Utah Rising Part Three

Had lunch with Utah Rising today, whose story begins here and then continues directly beneath this post. He met on Sunday with the woman who wanted him to send her money Western Union, who never thanked him for his gift, and who on the day of his arrival, went to visit her grandparents. The verdict. She’s not a scammer. "She's a player," he told me. "But she's not a scammer." A paralegal by profession, she never lied, he said. She danced around the truth at times, but never lied. In the end, he liked her quite a bit, but he'd already called it off with her, and when they did meet, her looks convinced him not to reconsider.

"She's a Ferrari," he said. "I'm a Toyota truck."

Utah Rising, I realized, was like the majority of the men I'd met -- pretty realistic, not here looking to do what so many figure these men to be doing, getting someone out of their league. In many ways, however, any woman he meets is out of his league. As he told me before, he wanted to marry and he believes a marriage is only strengthened, truly bonding husband to wife, when there is a child involved. Women his age, late forties, are done having children, he told me. "And an American woman under thirty, she doesn't want anything to do with me. She wants Donald Trump."

Another thing he said made me reconsider some preconceived notions. It's often said that the men using these marriage agencies want a young wife so that they can mold them, so that they can groom them to their liking. I sensed there was a part of that in Utah Rising, though he seemed just as willing to do for his future wife what he wanted her to do for him (an example: he expected her to attend his church once a month and allow his children to be raised in that religion; to put up appearances, he'd been willing to attend her church once a month as well). But this is what really struck me. He wants a young wife, he said, because she's adaptable. Not just to him, but to the transition of moving to the states. It's like with a foreign language, he said. After thirty, your brain calcifies. You can learn a foreign language, but it's more difficult. He expect no fewer difficulties in moving from one culture to another. So he was looking for a younger woman, 22, 23, maybe 26, just as much as he was looking for a higher probability of success. Put that way, the lecherous notion -- I want a young wife -- doesn't sound so deplorable.

Overall, I've found Utah Rising quite intelligent. He holds a number of unconventional ideas on diet and science, and he's not unwilling to look at his own position (on religion, for example) from another point of view.

Currently, he's having difficulties that are unavoidable to his situation. Whom does he trust? The translator? The woman? The agency? With differences in culture, he's not sure what to believe. He's met a new woman, through the same agency with the woman described above, but when he wants to spend a quiet evening with her -- away from the paid-for services, away from the costly interpreter -- the agency says she's not available. Does he believe them after he's cut off the paid-for services with the first girl? Does he believe her when she says she's got to study? It is time for finals, I told him. And what about the interpreter? Isn't he an employee for the agency? I introduced him to one of my former students this afternoon. We'll see if her translating eases his mind any. I'll post more on him later.