The good advice...stay at home and find a local girl,instead.There a beautiful girls at home,guys be it if your home is the U.K, U.S.A or Timbuktoo. Join a local on-line dating site, go to the pubs or night clubs..go to your local bingo hall and find a girl ( for the golden oldies here ).
Finding a foreign girl, going to a personal meeting and then trying to get a fiance visa for her is harder than planning a manned mission to the moon especially its a country such as the U.S, Australia, U.K etc with tough visa laws..you will never get of the ground or get half there and then the whole thing will fail like Apollo 13 ( at least those astronauts made it back..just!).
Also a local girl will be a hell of a lot cheaper and remember all women are the same and there are no guarantees of "a life long marriage" and divorce will be just as messy with a foreign girl ( actually the laws of most Enlish speaking countries favor them more as they are seen as the victim that can do no wrong and you as the man are the bloody devil and will get shafted by the courts ) as it is with a local girl.
aussieman,
You cannot compare, generalize, the eases or difficulties of such a process between different countries.
As an example, and reading from the Americans, a K1 visa application can take a year or more to process thus even an application today might not be approved until this time next year.
On the other hand a UK 'settlement visa' takes as long as it takes to arrange an interview at the consulate, perhaps a week or so, and if approved the visa can be issued the same afternoon and she could even be on a flight to UK that same evening, it's too bl00dy easy :)