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Looking for love?

Posted on | October 9, 2008 | No Comments

Dawn Porter is, to my mind, the female version of Louis Theroux. They both have the gift of being able to get people to open up to them and to reveal more than you’d usually see in a run of the mill documentary. I have been a fan of Louis’ interviews and documentaries for years but have only come across Dawn’s work recently.

Her latest 4 part series for Channel 4 is titled “Dawn Porter Extreme Wife” and this week’s episode followed a group of American guys who were in Ukraine for a week to meet women they had been emailing for a while with the prospect of a long term relationship in mind.

I have nothing but admiration for people who are lonely and who decide to be proactive and do something to try and change their situation. A couple of the guys seemed to be genuine but some of the others were a bit scary to say the least. With little or no background checks, you began to feel uneasy about their intentions and worried for the women they were about to meet.

This episode centred around the arranged social gathering and as the night progressed it became apparent that most of the women were there just for the free food and booze. None of the women that the men had previously been corresponding with arrived, which posed the question of whether they existed at all?

The whole thing seemed to be a scam. The men paying approximately $5000 to meet women who didn’t turn up. The woman who managed the matchmaking company was very evasive on the background security check issue and dodged most of the questions.

In the end, it appeared that the Russian women there were not interested in acquiring husbands and moving to America which was probably just as well given the mentality of some of the men present. It was all rather sad really and this episode dealt more with corruption and scams rather than the people’s motivation and quest for love. It would maybe have been more insightful to actually visit couples who have met and married like this. Do relationships started this way last?

I hope this is just a blip in the series as the previous episode on free love was more insightful, dealing with problems, issues and emotions and as result was more interesting. Nevertheless I shall be tuning in for next week’s episode.

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