Was I the most eligible bachelor in town?

This was quite a crazy situation and shows what lengths some women will go to to get married. I’m now married, but not to this woman.

This happened to me around 15 years ago. My long-term girlfriend and I had broken up, so I decided to join a dating site and try my luck there.

Dating sites aren’t the best place to meet a new partner, but I thought it was worth a try anyway. The worst that could happen would be that I didn’t get a date.

Within a few days, I had got chatting to a very good-looking Asian lady. We chatted for a while and then arranged to meet at a local bar. I had been out of the dating scene for a very long time, so didn’t really know what to expect.

I arrived at the bar first and she arrived a few minutes later. I ordered drinks and we had a few minutes of introductions and general chit-chat.

Then, out of the blue, she asked if I was interested in marriage. She added that she wasn’t looking for a one-night stand or a short-term relationship, but just marriage.

I replied that I would likely get married one day but that I’d want to spend a couple of years getting to know my partner first. She replied that that was no good for her because she needed to get married within the next two months.

I asked why she was in such a hurry to get married. She said that she was in the UK on an education visa that would expire in two months. She wanted to stay in the UK but it wasn’t possible to extend the visa. The only way she could stay was to get married.

As an aside from this story, I don’t think foreigners are allowed to get married in the UK if they arrived on such a visa. Even if they do get married to a British citizen, they still need to apply for permission to stay in the UK. There’s no automatic right to stay. Certain financial and other criteria need to be met.

I’m not sure her plan would have allowed her to stay.

Anyway, back to the story. As they always say on those corny shopping channels… Wait, there’s more.

Wait, there’s more!

And there is indeed more to this story.

The woman seemed a bit disappointed that I wasn’t into getting married that quickly to someone I had known for less than 5 minutes.

Never mind, she said, I already have another man willing to marry me. I thought I must have misheard her, so asked her to explain.

She claimed she had met a man that was willing to marry her within the next month or two. I don’t know how long she had known him, but I already felt sorry for him.

I asked why she had come on a date with me if she already had someone that was planning to marry her. She explained that he wasn’t a great choice so she was hoping to find someone better. If she found someone better she’d dump him. If she didn’t, she’d marry him.

She said I seemed like a better choice. I told her there’s no way I’d marry anyone within such a short time after meeting them. She accepted that and changed the subject. So it was back to more general chit-chat.

We stayed for a couple of drinks and chatted. She seemed a quite pleasant woman and was very attractive. If she hadn’t mentioned marriage she would have seemed fairly normal. We might even have arranged a second date. But it was not to be.

I don’t want to be too harsh on her because I don’t know her circumstances back home. She might have been fleeing from a very bad situation. Marriage may have been a way to save herself.

We never contacted each other again after that, so I don’t have any idea what happened with her life. My best guess would be that she got married for long enough to get a UK passport and then moved on to a better option. In reality, anything could have happened. Maybe she didn’t get married and moved back to her home country. Maybe she married the man and they grew to love each other and lived happily ever after.

Whatever happened, it was a bit of a crazy situation.

Do you have any crazy or weird dating stories?