A CAB driver asked me the other day: 'Miss, have you got a boyfriend?'

I replied: 'Well I was sort of dating someone but he's gone back to his country for three months.'

'So he's not local?' the driver asked.

'No. He's from Switzerland and he's very handsome and he speaks fluent Mandarin because he lived in Shanghai. He works for a bank too. He treats me very well.'

'Wah! Banker and so good-looking! You know, you must ask your father to make one big lock. You know, a big chain and you lock this man up!' he said in a thick Hokkien accent.

I started laughing.

It seemed rather inappropriate to laugh about locking anything up after the Austrian horror story that was headline news in the papers that day.

'Uncle, a smart girl doesn't lock a man away. She's strategic.'

But what did I actually mean by that?

I had heard about it in Perth.

Mail-order brides who trap seemingly wealthy older Australian men and, once safely a citizen, proceed to bring their entire families to the country and into the households and wallets of their new partners.

It was a common sight in my university days, when I was working part-time at a clothing store, to have these women come in with their elderly husbands carrying their children in one arm and a pile of clothes in the other. Then the wife and her girlfriends would bark at him for his wallet.

It amazed me that a woman could weave a web of lies and portray such a comprehensive fantasy to trap her man, only for her to unveil her true self minutes after marriage.

It was like those Hallmark Channel horror dramas I often watch, where a woman meets the man of her dreams but as soon as they are married, she learns he's actually a rapist or a wife-beater.

Being a very honest person (I wouldn't be writing this column if I wasn't), it amazed me that these people could maintain their sweet alter-egos for long enough to chain their partners in place.

How does this relate to me?

Well, I suppose what I used to do was the whole ball, lock and chain routine. I would instil the fear of ferocious fights in my ex-boyfriend if he did something I didn't approve of - he knew a screaming match would follow.

This method of 'keeping' a good man is not very smart or strategic.

Rather, it repels and pulls you off your pedestal faster than you can say 'ball and chain'.

Now that I have met someone who is a 'hot commodity' in a competitive market, I've decided I want to stay on the pedestal.

A smart woman doesn't use a lock and chain - she is far more strategic.

Rather, she weaves a web. She seduces and doesn't nag, and before her man knows it, he's locked down with some strong invisible thread.

This article was first published in The New Paper on May 10, 2008.