at Mary and the men had no idea we were watching out of view of the camera making sure nothing crazy happened and helping her with her spelling. We had a couple chats with a couple different people but no one really liked. We checked for new messages and looked for new profiles from time to time. After about a week she found a guy who interested her and she made contact with him. We'll call him Bob. Bob and Mary began Silently cam chatting and getting to know one another.

After observing their conversations for a few days we decided to let him know that my wife and I were present during these conversations and became acquainted with him. He seemed very polite. He wasn't the least bit rude or perverse. After awhile cam chatting became a regular thing and I began seeing the two of them chatting everyday at the same time. Bob said he had some vacation time coming up from his employment and we decided to have him come to our island and visit us. As Mary counted the days for Bob to arrive I started to question whether I did a good thing by allowing this to happen and what I would do if it all went horribly wrong. Never the less what had been done had been done and Bob was on his way. We waited at the airport and I think all three of us were a bit nervous. I kept telling Mary "I think I see him!", just so I could see the look on her face. She had never even had a Filipino boyfriend because her mother had her mind made up about Mary having a foreign husband who could give her a better life.

Finally Bob's plane had arrived after about a 10 hour flight. Bob appeared to be much taller than Mary and even taller than I am. He had issues with his hearing due to the altitude of his plane ride and seemed a little pale. Despite Bob's exhaustively long flight and his temporary hearing loss he seemed very nice and was a gentleman. We helped Bob get a hotel room and a bite to eat. The next day we helped Bob find a motorcycle to rent and began taking the two of them on our tours. I was surprised at how well the two of them got along and how quickly they took to one another. They quickly became inseparable. Only a few weeks later they were married. Bob made me his best man. They spent Bob's last week here alone together and Bob came by today to say a proper goodbye. I honestly can't imagine a nicer guy to be her husband. He plans on going back to his country so he can return to work and prepare for his new bride to live with him there.
It's been an interesting couple of weeks...