Interview: Professor Julia Meszaros Publishes Revealing Research on Colombia’s International Matchmaking Scene

The “premium international dating” (PID) industry, a global business often stereotyped or misunderstood, sits at the intersection of globalization, technology, and shifting cultural norms. It is an industry that raises complex questions about gender, economics, and the very nature of romantic relationships in the 21st century.

To understand this complex field, Finance Colombia’s Executive Editor, Loren Moss, sat down with Dr. Julia Meszaros, Associate Professor of Sociology at East Texas A&M University who has spent over a decade researching the motivations, mechanisms, and outcomes of the PID scene. She is the author of the new book, Economies of Gender: Masculinity, “Mail Order Brides,” and Women’s Labor.

The interview has been slightly edited  for moments of poor internet connectivity.

In this conversation, Meszaros discusses her research in key markets like Ukraine, the Philippines, and Colombia, detailing the profiles of the men and women who use these services, the regulatory landscape, and how Colombia has become a uniquely popular destination.

Finance Colombia: I really appreciate your time. We’re here to talk about some research that you’ve done, and you also have a new book out. And you’ve studied something very interesting, and that is the premium international dating scene. And this is an area that is interesting because it’s one of those fields that I think a lot of people are curious about, but because there has been a stigma, are maybe afraid to talk about it, or even if they’re involved in it, you know, it’s almost like a secret society.

But you’ve dived in…and you’ve studied this for more than a decade. I’m sure that people had to kind of raise eyebrows, like, “You’re studying what?” or “Is this a serious study or are you trying to get a discount?” So, how did you become interested in this subject? And, you know, you’ve spent more than a decade so far on it.

Julia Meszaros: Well, I read an article about it in a graduate class and I was interested in comparing stuff happening in Eastern Europe to what’s been going on in Latin America…I was just kind of really interested to see what motivates people to do intercultural relationships, because they can be often fraught with a lot of difficulties, and what encourages people to actively seek it out. I think it’s one thing, right, like you said: you move somewhere, you meet someone local, you’re in an intercultural relationship. But typically, most people are not seeking that out. It’s difficult, right? To do long distance, to do all this visa stuff, who’s gonna go where, do you speak the same language, all of these barriers, right?

So I was just, you know, interested because as we’re like in a time of globalization in general, it makes sense that people would be kind of expanding their search for love. I started in this industry and a lot of times people made the assumption that these women were, you know, victims of human trafficking and all of these kinds of things, and I quickly found out that’s not the case with any kind of legitimate business that is actually regulated by the US government.

So these ‘international marriage brokers’, they are called, according to the law, which is the International Marriage Broker Regulation Act (IMBRA), which was passed in 2005, which regulates these sites where men pay and women do not pay. So something like Match.com (NASDAQ: MTCH) would not fall under this purview of the law, but these are legitimate businesses and there’s no human trafficking of any sort.

So then from there I was just interested why would women want to do this? Why would men want to do this? And so kind of, you know, the main finding for why men wanted to do it was they were looking for more traditional women, women who were willing to take on more traditional labor roles in the home, women who were more willing to be feminine in appearance; so thinner, more femininely dressed, made up, heels, etc. They were looking for somebody hot. The younger guys wanted somebody hot, and the older gentlemen kind of wanted someone who would take care of them and take care of the home.

And a lot of the guys were looking for someone younger, so many of them had been through divorce, like about 36% of the guys I talked to were divorced already. The median age was about 53, so most of these guys had had a marriage, some of them had children from previous relationships, but a lot of them were looking for someone younger that they could start a family with or have more children. And a lot of them had felt disappointed with their dating and marriage experiences in the US, and so they wanted to kind of broaden their search.

And some of the guys, I think, you know, were adventurous, and just wanted to kind of travel and meet a bunch of beautiful women at one time instead of just going on a normal boring travel package, right? They were like, “Hi, if I’m going to be paying this amount of money, I might as well be introduced to a bunch of beautiful women while I’m there.” So men had very differing motivations, in that sense, but most of them wanted someone younger and someone very feminine.

And in terms of Colombia, they were looking for women who were more sexy, I guess, is kind of the vibe that Colombian women gave versus women in the Philippines who gave more of a conservative [vibe]. The guys there were looking more for, I would say, submissive versus sexy. And then in Ukraine, I would say they were looking for a more submissive or traditional-looking white woman, right? So race played a big role in Ukraine in the fact that they’re white women, but they still have these traditional gender norms in the country. So Ukraine is typically where men start, and most of the time they go there first, and if it doesn’t really pan out, which it typically does not, then they would go to places like Colombia or the Philippines or Costa Rica and things like that.

So the company I followed, they go to Costa Rica, Peru, Colombia, and they did have an office open for a while in the Dominican Republic, and I think they’re trying to revive one in Mexico City. So some of that is idiosyncratic in terms of hiring the right people to start a local office. But I picked Colombia because Colombia was by far the most popular country in Latin America of where men were headed, and then same for the Philippines, it was the most popular country in Asia. So, once again, idiosyncratic. Their Thailand office was closed, so it’s not as popular. And I think for a lot of American guys, the Philippines, they’re English-speaking, right? So it’s just such an easy transition, whereas I think more British guys tend to kind of go to Thailand.

So some of that is also geography. As you pointed out, I’m here in Texas. A lot of the men were from Texas. Like a significant, like 16% of the guys I interviewed were from Texas, so like a significant amount. A lot of guys from Florida as well, and California, so the big states. A lot of men who went to Colombia tended to have a Latino background, so some of them spoke Spanish, so they had that kind of advantage over the non-Spanish speaking American guys who go. And so most of the Latin men I would meet on these tours would tend to be going to Colombia. There were Black men who went on tours in all three places, and there were a couple Asian men on tour in Ukraine, but it tended to be mostly white men when I went, and they mostly identified as politically conservative. Most of them were entrepreneurs of some sort or had the kind of more job flexibility where they could take this week off and travel.

Finance Colombia: I think that that is interesting. Few things surprise me anymore, but I would say that it’s interesting that many of them are conservative. You would think that someone who was politically or socially conservative would be the person most likely to stick to home or most likely to stick to someone who is culturally most similar. You would think that would be the case.

Julia Meszaros: You would think so. Yes. So a lot of these guys think that the local women have been ruined by feminism here in America, so because of that, they think that they will find more submissive and traditional women in these other countries. And for that reason, it’s weirdly conservative but yet, not. And they want a conservative woman, but obviously the type of woman who’s willing to marry a foreigner is probably not the most conservative woman of that culture, right?

A lot of the men were from Texas. Like a significant, like 16% of the guys I interviewed were from Texas.

So it’s this kind of interesting mishmash sometimes, where the guys are looking for a very conservative woman, and usually the women who are interested in dating foreign guys are more cosmopolitan and educated and looking for more liberal gender roles in the household. That’s why they kind of are sick of their local options. They’re looking for guys who are more open-minded and more financially stable, of course.

Finance Colombia: You know, an interesting anecdote. A Russian woman I know who now lives in the United States told me: “This feminism is the dumbest thing ever invented.” And that was her perspective, and she literally laughed—she really didn’t want any part of it. And she had been in the U.S., or in the West, long enough. It wasn’t like she didn’t understand it, but she really didn’t want any part of it. And she was from an upper-income background in Russia, so it wasn’t like she was, you know, looking for someone with money or anything like that, but still, it was interesting that she had that attitude.

Now, there are different segments…mail-order brides, the old stereotype…And then you have dating platforms…there are things like Tinder (NASDAQ: MTCH). There are dating platforms that are set up specifically for…cross-border or international or ethnically-focused markets, and then you have the PID or Premium International Dating. How would you differentiate these segments, not just by definition, but by who they are attractive to?

Julia Meszaros: Sure, that’s a really great question. So, I would say, when we talked a little briefly about this new passport bro trend and phenomenon, what is very different in that is that they are not using an agency. They are going there using something like Tinder, right? And so, they’re kind of going solo and just using Tinder because it’s a lot more affordable. So, that demographic skews younger, poorer, and more men of color identify with this whole passport bro phenomenon versus the premium international dating market phenomenon, right?

The passport bro situation, I would say people who, once again, are younger are more likely to use a free platform, and are more likely to feel comfortable with online dating platforms than people who are older. I think people who are older feel much more comfortable with having kind of someone to hold your hand. So, the premium international dating market is for those guys who are not very well traveled, who are older, who are not super tech savvy, who want a lot of hand-holding, who want vetting, right? They want the women to somewhat be vetted that, yes, this is a real woman, and yes, she exists in real life, and this is not a scam. And there’s at least some sort of vetting of that woman that happens in the premium international dating. Someone had to meet her to put her on the site, in theory, right?

Whereas, you know, some of the dangers of the whole passport bro phenomenon is, as I’m sure you’ve seen, some of them die, right? Because they’re targeted for, you know, robbery, right? And sometimes it goes wrong. They’re overdosed on scopolamine. And so, for that reason, the more cautious, older, better-off traveler is more likely to hire an agency, because they want that vetting, they want that hand-holding, they want that extra service.

Then I would say your intercultural kind of platforms, I would say, attract people probably who are, once again, I would say a more general, broad audience. Like, you might attract women, too. It might not just be fully men who are interested in that kind of platform…

So, if we’re looking at the women specific ethnic dating platforms, I would say those are the kind of guys who have a little more money than the guys trying to use Tinder, but aren’t necessarily willing to commit to traveling in person to meet the women. And what I found out, too, when I was studying this industry is that like 90% of the men are just satisfied with online relationships and never go in person to meet these women. So, that’s a huge number, right, of men who are really content with just doing like an online kind of fantasy relationship.

So, in that sense, that’s why I was saying like, with this whole AI, like people falling in love with AI, I’m like, “I’m not surprised.” Because people have been falling in love with these bots online now for years…But so I think, you know, those kinds of guys tend to be much more happy with this kind of, you know, fantasy, just like saying, “I have this girlfriend in Ukraine, and look at these pictures of her, and she’s so attractive,” and etc, etc. And then they get that emotional work of, you know, feeling better about themselves…So, I think those are the kind of differences between those platforms.

Loren: That’s interesting. I am surprised by that. I mean, I’m not surprised that it exists, but I’m surprised that there’s a frequency of it. But I guess it could make sense in a lot of cases, where let’s take somebody who maybe is relatively low-income. And even if they might send 100 or 200 bucks to somebody in some far off country, I mean, that wouldn’t go far in a place like Colombia, you know, but it would in somewhere like Nicaragua or, you know, even places I’ve been to in Central Asia, which I doubt very much that there’s much online dating in Uzbekistan. I’ve been there, lovely people, but their culture doesn’t strike me as one that would fit with that. But 200 bucks would go, you know, a very long way in a place like that.

And it’s kind of safe in a way for both sides. And the guy might have bad body odor, or…one of the things that’s interesting, I was thinking about this the other day, you have people who are physically incapacitated, I don’t know if we still say disabled, it changes every 10 years. But you’ve got situations like that. And then same on the women’s side, you might have somebody that has a situation where they’re tied to an elderly parent or something like that, or even maybe moral ideas that restrict, self-restriction and something like that. And that kind of emotional companionship would make sense for people. That’s really interesting.

Now, we talked about the types of men who are attracted to these services, but it takes women as well. And I would be very curious as to what types of women would sign up. And I would imagine, and you can tell me if I’m wrong, I would imagine that there are women who are kind of just curious and might sign up for a dating site, even to meet somebody locally, even though there might be foreign people on it. And it’s like, “Well, this guy is foreign, I’ll go out with him. I wasn’t really looking for that.” But then with the premium international dating services and things like that, there are people who specifically look for that. And it’s not necessarily the whole stereotype gold-digger. I think of a personal friend of mine from Bogota, and she was financially stable on her own. And I just remember she was a feminist, forward-thinking person, but she said one time, and I think she was just upset with somebody, she was like, “I’m not dating any more of these local men.” And I thought she was just playing, but she went off and married her dentist and now she’s in Arizona.

So a lot of these guys think that the local women have been ruined by feminism here in America, so because of that, they think that they will find more submissive and traditional women in these other countries.

But what is the profile of the type of women who, and I know it’s almost unfair to stereotype because you have all different types of people, but I’m trying to imagine a woman saying, “I’m going to sign up for this dating service, and then I’m going to go to this party and there’s going to be these foreign men,” and the whole purpose of going to the party is to meet a foreign man versus “I’m going to go out and party with the girls and I meet a cute guy while I’m out at the club,” or something like that. I have difficulty imagining that. So how does that work?

Julia Meszaros: So a lot of the women are obviously younger than the men, younger than 40. So at least the main agency I followed, they have like — the local agencies have to send somebody’s information and photos if they are over 40 to even sign up for the site. So most of the women are pretty young. They tend to be in their twenties, more mid to late twenties, early thirties. Some of them are single moms, right? So they have kids from previous relationships also that didn’t work out. Some of them are divorced, particularly in Ukraine, divorce is pretty common.

The economic situation varies for a lot of the women. So in the Philippines, I definitely met women who were in some pretty rough economic positions. I met women in Colombia who were middle of the road or kind of rough. I mean, you don’t meet super wealthy women typically, let’s just be honest. Super wealthy women aren’t necessarily looking for a foreign guy. Most of the women though, they wanted somebody stable. That was kind of the main thing, and someone who wasn’t going to cheat.

So they looked at Western men as less likely to cheat and to be kind of more respectful to their wives in terms of that kind of stuff. They thought, “Yeah, Western men would be more faithful and much more stable and family-oriented than like, local Colombian men.”

Finance Colombia: Interesting. So how do these agencies… I mean, do they place advertisements, or do they have like, fixers, or how do they go out and recruit? What do they do?

Julia Meszaros: So they do a lot of radio advertising, word of mouth advertising, and then they often offer a free photo shoot as kind of like the inducement for people to kind of come and check out the office, get nice headshots, and then they can use them for the site. And then the women are happy because they have these beautiful pictures for themselves. So that’s kind of typically how they recruit. A lot of it is through word of mouth though, for sure. I think that is the most successful recruiting tool that they have. So people who’ve enjoyed their dates or people who’ve gotten married and had success and found relationships are typically their biggest advertisement, like their successful couples. And they tend to highlight them a lot.

Finance Colombia: Interesting. So, you know, do you see a difference? I mean, are most of the women looking for marriage or are they looking for a sugar daddy? And I guess, to be fair, are the men looking for adventures or are the men looking for wives? Of course there are going to be some of both, but what seems to predominate?

Julia Meszaros: I mean, if I listen to what people tell me, then most of them are going to say they are being sincere and looking for real relationships and all of those things. If I watch people’s behaviors, is that always reflected in their behaviors? Not always, right? So I would see guys tell me, “Oh, I’m looking for someone close-ish to my age, something very serious.” And then they’d be dating 20-year-olds the whole week. And so it’s kind of hard to take them seriously.

I would say with some of the women, they would be like, “I’m just looking for somebody stable,” you know, “I don’t care” kind of thing, what he looks like or whatever the case might be. I think, you know, to a degree, the women probably are more serious in the sense of…well, it’s hard to say that because the men are paying for a service. So you’re like, in theory, you should be serious about this if you’re paying for this service. But some of them are not.

So I think the most successful couples, I will say, recognize that, you know, all relationships involve some sort of exchange, right? And I think, you know, a lot of the men are recognizing like, “Hey, I’m an older guy, I want somebody younger. So the way that I can access that is by providing them with a comfortable life.” Those couples tend to work out a little better. Where the man is kind of aware…Like they’re both understanding that, “Okay, this guy is maybe not the most attractive guy in the world, but, you know, he wants to provide me with a stable and comfortable life. And that is what I think of as real love.”

So for some people, real love might be feeling sexually attracted to someone. And for someone, it might be feeling taken care of by someone.

Finance Colombia: It’s going to be interesting. In the US, now women are generally better educated than men. And even though men can still earn a lucrative income in things like skilled trades. When women—and you’re the sociologist, but I believe the term is hypergamy; and so I wonder if we’re going to see more social upheaval, in terms of couple dynamics, as women end up, leveling with status with men?

It’s interesting because I wonder what that’s going to do when the women are all the professionals, or overwhelmingly. I wonder if that will actually drive a growth in this industry. And what’s your view, having studied that and being an American, and seeing this phenomenon? As a highly educated woman, too, how is this going to affect things?

Julia Meszaros: I think it is going to affect things in a lot of ways. I see a lot more women in their 40s choosing to stay single in the US, right? Because they feel like the men aren’t on par with them in the dating market, which then I think also, as you point out, pushes men further into these kinds of dating markets as women opt out here, and they’re not willing to perform these traditional gender roles.

So I think a lot of people talk about this male loneliness epidemic, I don’t know if you’ve heard that term tossed around? And I think it has to do with men feeling like they can’t really access a lot of women anymore, because women have surpassed them economically in many ways, right? So the way I kind of think about it is, women used to be men’s slaves 70 years ago, essentially, right? Like you kind of were, you didn’t really have legal rights outside of marriage, and you had to do this labor for men, and so men are kind of expecting that kind of labor from women, and now that more and more women are working outside of the home, they’re like, “I’m tired, I can’t do both things.” Because our system was set up for it to be one earner and someone at the house taking care of that one earner, and now we have two dual earners, and we’re seeing the strains, I think, in intimate relationships.

They want the women to somewhat be vetted that, yes, this is a real woman, and yes, she exists in real life, and this is not a scam.

And that’s why I also think that this industry is growing in popularity, because these strains have been kind of happening in heterosexual intimate relationships in western countries, not just the US, right? This is also happening in Europe, in Australia, Canada… So a lot of those guys are also interested in this industry. It’s not just Americans.

Finance Colombia: Yeah, I think even there’s a big domestic industry. Then in some cultures you have the matchmaker, and it’s a formal thing, you know? We see a social turbulence, again, not just in America, but really…in Latin America, Colombia, which is generally a conservative country…abortion is now legal. It is now safe to be gay in Colombia. …So there is a lot of social turbulence happening, over so many different aspects.

Now, I’m really interested in drilling down on Colombia, but before we do, most of your studies have been in Ukraine, the Philippines, and Colombia, but maybe, do you have any observations from other places, like maybe China, Thailand, Vietnam, Argentina? Before we really drill down in Colombia, I’m interested in the differences you’ve seen. What have you seen in some of the places outside of those big three that you focused on?

Julia Meszaros: So, what I see is Thailand tends to be dominated more by Brits. Americans tend to prefer to go to the Philippines because of the language stuff. Vietnam, I think, tends to be dominated more by South Koreans and Chinese, so inter-Asian marriage tourists. …Then I would say there’s some people who go to Belarus, but that’s pretty hard. It’s such a closed-off country. I haven’t heard too much about Moldova or, you know, Central Asian countries. I think they’re just a little too far off the beaten path for most Americans. There just aren’t enough flights, it’s long, it’s difficult.

The company I follow does still do some stuff in Russia, but no organized tours. Once again, Russia requires a visa. It’s complicated, it’s a farther trip. And now Ukraine, they also are not doing group tours because of the war, but they will take individuals who want to go, but they’ve suspended group tours for the interim. Costa Rica, a lot of the guys complain that the people who ran the office there were disorganized. But I feel like men had lesser preference for women in Peru or Costa Rica because of the more indigenous appearance of women, I would say. I would say they were looking more for a stereotypical Latina look, so more Colombian or Brazilian or Dominican.

The Dominican Republic, once again, idiosyncratic, not sure why that office didn’t work for them, but they still do have a lot of women’s profiles from the DR on their website. I think a lot of these places are also concurrent sex tour places. So I think there’s that undercurrent as well, that places associated with beautiful women are just more likely to be chosen as these places.

So I think for people in the US, Central Asian women aren’t that known, like people aren’t going to be like, “Oh, Georgian women!” right? I mean, we might think they’re beautiful, but most Americans aren’t even going to know that Georgia is a country, not a state, you know what I mean?

Loren: [Laughs.] You know, I think about Uzbekistan or Kazakhstan, and I’ve got friends from both places, and I’ve been to Uzbekistan multiple times, and that’s not a place…they’re very friendly people, lovely place, they are secular, you can walk around, and you know, and you’re not going to see somebody in their Brazilian thong or anything like that, but it is a Muslim country, and I mean, they have alcohol, and they have bars, and things like that, but I’m pretty sure that you would be in a lot of trouble very quickly with anything that got remotely close to sex tourism or something like that. It’s secular, but there is a conservative culture. I’ve been to Turkey, I don’t know anything socially about Turkey, but I would imagine something like that, too. There’s less of a…you’re going to have, like, two extremes. You’re going to have prostitutes, and then you’re going to have people who are saints, or who pretend like they’re saints, and there’s not going to be much in between.

You know, Colombia, interestingly, it seemed like after the pandemic, there was a big boom in tourism generally, as Colombia got a reputation for being safer. What, in your studies, did you find makes Colombia unique and different from the other destinations for international dating?

Julia Meszaros: So, what was really interesting is that it, I think, often is a place that men would actually fall in love with. A lot of people would go there and be super impressed by the city life, right? So, I was in Medellin mostly, and people really liked how organized it was, the red brick buildings and everything; clean, modern, up-to-date. They have this metro—and so, a lot of the guys would talk actually about moving there. So, a lot of guys were spending a significant amount of time there if they did get married to someone.

And I think for a lot of men, the geographic closeness of Colombia also was definitely a big bonus. You know, flying to the Philippines or anywhere in Asia is very costly, very time-consuming. It’s a hard journey. Even flying to Europe, same thing. You know, you’re having to cross oceans.

And then, the guys, when they went to the Philippines—so I was in Davao, which is in the South, in Mindanao, and it’s a bit more developing than, I would say, Colombia, right? Colombia is much more developed. And so, a lot of the guys felt like it was a little too underdeveloped for their comfort, perhaps. They mostly hung out at the hotel, right? They didn’t really go out of the hotel much, whereas I think a lot of the guys in Colombia really enjoyed exploring outside of the hotel. So, they would go to places like Guatapé, and all of these different sights in Colombia. And then, in Ukraine, I think they were just kind of like, “Meh, another European city with some museums and whatever.”

I felt like most of the men really, really liked Colombia, and I think they were surprised the first time they came, because I think Colombia has this really negative image going back to the 90s, you know, the whole Pablo Escobar stuff. And I think it has done a lot to change that reputation. And I think the increased amounts of safety, and especially Medellín has become this popular tourist location, and Cartagena as well. But I think the natural beauty and then the level of development in Colombia really attracted a lot of the guys, because in Colombia, you have mountains, you have beaches, you have rainforests, you know? You have all these natural kinds of things to go see. And so it felt more adventurous.

90% of the men are just satisfied with online relationships and never go in person to meet these women.

And then I think also some of the guys, because of Colombia’s reputation in the past…they kind of felt like badasses; they’re like, “Yeah, I go to Colombia, I’m not worried about getting kidnapped, like it’s all good, you’re tripping.” So it kind of gave them that boost of, you know, feeling kind of brave and kind of like, going in this intimate frontier…And when I went in 2010, there were [fewer] guys than I would say now, right? I think Colombia has become increasingly popular since I’ve been going.

But yeah, I think men felt more brave, and I think Colombia also was more attractive for guys who wanted to party, right? Like, it has more of a party vibe than the other two places. I think there was this bigger association with partying because of, once again, drug undertone that kind of characterized Colombia’s past. And I want to keep saying Colombia’s past because I don’t want people to assume that that is true in the contemporary era.

Finance Colombia: Right, right. Yeah, it’s interesting. You know, if you were down in 2010; my first time in Colombia was in 2004, and there was pretty much no tourism. Things have really become safer.

But what happens on a romance tour? I’ve heard about them, and I’ve always kind of tried to picture: okay, there’s this group of people, and basically, what happens? How are these things formatted? And is the group together? And they all fly down as a group? Or do they kind of fly down on their own? And is there like a babysitter or minder? I’ve always kind of tried to picture what it’s like. And so, what is it like? What’s the format?

Dr. Julia Meszaros, associate professor, department of criminal justice and sociology, East Texas A&N University

Julia Meszaros: So, the tours, there’s two different formats. One that they follow in Ukraine, because they will often do multi-city tours in Ukraine. But in places like Colombia or the Philippines, where they’re concentrated in one city for the entire time, typically, the tour setup is: you book your own flight. So, the cost for the AFA (A Foreign Affair) tour does not include the flight. So you are in charge of booking your own flight.

You book your own flight, but once you get there, they pick you up from the airport, they put all the men into one hotel. Typically, in Medellin, it would be in El Poblado area, right? And so, the first day, they kind of have like an introductory seminar, like, “Hey, we’re going to show you where the local office is, where the local employees are.” So, if you have questions or need things, they take them to the local office. They kind of give them a tour about where they can get money and exchange money. You know, basic kind of travel stuff. So that’s typically on a Thursday. And so, they get the guys in and kind of like, comfortable.

And then, the Friday and Saturday night, they will typically have what they call social parties. And so, they will invite much more women than the men. So I think they probably have at least two to five times the amount of women to the men. So, it’s kind of set up in a speed dating format, but with multiple women at one table, and then the men moving from table to table to table, in order to meet all the women that are in the room, right?

And typically, the guy will be assigned a translator for the weekend. And so, the translator is kind of their note taker. If they’re interested in someone, they’ll get that person’s information. And then, at the end of the speed dating component of the evening, they’ll serve food. And so, the guy will sit at one of these tables…and eat food with the women. And then, they serve alcohol and drinks in Colombia. And then, it’s kind of dancing, right? And like a fun party environment. …And then, sometimes a lot of the guys will try to take the women out after, right? So, the social event ends at like 11 p.m. And then, they’ll be like, “Hey, would you like to continue the night?” And they’ll go to another bar or nightclub in the nearby El Poblado area.

And so, they would do that on both Friday and Saturday night. So now, usually guys typically meet a couple women in person and get their information, and they try to set up dates with them during the week after that. So, usually the tour is a week long. Maybe you do a two-week tour. And so, you’re sticking around after those socials to kind of set up dates, get a vibe, etc.

If you didn’t meet anyone that tickled your fancy at the socials, then you would go into the local office and you would go through literal binders of profiles of women’s profiles, right? And you would write all these women’s numbers down and then the local office girls will call the women and ask, “Hey, would you be interested in going on a date with this guy? Here’s who he is.” And the women can say yes or no. And so then sometimes the guys will just go through the local agency to set up dates. And that’s a service that you could pay for, right? Like if you lived in Colombia…I met guys who were expats, who were living in Colombia, who would use the agency’s services to set up dates. So, you could pay to get an individual date set up…And so, that’s kind of how it typically works.

In the Philippines, it’s a bit more conservative. They do not serve alcohol. It’s very regimented because they don’t want anyone getting drunk. Whereas in Colombia, they do serve alcohol and in Ukraine, they do serve alcohol. So, you know, the cultural norms are kind of impacting some of how the socials are run.

In Ukraine, because a lot of times they will be doing multiple cities, there is a bus, and we all get on the bus, and they all get on the bus together. It’s a really intensive thing. You would get there typically on a Thursday, the socials Friday, then Saturday you have the day to kind of date and then Sunday morning you’re leaving for the next city and that night there’s a new social. So, at some points, guys will drop out. But if you drop out of the tour, then you are responsible for your own transportation and accommodation costs. If you decide to stay in one of these other cities, right? You meet someone and you’re like, “I want to invest the rest of my time with this individual here in this other city,” which does happen quite frequently on those tours.

Finance Colombia: Right. I would imagine that…a lot of the people on the tours would be those that are kind of shy and like having some hand-holding, who aren’t as good at kind of going out on their own, or ‘to have game’ as they would say.

Julia Meszaros: Right. Yeah. So a lot of these guys probably don’t have a lot of game, who are younger, maybe. There were definitely quiet guys, but I think there are also a lot of guys who are, like I said, just more looking for those traditional gender roles. So it’s not because they can’t approach a woman that they’re having issues. They just aren’t finding the kind of women they would like in the U.S

And because of that, there are degrees of handholding that goes on in this industry. So, like we were talking about before, this industry caters more to people who need more handholding. People who aren’t experienced travelers. A lot of the guys I met, they were like, “This is my first time out of the US” This was their first international trip. They got a passport for this trip. …it wasn’t a light undertaking for a lot of them. And so for that reason, there is that handholding of having the translator, having someone pick you up from the airport, having someone set your accommodations…

But I do think there are some men, that there are more and more men who are willing to pay more money for more personalized services, more hand-holding kind of stuff, right? Because AFA is not a matchmaking service, right? They aren’t intaking your interests, intaking a woman’s interest, and then matching you based on like-mindedness, right? It is an introduction service. “We are here, we are facilitating an introduction, we will introduce you to a bunch of lovely ladies.” That’s kind of the difference. In Ukraine, there were actual matchmakers that I did interview. Where it is a smaller agency, and they are working much more with individualized hand-holding, with clients who are willing to pay more for that kind of individualized matchmaking special kind of attention…So that does exist for sure, but it also has a cost premium, let’s say.

Most of the women though, they wanted somebody stable. That was kind of the main thing, and someone who wasn’t going to cheat.

Finance Colombia: I’ve seen just in the airline magazines, full-page ads: “We’re millionaire matchmakers, and you don’t have the time.” I was listening to a psychologist (Dr. Orion Taraban), and he was talking about how if you are extremely wealthy, if you’re a guy, it’s like being an extremely beautiful woman. If you’re very wealthy, or like a politician, or—I have friends who have been in intelligence and they’re not allowed to go and do things like, “I’m going to just go and date somebody over here.” It’s almost like if you’re serious about the person, they’ve got to be vetted in certain countries…to avoid honey traps!

Julia Meszaros: So once again, vetting is important, right?

Finance Colombia: Yeah. Yeah. And so it’s interesting because it seems like there is a place for those types of services. There are people who either don’t have the time or they can’t. And these are legitimate things for people in those circumstances.

Julia Meszaros: Right, yeah. So I think vetting and those like more personalized services are utilized by not just shy guys, right? It could be guys who are wanting to have a bit more vetting, and a bit more assurance that these people that they’re meeting are legitimate. And there’s a lot of reasons why that’s a smart plan.

And I think also, people just in general are seeing maybe the more advantageous things that happen with matchmaking, because matchmaking is a long-time thing that happens in a lot of cultures. So as we talked about, we’ve been doing this “let’s pick our own partners” for, I don’t know, 70, 80 years. And we’ve seen that leads to a lot of divorce. Maybe we’re not the best at picking our own partners because we’re blinded by, you know, sexual attraction.

So I think there is an increasing recognition that maybe, especially some of the guys who’ve maybe been divorced, right? “Maybe I’m not the best at picking my own partner. Maybe I need a little guidance.” Or you could just look at it, “I need someone to cut through all the BS…” In this introduction space, this person is going to be like, “Okay, these five women actually are your type and have these characteristics that you’re looking for.” And that just saves you a lot of time, right?

Finance Colombia: Yeah, you’re right. There’s something to be said…The idea of a romantic marriage is a fairly new concept. It’s something that for the most part did not exist before less than a 150 years ago or so.

Julia Meszaros: Yeah, yeah. Companionate marriage, this idea of companionate marriage. That husband and wife should be companions and get along and be friends and not just look at each other as a means to…I think people forget that the household is the first economic unit, right? So the household is how we order labor in society. So a lot of marriages back in the day were these labor property exchanges, right? And on the elite level, political exchanges.

Finance Colombia: Exactly. One of the things I’ve seen in Latin America, what happens is, a lot of men, they’ll marry somebody who they think will be a good mother and who is also a social advantage, but the whole plan all along is to have girlfriends and mistresses. So the marriage, even still in a lot of places is very much an arrangement. It’s almost like a practical matter, so you’re absolutely right about that.

Julia Meszaros: Yeah. And I think that with that shift, people have had a hard time. I think about like, feminism and how men are having a hard time with it in a way. Men are used to getting women’s labor, right? It’s kind of expected, right? That if you get married, there’s going to be someone who’s going to do your laundry, someone who’s going to take care of you, someone who’s going to cook for you.

I mean, even when I was in the Philippines, now this is the one thing that I would say stands out about the Philippines, is the big age gaps, right? So you would see 20-year-olds with 70-year-olds walking around the malls in the Philippines. And part of that is a lot of these guys are looking for what we call hospice wives. Someone to basically care for you as you age and die. And you can’t afford hospice and nursing and care here in the US. So you’re willing to make this exchange, where you’re going to have this young lady take care of you, and you’re going to leave her your money.

Finance Colombia: Wow! Now, what do we know about how the US Department of State, when people decide that: “Hey, I’m going to go and apply for a visa.” You know, the US has a really weird system where they have, I think it’s called a K visa?

Like they’re both understanding that, “Okay, this guy is maybe not the most attractive guy in the world, but, you know, he wants to provide me with a stable and comfortable life. And that is what I think of as real love.”

Julia Meszaros: A K-1 visa, yeah.

Finance Colombia: And then, so you show up and do the visa people go, “How’d you meet?” “Oh yeah. I was on the dating trip…” Do we know anything about how these things are looked at by the State [Department]? …what tends to happen afterwards and how easy or difficult is it for them to go through the next steps?

Julia Meszaros: So, it depends if you are wanting to file a fiancé(e) visa, which is a K-1 visa, or you’re filing like a spousal visa, which is a K-2 visa. So, the industry recommends people file a K-1 fiancé(e) visa because that tends to get processed faster than a spousal visa. So if you are living apart, they suggest that you do the K-1. The K-1 gives the person 90 days. This is the whole show, 90-Day Fiancé is premised on this visa.

And so they have 90 days to get married. And within those 90 days, if you do get married, then the person files an adjustment of status. And if not, then the person has to return to their country. The K-2 spousal visa takes a lot longer. It takes usually like a year or two. Whereas back in the day, now, I don’t know about how processing times are under this administration, but, in the past, it was much faster to get a K-1. It would be six months to a year versus a year to two years for a K-2.

Now, in terms of how they meet and things like that. So some guys run into some problems if they’re using a website that the state department defines as an international marriage broker, but doesn’t follow the IMBRA, the IMBRA regulations that they passed in 2005. Then you can have some problems with the visa. So, A Foreign Affair is IMBRA-compliant. So they actually have a service to help guys file this paperwork. So that is another part of using one of these services, is they have these arms to help you with, like the legal paperwork and all of that. But if you’re using a site that might be deemed one of these international marriage brokers by the government, you want to make sure that they are IMBRA-compliant, because they might not be.

Finance Colombia: Okay. I see. Now, as a sociologist, why is it usually the man that goes places? Why is it overwhelmingly the man is the foreigner and the woman is staying put? Is there something about us as a species, or what is it?

Julia Meszaros: I mean, I think just the access to travel really didn’t exist for women to travel solo until like the 1980s, right? So men have been traveling and conquering and whatnot for centuries. Women have had maybe 40 years of the same kind of opportunity for mobility.

I think oftentimes too, that women who are traveling are inverting the relationship, right? Because it’s the woman who is typically going to be older, have more money. If she’s going, let’s say to the Caribbean. So the Caribbean is a popular sex tourism spot for women, right? So like a lot of women go to Jamaica, DR as well.

Finance Colombia: You’ve heard of the Sanky Pankys in the Dominican Republic, right?

Julia Meszaros: Of course. Yes. Sanky Pankys, rented dreads. There’s a whole, you know, in the Bahamas too, in The Gambia, in Senegal, a lot of European women go to Africa for sex tourism. They go sleep with Masai warriors in Kenya, right? So typically there’s an inversion, right? Because we’re used to the man having more money, the man being older. And, you know, we kind of think of that as more socially acceptable. So I think women who engage in this stuff are more likely to engage in kind of sex tourism and not necessarily want to marry these people, bring them back to their home country.

Finance Colombia: Because of the hypergamy, that creates a status imbalance against the women’s favor.

Julia Meszaros: Right. So a lot of women don’t want to feel used, but I mean, there are women who do get married to these younger guys from different places and you can see it play out on shows like 90-Day Fiancé, where one of their favorite tropes, I would say, is finding an older middle-aged, heavyset white woman who is marrying a younger Muslim guy. And it’s a disaster, right? But in general, I think most women, I don’t know if they’re necessarily even aware.

So I think with women, it’s a little more fluid and a little more a holiday romance sex tourism. There isn’t that same kind of industry because, yeah, most women aren’t going to want to marry someone who’s poor.

Finance Colombia: Right, right. What about gay people? Is there something like this, or are there equivalent types of organizations for gay people, and where do they tend to go?

Julia Meszaros: So there are also circuits of gay sex tourism that are concurrent, I would say, with a lot of heterosexual sex tourism. So Colombia, once again, is a popular place for gay sex tourism. So is DR. DR is all equal opportunity. Everybody evidently loves to go there for sex tourism, men, women and gay people. I think gay sex tourism, once again, is a less formalized thing. So sex tourism is less formalized. You’re not going to find a legitimate company that’s going to be selling sex, right? So like AFA, what they’re selling is a service of introducing you. There’s no guarantee of sex.

And I think it has to do with men feeling like they can’t really access a lot of women anymore, because women have surpassed them economically in many ways

It’s funny because in 2014, when gay marriage was legalized federally, one of the people I knew from AFA was talking about how they should expand to include gay people, because before you couldn’t sponsor someone’s visa, right? So there was no point in doing a marriage-based kind of business around that, because you can’t bring people back. But I mean, since 2014, in theory, legally, you could be able to bring a gay spouse on a K-1 visa. And they already have the infrastructure in a lot of these countries that would be popular for gay marriage tourism as well, places like Colombia.

They never…at least AFA, I never saw a jump on it. And now, you know, in 2025, I think they’re going to overturn gay marriage. So I don’t think it’s going to become this formalized industry. I think it will remain kind of this informal kind of more sex tour space, unfortunately.

Finance Colombia: Yeah, it’s interesting. If somebody, if like a brother or a trusted friend were to come to you and say, “I’m thinking about exploring this,” if somebody were to come to you and say, “Hey, I’m thinking about signing up and doing this,” what advice would you give the person? And let’s say both from the perspective of the man, and then also, if a woman was saying, “Hey, I’m thinking about participating in this, what should I know?” What would you say from the men’s and the women’s perspective?

Julia Meszaros: Sure, what are some red flags to avoid and what you should be looking for in a legitimate company, let’s say? How not to get scammed, how not to be taken advantage of, those are the things.

So for the men, I would recommend finding a reputable agency that has customer reviews outside of their website, right? So, you can read genuine customer reviews. There are Reddit pages that are dedicated to discussing these agencies. There’s plenty of information out there. My second major thing would be make sure, if you are an American and you want to bring someone to the US, that this agency is IMBRA compliant, because otherwise then you might have problems with paperwork later down the road.

I would recommend using an agency if you are not a well-traveled person, if you are not confident about navigating different countries by yourself and navigating these kinds of things, I would recommend using an agency versus trying to go at it on your own with Tinder. Just because of safety precautions and all of these things…we’ve discussed in Colombia, there have been some incidents where people are getting robbed and things like that. So you have to be really careful.

For the women, same, make sure this place is reputable, look up their reviews online. For the women, it’s a free service, so they’re not going to necessarily lose out much if it doesn’t, say, pan out for them, right? It’s not like they’re paying for it like the men are. So for the women, you know, a lot of them never even go to a social, may never even meet a guy. So it’s hard. My advice to them would be like, keep your expectations realistic. There’s so many women on these sites, there’s a lot of competition. How are you going to kind of distinguish yourself from the competition? You should be going to the socials and things like that, otherwise no one’s ever going to see you in person. So you want to make yourself visible. And learn English, unfortunately, right? But learn some English would be my advice to the women.

And my advice for the men, too, would be learn some of the local language and local customs of where you’re intending to go. So in the case of Colombia, we should all know at least a little basic Spanish as Americans, but try to, you know, learn some nice, cute phrases to say in Spanish. And learn the local customs, right? They’re different, like you should be well dressed, you should be bringing flowers, right? If you want the traditional relationship, then you have to behave in that traditional courting manner that we have abandoned in the US, right? We’ve become very casual about dating. If we look at 1950s American dating, it was very formal. Like someone would come, pick you up, have flowers, meet your parents, etc., etc. Think about if that’s the kind of relationship you’re looking for, then that’s the kind of courtship you need to provide.

Finance Colombia: You know, it cracks me up and makes me cringe. There are like two stereotype tourists. You can spot them a mile away: You’ll see people who come down here, and they will either have on these shorts and these flip-flops! Nobody in the country dresses like that!

Or, you see these guys, and they look like they are out of a rap video, or something like that. And that’s (laughs) fine—you know, it’s funny, my wife was complaining, she said “I was at the mall and these guys were bothering me—they didn’t do anything awful, but they were trying to flirt with her and she was just annoyed, and she was like, “they look like a bunch of…” she calls them “Yo Yo’s” because she says they look like the people on TV (music videos) who go “YO! YO! YO!” And that’s her name for people who come down here, and they’ve got these big ball caps on, and—there’s nothing wrong with wearing a ball cap or wearing flip-flops if that’s what you want to do, but you kind of…when you’re in a different country, you look like a clown, and these people don’t have enough self-awareness to know that they look like a clown. And yes, women will talk to you, but they’re probably hookers, you know, no respectable person is going to do that! They are not going to put up with you, and they don’t want to be seen with you!

“I think there was this bigger association with partying because of, once again, drug undertone that kind of characterized Colombia’s past.”

Now, you’ve got a book out, you’ve done research on this for many years. Tell us about your book, the title, and of course, we’ll certainly link to it, where it can be found, and who it’s for?

Julia Meszaros: Okay, thanks. So, the book is called Economies of Gender: Masculinity, “Mail Order Brides,” and Women’s Labor. So, I’m kind of looking at this idea of labor and gender as an outcome of the work we do to be recognized as either feminine or masculine, right? So, women, like you’re saying, your wife spends an hour to get ready just to go to the grocery store. That’s a type of work that we often don’t think about, but that is a very important work to be recognized as feminine, right? She wants to be seen as feminine, and that’s why she puts that work in, right?

And I think a lot of the guys feel like they’re being denied that kind of work that women used to do in America, and so, as I said, there’s this feeling of loss that men have because of feminism, that they say it’s feminism’s fault that women are no longer providing this labor willingly or for free. And so, for that reason, we often think about the original mail order brides, or frontier brides, as they called them, were about getting women out there to have babies and maintain homes. Women’s labor is often invisible, but so important to the functioning of society.

And men, I think, define their masculinity in terms of the type of women they can access and the type of labor that they access from those women. And so, I give Donald Trump as a prime example. There’s a reason why he married a much younger, much more attractive woman, right? It gives his masculinity a boost. We know that Melania Trump would have never married Donald Trump if he was Joe Schmoe next door making 50k a year, right? But also, Donald Trump would have never married Melania Trump if she was a his-age-looking woman who was super career-oriented and didn’t cater to his lifestyle, right?

So, there’s this clear exchange in this relationship, and I think we often talk about relationships as if they are free of exchange, when that is not the case. We like to romanticize our intimate relationships, but all intimate relationships, they all contain some elements of exchange, and just being aware that all of these relationships are “we’re exchanging,” and so, men want, I think, a woman who will do certain kinds of labor to make them look better, right? And that’s what a lot of these guys are looking for, I think.

Finance Colombia: You know, that’s a fascinating concept. I think that relationships can be more successful when there is some awareness of that, and not in a transactional sense, you want it to be a relationship, not a transaction; but to understand that there is an exchange of value. It reminds me, I was talking, this was years ago, but I was talking to an ex-girlfriend, but I was talking to her as her friend, years after we had a relationship. And she was rattling off, saying I want this, and I want that, and this is what I want in a man, and stuff like that, and so I looked at her, and I said, “In exchange for what?” And she was both shocked and offended, not like she got mad at me, but it was very jarring because she had never thought about this.

“So it’s not because they can’t approach a woman that they’re having issues. They just aren’t finding the kind of women they would like in the U.S.”

As men, we are constantly reminded of that, and we have to think about that, but a lot of women don’t. And a lot of men, where they mess up, is they don’t necessarily have an idea of what they want, and think about a woman like “well, she’s attractive, or fits my taste, or is a good mother, like I mentioned, is sort of a stereotype down here, but beyond that, are your trajectories or where you want to go in life…you know, there is a mismatch there…in some cultures the families get together and do it, in other cultures there are actually professional matchmakers and they have done it like that for hundreds of years, and with the modern marriage, I think that now, if we’re together, we’re together because we want to be, not because we have to be. Whereas, if you got a divorce in the forties, as a man, it was a career-limiting move, in fact, you wouldn’t get promoted if you were not married, let alone women in the workforce, which is something that came about, I think—you’re the sociologist, not me—around WW2 because of the labor situation…so divorces are higher now, because you’re basically like a super long-term boyfriend and girlfriend. Kids change that dynamic, but there’s less outside social pressure pushing you together, and that probably has both good and bad things to it.

Julia Meszaros: Yeah, and I think, as I said, relationships a lot of times are based on more shallow things nowadays, right? Oh, I’m attracted to this person, or whatever, and you don’t really think about these longer-term issues like values, where you want to go in life, all of those things. And people grow apart too, right? Perhaps you started off with the same values, and over time, perhaps those values shift. I think that’s why sometimes using a professional matchmaker, I don’t know, maybe it is better. I didn’t use one, but who knows. Maybe there is something to people relying on their parents to help them find a good mate in other cultures.

But I think that’s why we see more and more people kind of turning online though, as they’re just like looking for more options, and to wider that scope, I think, of availability of who’s out there. But that also can be inherently overwhelming, and almost limiting, because there’s so many options, how do I choose, right?

Finance Colombia: You’ve been super generous with your time, and I appreciate it. Is there anything that you found in your studies that I neglected to ask? I want to make sure if there is something that you feel noteworthy or worth mentioning that we didn’t cover.

So I think there is an increasing recognition that maybe, especially some of the guys who’ve maybe been divorced, right? “Maybe I’m not the best at picking my own partner. Maybe I need a little guidance.”

Julia Meszaros: Just one final note, I guess, is most of the time, a common question I would get is kind of what happens once people are married, how successful are these relationships? So that is a common question I get. And the last chapter of the book does take a look at some of the successful couples who actually did get married.

And so what I’ve found in terms of that is that most successful couples are with the Filipino wives, so Filipino wives. And there have been successful marriages from Ukraine and Colombia, but I’ve seen a lot of divorces in those spaces. Whereas none of the folks I know who got married since, like, I was in the Philippines in 2012 have gotten a divorce yet. So that gives you an idea of the longevity of some of these relationships. A lot of them have kids since they got married. And so a lot of times people look at the Philippines as, well, I will just say most of the people, when I went on tour in the Philippines, there was 12 engagements by the end of the week.

Finance Colombia: Oh, wow. Is it that the culture is more conservative? Is it that there’s this kind of stereotype that I would imagine annoys a lot of Asian women, that they’re submissive or something like that? I don’t know, that sounds to me like sort of a stereotype, but maybe it’s true. What do you think are the ingredients or the reasons for that?

Julia Meszaros: I think there’s a couple of things going on. I think, as we were saying, the culture in the Philippines is the most conservative out of all the places I’ve visited. They don’t serve alcohol at the socials. It’s much more religious and Christian, and divorce is illegal in the Philippines, so it’s not very common. So I think there’s this stigma against divorce. I think there is a lot more poverty in the Philippines. So I think people are much more willing to leave their country of origin than women, say, in Colombia.

So women in Colombia were like, “I want to marry a gringo, but I want him to come here. You know, like, I don’t want to leave. I love my country,” right? Whereas women in the Philippines, especially the ones I met, tended to already be internal migrants. So they were already rural to urban migrants. So a lot of them were from provinces. A lot of them were already supporting their natal families…A lot of them had already worked abroad as OFWs. So the Philippines sends out the largest number of migrant workers all over the world. So I had met quite a few Filipinos who worked in Saudi Arabia, UAE, as nurses, as domestic…all sorts of different work.

“A lot of European women go to Africa for sex tourism. They go sleep with Masai warriors in Kenya, right?”

So they were already more open, I think, culturally speaking, to migration, to looking elsewhere for financial kinds of stability. And I think the Philippines is less developed. So people were more, once again, willing to leave. They saw less opportunities for themselves there in the Philippines. So for that reason I think the conservative culture, the familial expectations that you’re going to take care of your family once you migrate…is a huge motivating factor in the Philippines as well…They’re the third or fourth largest receiver of remittances after India, China, and Mexico…So I think that’s why those relationships tend to be the most successful.

Finance Colombia: Interesting. I think also what happens is that with the US, if you come from Colombia to the US, the culture is different, but it’s not that different. You’re going to be around other Latinos wherever you go. You’re going to have a certain degree of comfort, which is empowering, and that’s good. You’re going to be less isolated, but then again, you don’t have to put up with as much crap! You don’t need to be as committed, and I don’t mean that in a bad way, but if you’re from some rural island in the Philippines archipelago, and you’re with somebody in Tucson, Arizona, it’s not so easy to say, “Well, screw you, I’m going to just step out!” Whereas, if you are from Colombia, or Mexico, or Dominican Republic, you probably have twelve cousins somewhere nearby, “And I’m not going to put up with this!” Justified or unjustified, whatever it is.

Colombia is a two-hour flight from the states, and so there’s a lot more familiarity and a lot more ability to navigate, than I would say for someone like you were saying: Rural to city in the Philippines, then where you have a culture where people are working in maritime aboard ships or in different countries in the Middle East or places like that… Obviously the Philippines has done a great job with say, matriculating nurses into the US, which has been a great professional opportunity, I’m very proud of them, there.

So, we could go on for hours. I don’t want to take up any more of your day. It’s been fascinating talking to you. Your work is really not just interesting, but important, and also, I would say daring in the sense that it’s a topic that’s taboo. It’s not like sex work or anything like that, but it’s one of these things that people don’t necessarily like to talk about always in polite society, let’s say.

“I will just say most of the people, when I went on tour in the Philippines, there were 12 engagements by the end of the week.”

Julia Meszaros: Yeah, no, 100%. But what I found is it’s maybe taboo, but more widespread than one would think, because whenever I would bring up my research, usually at least one person in the group will, like, have an uncle, my dad, my brother, my co-worker, a cousin, a friend, right, has had this experience, done this, has a mail order bride or married someone from abroad. So it’s a lot more common than you would think, actually, and it’s becoming more and more common and more mainstream, I think, as this kind of gender friction is happening in Western countries.

Finance Colombia: It is. You see on YouTube now, or on Instagram, it’s like: “Women of Walmart,”Not to pick on Walmart, it’s not Walmart’s fault, but I’ll never get where there’s people who go into the store in pajamas or slippers or they’ve got a bag on their head like they are in the shower, and you don’t see that, not even in poor neighborhoods. People will do the best they can. In the 70s, when I was a kid, they would have thought that something was wrong with you mentally if you would go out like that. It’s interesting, I don’t know what the societal drivers are, but you are right, there is a…aside from the equal rights part of feminism, which is obviously a positive development, there is a nostalgia from when men knew how to change oil, and know what kind of screw to buy at the hardware store, or can gut a deer, or something, to now they know how to call an Uber. And then on the women’s side as well, there’s been a emasculation of men, but then a masculinization of women, and some people are on board with that, but other people are perfectly ok with it, but don’t want it for themselves. And so it’ll be interesting to see how this plays out. Let’s definitely keep in touch…you’re doing very important work. So take care.

Julia Meszaros: You too. Thanks, Loren. Bye.