A male colleague from another team in my office has for some weeks now been excitedly looking forward to when his Ukrainian wife arrives as he hasn't seen her for many months, he has been sorting out visas etc.
I'd been happily discussing and making conversation about it with him when another colleague told me I was naive because he had 'found a bride on the internet' which had never occurred to me. Got me thinking - they've been married since 2009, they're much the same age (I've seen photos), they seem very happy, she's a well educated working woman and so is he. So it's a win-win situation, isn't it? Bit like internet dating but cutting to the chase.
Then I remembered a film I saw years ago, can't remember the name of it, where a logger or tracker or some such man in a remote US region ordered a wife from a catalogue and the shenanigans when she arrived in this outpost because she was feisty etc. - of course it had a happy ending because their sparring turned to grudging mutual respect which turned to love. And then I thought - so what's new?