008: Allan - Are You My Wife?

Today we are joined by Allan Wills from Are You My Wife? Allan decided to take a year off from corporate slavery to travel around the world giving women over the globe this challenge:-

"My name is Allan Wills and I will go anywhere in the world for the right date. I will leave no stone unturned and no avenue unexplored. You can play by: (1) Inviting me on a date, (2) Ask me to do something for you or (3) Help from the outside; suggest, advise or contribute. WE are making the rules up as we go, so feel free to contact me... whoever you are, wherever you be. But know this: I'm in no rush... "

Allan has travelled to over six different countries and is up to date number 37. I caught up with Allan when he was in Australia relaxing in the wonderfully tropical Cairns, a city in North Queensland.

BV: Allan, I appreciate you taking the time in between lying on tropical beaches and meeting gorgeous Australian women to have a chat with me.

So let me get this straight, you will travel anywhere in the world for the right date (which you have done) and you have met 37 women so far in the attempt to ask the question "are you my wife?". How do you think you will know when you have met ‘the one’?

No idea. Because my brother started working for an airline and gave me cheap flight options, I started this blog as a lark, expecting nothing more than a few bites and maybe some creative dates.

I don’t know how, but the media found out about me and next thing I knew my quest was being published in many languages in places I didn’t know had places. Slowly the website became a full time commitment (pun intended). So I took a month off work to go to the US on some dates.

Flash forward to January – six months after I started the blog. I have three choices in front of me as I fly back to London.

1) Get another job in London (remember that I’m still paying rent, even though I’ve been absent)
2) Accept a job in Dubai, UAE
3) Continue AreYouMyWife and my pledge to go anywhere, do anything, follow the story wherever it leads, but set some form of deadline.

I chose option#3. As for how to know who is the one? Still no idea. But I have no problem staying happily single. The greatest part of a blog is that I’m under no obligation; I just go with the flow.

BV: Can I take you back to when you were living in London coming to the realisation that when you live your life in a blur, one week blends into the next and before you know it you’ve wasted your life and you’re dust. You mention that you walked by the pub one day and your friends were in there complaining about the same things they always compained about and you kept walking, giving you the start of the areyoumywife journey. What made you keep walking that day?

Probably my one biggest fear: to live with regret.

BV: Travelling over the world doing challenges that women set for you obviously means you put a lot of trust in the fairer species. Has this trust been broken for you along your journey?

Before anything I had to trust myself and my instincts. So despite piles of offers (some humorous, others serious, some psycho) I had to operate within my parameters: limited time and money.

All I would guarantee anyone is my friendship, which – in my opinion – is the keystone of any higher form of relationship. Out of all my dates, 99% are now my friends or potential business contacts. Only one woman has asked me never to speak to her again, after she apparently fell in love with someone two weeks after our second date.

So far my trust hasn’t let me down. So far…

BV: You have been given many gifts over the span of your 37 dates. A kilt, a scarf, a digital camera and even a theme song from Israel. What’s the present that means the most to you and why?

I started a new section on my blog called Grains of Sand, as a result of my decision to adopt the Ultimate Date angle (a form of deadline). I figure that all the gifts I receive along the way can play a role – like grains of sand in making a castle.

Many gifts are non-tangible ie. advice, a place to stay, a lift, etc. but as for the tangibles I want to make them public so people can share in my treasures.

How all the Grains of Sand add up (or don’t add up) remains to be seen, but as for a favourite one, that also remains to be seen.

BV: You have had some pretty crazy offers. For example, a Muslim woman in full hijab and veil sent you a photo of herself lying on a satin bed. She was covered head to toe but two things were showing; her eyes, and she was flashing her breasts. Her message read: “If things were different in my country, I’d invite you over." Another woman contacted you and asked for a photo of your "undraped showing endowment". How do you filter out the whackos from the legit offers you get?

Some are more obvious than others. I have no hard and fast rule for sorting, or a system like the CIA that scans for keywords. Usually I have a few exchanges, most by email, potentially a few by phone, and then see where I’m at, how I can get out there and if the date is feasible. The rest plays out.

BV: You have met many different women from many different countries. Have you noticed any difference in the unwritten ‘dating rules’ of different places?

Yes I have. For example, I received a stack of emails from third world countries applying to be my wife, as if I were holding job interviews. Passport photos were attached to most of those emails.

Many emails from certain parts of the world had detailed outlines of religious protocol for getting married. I thought that funny, because they sent it without asking if I even practice a religion. I suppose some assume I would convert or adopt.

But then again I can’t pigeon-hole nations because of the people I meet. Generally speaking, each date has been different; no two alike, and they’ve brought different things out of me.

BV: You have a fairly loose idea of what you would call the ultimate date. Here’s an example of what you would consider an Ultimate Date according to your site:

"In 1971, in Montreal, my parents bought a Volkswagon Westfalia and drove for 16 months over 20,000kms (12,428 miles) through 20 countries: Canada, USA, Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia.

Granted, they had already been married several years when they set out – so it wasn’t really a date – but you catch my drift. They are still married now. I don’t have a campervan (yet.) Here are my present tools:

• One 4.1 Megapixel crappy digital camera, USB
• One 12" laptop with a full hard drive
• One Book O’ Dreams
• One yarn of string to make Gift Knots with
• One fertile imagination

Let’s see what I (we?) can pull off by July 2007."

Now that you have been on this journey for a while, has your idea of the ultimate date changed?

It is constantly changing all the time. Bear in mind that the Ultimate Date is democratic – the sum of what someone else and I come up with, so there might well be a compromise in what I want to do, but the idea is fluid for that reason. Then again, after it is all said and done, there is a chance I’ll have no one to ask. So I’ll have to see.

BV: Allan, it's been really great chatting with you. I wish you all the best on your dating adventures.

OK ... so now that you've read Allan's BloggerView, let us know about your worst date experience. Did she turn out to be a man, did you spill coffee all over yourself, or worse yet him/her?

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