me to put things together, it was really kind of frustrating," he says. Curtis also says the passion and heartfelt feelings that were in the emails and letters before his arrival were missing in the face to face contact. "There was something peculiar about our first and second meetings. I didn't get the impression that I was talking to the same girl I had been writing to for a half of a year. She said she didn't want to get married so soon and that she was nervous about relocating to the USA," said Curtis. Those two points are the sticklers. Yes, marriage is a big step, and one should be a little nervous about broaching the subject, but shouldn't that be a consideration before a person enlists the services of a marriage agency, not after the guy you have been writing 'sweet nothings' to shows up at Boryspil Airport?The first two points were put to American businessman and longtime Kyiv resident Mr. Brett Ousley, himself President of Kiev Connections. "I am a single guy, and have used agencies in the past, and some of the problems mentioned are what led me to open up my own agency", he says. Brett says many of the plethora of agencies in Ukraine are in the business to collect and sell as many names and addresses as they can. This 'killing the golden goose' mentality in the marriage agency business is bad for the legitimate operations who genuinely try to match the appropriate people for a solid relationship. "I remember this one time, years ago, I was on a date with a girl from some agency in town," says Ousley, "and after I pick her up we start walking to this cafe in order to get to know each other better. As we are walking, she nonchalantly blurts out that she can not be out late because her husband will be home in a while". Needless to say, Ousley politely ducked out. "She was amazing, she like said I hope this doesn't preclude us going out tonight? I said well, 'what's the point', see ya later," says the disgusted bride hunter.Ousley says this experience was such a shocker that it has helped form a cornerstone of his operation. Through screening of the applicants, his suspicions were well founded. What some people don't consider as that this is a 'win win' situation for the ladies," says Ousley. "It costs them nothing. The risk is the man's. She waits for the agency to call, or she collects the letters, gifts and dates all for free, while the man uses his one vacation a year, buys a ticket, lodgings in Kyiv and lays his heart on the line, so that is why we make sure our girls are on the level," says Ousley. Ousley says that he periodically reviews a girl's status, and that some are reject?ed, or removed from his roster if they are found to be just in the game for a good time and not serious. Another agency that specializes in personalized matchmaking is the Mordinson Agency of Kharkiv. Mordinson is a premium agency specializing in some of 'the most attractive women in the Kharkiv region, and goes to the trouble of listing it's success stories on the web site, with actual photos of the couples it has produced. "Our girls are all interested in getting married and we go to the trouble of individually tailoring a program for the man who is visiting, so he feels special and the process goes smoothly," says representative Darya Mordinson. "We don't conduct these uncomfortable 'meat-market' socials that some of the bigger agencies conduct," she says of the classic marriage agency meets where ten guys will find themselves facing a room full of up to sixty girls. "The meetings we offer are all individual and only with girls or women who are definitely interested in the man so that disappointment is who have dealt with the mass marketers of names and addresses. You can tell such sites right away when you load up their page on your browser. You see about ten to fifteen photos per page, nearly identical wording on the bios, normally only credit card payment info and no one