A Long Way to Go for a Date

Any of you folks familiar with the game "Scruples"?  I have a lot of fond memories of getting together with some of my friends, our girlfriends, even family members, and playing marathon sessions of the game.  Essentially, a dilemma is presented on a card, usually of a moral nature if I recall correctly, and the trick is for every player to correctly guess what action the other players would take if presented with that situation.   An example question is, " You e-mail your picture to a gorgeous person you met on the Internet. Do you mention that you gained thirty pounds since the picture was taken?"

A little soul searching involved, and, of course, scruples...It's a lot of fun.  And should you doubt me, I should mention that the game has sold over 7 million copies.  Might make a swell Christmas gift...

Well, the fella who invented Scruples is Henry Makow, and he emailed me a few weeks back and suggested I read a copy of his new book, "A Long Way to go for a Date."  He was kind enough to send me a copy, and upon finishing the first chapter I wrote him back to say I'd very much like to offer his work to ASAWA visitors.  He agreed, so I'm very pleased to now present it for your consideration.

Henry's book chronicles his own relationship with a Filipina named Cecilia on the island of Mindanao.  Having met her through a Canadian penpal club, Henry embarked upon a journey which many ASAWA visitors are familiar with - a journey that starts with a few letters exchanged across the Pacific, which in turn leads to a flight to the Philippines to meet a penpal and her family, and which culminates with marriage and that sometimes turbulent "settling in" period back in the west.

"A Long Way to go for a Date" is not a "how-to" book on meeting penpals and marrying them.  Henry omits the tedious technicalities of the correspondence and immigration processes in order to focus on his interactions with Cecilia and her family and friends.  Particularly interesting to me were his interactions with, and observations about, Cecilia's Filipino suitors and her father. 

Henry makes it explicit from the very start of the book that he knows exactly what he wants in a wife, and that he will go to great lengths to get what he's looking for.   He suffers the verbal slings and arrows of friends and family for seeking a foreign bride, and admits that in the end, marrying someone you know primarily through letters is a huge gamble.  Succeed, he points out, and you're a genius.  Fail, and you're a fool.   And indeed, he spends much of his journey plagued with the doubts that many western men experience when corresponding with a woman from another country.  Am I a fool?  Is this a disaster waiting to happen? Why would a young, attractive girl want an older guy like me?  What will she think when she sees me?

Yet Henry's convictions move him forward.  He is very outspoken about his contempt for the feminist movement in the west (specifically the U.S. and Canada) and he believes that there are few marital prospects for him in his homeland.  For him, there is no real option - he must gamble that a Filipina bride will live up to her reputation as a family-oriented, loving, and supporting wife, or else marry a woman from the west who will, in his estimation, make him miserable due to feminist brain-washing. 

I know from my correspondence with ASAWA visitors that a great number of men who happen upon my site face a very similar situation. While Henry and I are not necessarily in agreement on every topic he discusses (due to recent cloning failures), I do appreciate the fact that many readers of this book will be raising their hands in the air and shouting "Hallelujah, you've got it 100% right, buddy!". Without doubt, Henry's managed to capture and succinctly express the convictions of a large number of modern western men - essentially, that feminists in the west have destroyed the viability of a traditional marriage. 

The book really neither supports nor condemns penpal relationships or mail order brides.  Henry simply strives to relay his own experiences and always says exactly what he thinks.  At many points in his narrative I found myself nodding and thinking, "Man, it was really ingenious how you handled that situation, Henry," but there were also a few points where I cringed and said, "My God, man, what were you thinking?!"  But so goes life.  We all have our own philosophies and we all deal with the world differently.  "A Long Way to go for a Date" is important because it provokes thought about a very controversial issue, and will present those of you who are new to intercultural relationships with a snapshot of the good, the bad, and the ugly. 

A word of warning: this is one story that does not have a happy ending, and it is up to the reader to determine why things fell apart.  So don't expect a love story.  There are many such stories out there (mostly unsung), but this isn't one of them.  You'll probably finish this book a bit frustrated.  But I think it's valuable in that it provides a cautionary note to others who would rush into marriage based on preconceptions alone.  Intercultural marriages between Filipinas and westerners do work most of the time; not always.  Perhaps you can glean from this tale some pointers one what to do, and what not to do; what to look out for, and what to expect.