Take a look at the following article from CNN.
(CNN) — Looking for love this Valentine’s day? Make sure Cupid’s arrow doesn’t hit your wallet.
That’s exactly what happened to Kim Kossie, a single woman in Houston, Texas. Kossie joined an online Christian dating site after a friend recommended it. She thought she had met the man of her dreams … an artist from London.
“He sent these wonderful pictures. This guy was quoting scripture. We were praying everyday,” she says. “It was almost like a dream guy.”
They talked on the phone several times a day, everyday. He was engaging. He gave great advice. He was even supposed to visit her parents in Houston. But then, he started asking for money, with promises to pay her back. In two months, Kossie wired him a total of $2,000. Not to mention the phone bill she was stuck with for $1,500. To this day she has not seen him — or her money.
And sadly, Kossie isn’t alone. Complaints against matchmaking services and online dating sites are at an all-time high according to a February report from the Better Business Bureau. In fact, complaints have risen 73 percent in 2006 from the previous year. This year complaints are on track to reach record breaking levels.
To read the entire article click here.
Now the obvious conclusion one can make from this is simple.
If normal North American dating sites are having these types of problems.
Imagine what types of challenges exist in dealing with International Agencies where you normally don’t even share the same language or culture with the Russian or FSU Lady you are trying to “date”.
I’m certainly not trying to discourage anyone from attempting to find love overseas. But my feelings on Online Matchmaking are well known as I’ve previously posted.
What I am saying is that any of you who do this should keep this article in mind and take any potential problems you encounter with a grain of salt.
Because it seems like this is becoming more of the status quo in any type of online dating situation regardless of country.
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Even if nothing really terrible happens as a result of meeting somebody online, I still think that these online relationships are a waste of time. I mean, you can spend months chatting with somebody who seems just great, but you end up falling in love with a fantasy. Then when you actually meet the person, she/he isn’t what you expected at all;you don’t even recognize her/him. That happened to me when I was chatting with a Filipina online. When I finally got to the Philippines, she was nowhere near as cute as I thought; there was just no chemistry at all. Fortunately, there were plenty of other women there who were very appealing. The lesson here is, you have to get off your butt and travel!
Hero you went to the Philippines? You never told us you went to the Philippines.
I didn’t? Well, if I didn’t mention it here it was because I thought it was irrelevant on a board about Russian women. Anyway, some of the advantages of the Philippines over Russia are these:
1. Filipinas speak English
2. They’re more likely to be virgins
Now some disadvantages of the Philippines:
1. Not many tall women in the Philippines, or blondes
2. Waaay too hot and humid
If you want to come to my country (Pilipinas), I strongly recommend you learn Tagalog. Although Tagalog and English are the official languages, many expats here have expressed frustration with using English to speak with Filipinos. Recently in my area, an American started a school for foreigners to learn Filipino. He pointed out that foreigners may be having problems communicating with girlfriend, wife, in-laws, missionary etc. Filipinos are usually shy to speak English with foreigners.
From what I’ve read, it is difficult to find virgins in Russia compared with Pilipinas. The American stereotype that “all” virgin women are ugly, does not apply in Pilipinas. However, as I’ve mentioned many times before, Filipinos want to be like America and the “virginity” tradition is becoming a thing of the past. I asked my teenager niece if she knew how many young ladies do not have pre-marital sex and she said around 30%. This is from a very conservative Catholic province. In Manila (capital city) it is highly perceived that promiscuity “rules”. One person described our country as a liberal country pretending to be conservative.
Finally, I just want to give a warning about young ladies that like to flirt with foreigners to show off to their friends. My sister said some girls do this to cause jealousy to their Filipino boyfriend / crush. A misconception amongst some foreigners is that Filipinas prefer white men, but most prefer Filipino men.
Advantages:
1. I thought that they spoke Tagalog, but ok.
2. That’s good.
Disadvantages:
1. Actually I like them even more than the Russian ones, because I saw one of them a few months ago, and she was so gorgeous and so radiant and everything that now I don’t know what to do. I’ve seen pictures of Philippine women and the pictures were unbelievable, but I had never seen one in real life, and they are even more unbelievable in real life. I’m so glad that (at least according to Yan Yan, who’s been there for 13 years) Philippine women don’t have invisible tests like FSU and former soviet satellite women do.
Now there have been people like Rexpat who had been saying that I was a fake man, and not a real man.
But if I can win that marathon against all those other men, then that will prove that I am a real man after all. And then nobody like Rexpat will be able to say that I am not a real man. They might be able to say that I’m not a traditional man, but they won’t be able to say that I’m not a real man. So they’ll just say “Luke, you’re not a traditional man, but you’re a real man, so I guess you’re a real, modern man.”
A real, modern man. I like the sound of that.
What that has to do with this, I don’t know. It just came to me.
The thing is, with American women, even real pretty ones, I found out recently that all you have to do is get into fights. Not even “fights”, even one fight will do. People had been saying that AW are attracted to bad boys, and it’s a lot easier for me to be a bad boy than to be what GL calls a “real traditional man”.
People say you have to be a real, traditional man, and I tried to be, but the terms involved are so vague I have no idea where to start. And then there’s lists of characteristics, invisible tests, and on and on and on.
Whereas with a very pretty American girl all you have to do is get into fights and you’re there. There’s no lists, there’s no tests, it’s just let a drunk guy find you, let him try to swing his arms around at you, have him turn tail, make sure everybody on the street sees it and then all of a sudden this gorgeous fox you’d been daydreaming about for the last 2 years finally is interested in you and then it’s happily ever after (well, sort of).
Ok, well now I will have to get back on the topic because people will get mad if I don’t get on the topic.
Ok, Dating Agency Pitfalls:
I agree with GL about the internet dating agencies, I think they are silly, and should not be used.
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can someone explain to me what these “invisible tests” are that Luke says FSU women have. thanks in advance
Hi Kevin,
There is a great deal of depth to this subject but in general these “tests” are something that all women do to a certain extent regardless of origin. These tests are for the most part subconscious on a woman’s part.
Essentially it all comes down to how strong you come off as a Real Man. Are you able to firmly and gracefully take control of any situation even when she challenges you?
The classic example of this is when she offers to pay for her part on a dinner date check. Do you let her do it? Well if you are dealing with a classic woman I hope you don’t give into it..
Hope this helps..
GL
All Hails!
Got to add some horror stories for the balance.
When Soviet folks didn’t even know the word “Internet”, there was a comic hit “Real Colonel”, performed by Alla Pugachova. The song character is longing back into her summer affair with an “Oh What a Man, a Real Colonel!” (poise, uniform, wild lovemaking talent, promises, dinners with cognac… at her account…) who turned out a mere criminal in disguise.
Not funny, though, if a woman comes home only to find it empty: no man, as if never been in her life, and also none of her valuables. Or finds her budget sunk into red by his bills – for the dinner they’ve been having, for the vacation just expiring, for their new family business, – the “colonel” “missed in action” minutes, hours, days ago. No one to call for help. Shame does not let her tell even the police. And this is not yet the worst case…
“Matrimonial conmen” have been hunting women vigorously since the Soviet era (which has ousted traditional matchmaking
and even before (to gamble away widows’ estates, raptured maidens’ dowries, the earnings and sometimes bodies of the commons).
He can be military indeed, or just sport the uniform. Educated, handsome, poetically sensitive, demonstrant yet empathic… impersonating “The One” to a woman brimming with compassion, starved for adequate manly attention, and dreaming of family happiness.
His personal legend envisages a wealth of apparently brave, responsible, encouraging, tears-squeezing and trust-testing explanations to his times of absence and the need for money.
I’m speaking of the type as if of one person, but new names and ways appear annually. Which means cases that have lasted for years or decades, and just got investigated to a publishable stage.
A typical loverman of Soviet criminal chronicles enthralls unsuspicious women into chains and bunches of concubinages and/or formally registered marriages, so that to juggle the residential rights and movable assets of the wives or their family members, and his own civil status, to his benefit. Victims may give whatever they have, sell things, borrow around, or just find themselves taken to cleaners.
Nowadays the “brides” undertake bank loans for a scammer’s “business projects”, sell apartments to contribute to the new “family home” he promises, or to pay “ransom” for His Noble Conflict with Tough Guys. The women may also get married, only to stand divorce and division soon… or to be never found alive (“What is truly organized in this country is crime”).
A modern Russian matrimonial conman marks down and mesmerizes fellow country women in the “good old” full-dimensional reality. Quiet scan; “Chance Encounter” especially through the woman’s child; total grasp; immediate rapport; no records. Internet? If as an added venue to fix the first date. The Web is rather fit to catch a swindler, like Moscow police did. ) The conman was surprised to see two chaps with handcuffs instead of a girl from the setup profile!
http://www.newizv.ru/news/2007-05-16/69244/ – the Russian source of the story
Two years before, Ella, 23, had complained to Moscow police on her fiancé. (Do you feel like dropping sequence of tenses now, too?)) They met at a night club. Roman, 26, a Russian sous-chef, with Canadian residence owed to his father, introduced himself as a practicing lawyer. At the dinner, he told Ella a heart-breaking tale about his only child’s death, raw divorce with the unloved wife, and also spilled a word that he’s come to Moscow for a bride. The passionate relationship lasted several weeks, whereupon the “lawyer” made her the proposal of Hand, Heart and Gracious Living. When the girl began arrangements, he suddenly told her that his Canadian passport was stolen and all his credit cards were blocked. To solve these problems, he asked her to take a loan, and disappeared as soon as he got the money.
Ella was not alone. The detainee’s phonebook was teeming with contacts. The cost of compassion ranged from 35,000 to her 365,000 roubles; by another name, Roman got 180 K in exchange for his promise to help the girl with a job at LUKoil.
He lacked the looks, but perused the pathetic charms: “I’ll better die than see mistrust from my beloved!”
Hilarious… I’ve noticed that the all-time marker phrase of villains is “[You must] trust me”. ))
And what about international affairs?
Found a Russian brides’ discussion thread – ridiculing foreign rants of unfading love, lust, commitment and family plans, kindled by correspondence alone, and sometimes followed by requests for the ticket fare.
Could also tell by one British / Ukrainian episode, that it feels pretty discomforting in the shoes of a woman who’s prepaid a program her knight had undertaken for the two, while he is fumbling around with his credit card challenged (?) till his very last evening in Ukraine. If this is a test, then it works the reverse way, Gentlemen…
Also found a dramatic story of an “evil James Bond” that has ruined his Russian mate’s life, but sorry to have taken so much bandwidth of your attention )))
for an ending, occurs a favorite Russian saying (author – St. Alexander Nevsky, prince / commander / hero): “Whoever will come to us with a sword, from a sword will perish.” )
Optimistically,
Comrade Natalia
Beg your pardon! Have posted a comment by the different login. The correct one is:
http://russianwomentruth.com/2007/09/10/the-merits-of-living-out-here/#comment-27579
Dear GL, please delete the same text signed by “artesign”.
Thankfully, N.
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I agree with you there Hero. Online relationships are a waste of time, but the Internet can be a helpful place to find what you need to travel there in person.