And you thought your life sucked.

An acquaintance of mine recently introduced me to the world of mail-order brides, and I must say I'm appropriately terrified. On the other hand, it does make me feel one hell of a lot more normal.

So what exactly is so scary about these services? Well, have a look at Asianbridesonline.com. According to them, it's a fact that "Men seek youth and beauty. Women seek mature, older, healthy, intelligent, successful, financially stable men." This is so important that they repeat it. Four times. Word for word. Is it just me, or is there some adjectivism at work here?

Among their other helpful advice? Make copies of your letters. "By doing this, when a lady responds to you, you can simply refresh your memory as to what you initially wrote her." This will help you keep your lies about being a mature, older, healthy, intelligent, successful, financially stable man straight. It would really suck if one of those luscious ladies found out you were really a middle-aged office supplies salesman.

Then there's Anastasia Web Tours, which arranges "romance tours" (land-only, $4995 for ten days) that allow men to meet eligible "ladies" who have the qualities they're looking for in a wife. If you have a look here, you'll see exactly the kind of qualities he's looking for. He's even making the universal sign-language symbol for them.

But my favorite has to be Kiev Connections, run by an "American proprietor" who gives the following advice to prospective customers:

"We highly suggest you do not have a long correspondence! You can write ladies for ever and usually nothing will happen. You will just waste time, energy, effort, emotions and never get married. Why be alone another minute. Would it not be better to be happily married as soon as possible?"

Indeed. Why waste time trying to get to know one another and waste emotions - you know you have a finite supply - when you could race into a marriage with someone who won't understand a word you say? Do stupid things faster, for god's sake!

The best part of this website has to be the FAQ section, however. If these questions really are this frequently asked, then these morons - uh, men deserve all the mockery that can possibly be heaped upon them. For example:

"Will She run off after she comes to America? No! You are the sponsor of her visa and she must marry you and only you or return to her country before the end of 90 days."

Well, that's comforting. Because it's not scary enough that this woman's come to a strange country to see a strange person several decades older than she is. She has a full 90 days to realize the scale of her error.

"What about the age difference? Everyone knows that a beautiful 18 model is not going to love a overweight, 70 year old man with little hair for his great personality. You need to be realistic. Now, that being said, things are very different in the Ukraine than they are in the west. You will frequently see couples that are 20 years apart in age. It is natural here. Everyone is an individuals and individuals interact and react differently. There are no set rules or demarcation. You need to meet and see if there is attraction and chemistry."

This really is comforting to all those overweight, balding 70-year-olds out there; you don't need a great personality, just a shitload of cash. And apparently, Ukrainian women are a bargain. Each is "an individuals," which is essentially a buy-one-get-one-free situation. Now don't you want to come to Kiev?

But why are all these lovely 18-year-old Ukrainian women desperate to marry men 20 years their senior? The owner of Kiev Connections provides this insightful answer:

"There are decent marriage oriented men in Ukraine but there are many that are not. What is a man? A man is the breadwinner ,he earns the bacon and brings it home so the wife can fry it up in the pan. The man is the provider. Unfortunately, it is very difficult for a Ukrainian man to provide for his family. There are few well paying jobs in the Ukraine. How can the men here take pride in themselves if they can not provide for their family. The result? Ukrainian men bend to peer pressure and drink and drink."

Oh, peer pressure. And we thought you were just responsible for us wearing those puff-painted denim jackets in the '80s. Apparently you are also the reason for Ukrainian men being crappy husbands. The bright side to this is that these lovely Ukrainian ladies can come over to the US and marry American men 20 years their senior. Of course, their husbands will probably still drink and expect their wives to fry their bacon for them, but at least it won't be because of peer pressure.