In the Face of Siberia post, Curmudgeon suggested I check out "Jim's List." It's a very helpful site. I highly recommend everyone to peruse that site. Click on the Facts link, the Propaganda, and familiarize yourself with the photos of ladies who are known to scam men.
However, whereas before I was feeling so high about this marrying a Russian lady, and so sure that it makes so much sense; now instead I feel somewhat disenchanted and disentranced, as the boy who finds out Santa Clause isn't real.
Jim actually lives in Russia, so keep that in mind as you are reading this.
Below are some quotes from Jim:
Propaganda:
"Russian women are so wonderful". Of course, they say that, the agencies are selling a product. Everyone is wonderful when you first meet. Yes, they cook and take care of the home and children. They are taught that it is their meaning in life. (That, and to look good.) But compared to western culture, it seems to me that eastern culture is less tolerant, less patient, less loyal, more arrogant, more selfish, more vain, more apathetic, moodier, whinier, more materialistic, less driven, more opinionated, more judgmental and more cold-hearted. Am I wrong? You explain why there are so many sites for Russian scammers, and ZERO for other countries.
Culture:
You are NOT the only guy that she is corresponding with. Everyone lies, but they are the masters of sweet talk. (Hence, so many scammers.) a friend of mine placed an ad a couple years ago. (She wasn't looking for a foreign husband, she was just curious what would happen. She didn't meet anyone and forgot the whole thing.) She received over 2,000 replies. 2,000! Think about that.
A friend of a friend recently told her that she knows of 5 women who are scamming men. These 5 women work with her in the same department store. If there are 5 women scamming simply in one department store, how many do you think are doing it in the whole country?
And here is what hurts the most. I sincerely hope one of you has something that will reassure me and somehow make this seem less of an obvious red light than it is.
Well, here are the official statistics from the US government (uscis.gov) for the year 2003:
3,889 K-1's (fiancée) entered the USA.
54% left the USA within 6 months.
28.2% left between 6 months to one year
17.7% lasted more than one year.
1,546 K-3 (spouse) entered the USA
70.3% left the USA within 6 months.
22.6% left between 6 months to one year.
7.1 % lasted more than one year.
Now, if the divorce rate for these foreign affairs is higher than the rate for intermural affairs, then why are we spending so much energy chasing this Russian lady?
Moreover, you
I don't understand why Jim has all these links to good international dating sites, when he seems to know from the inside that it's all not so good as it was made out to be.
By the way, European Connections just sent me a letter in leiu of the video I requested about their tours. The letter told me that they are discontinuing the tours, in spite of how great they were. On this page of their site
http://www.eastwestmatchcom aboutUs.html
they say that 7,000 marriages resulted from their tours. Eastwestmatch was launced in 2003 by EC which supposedly pioneered matchmaking in Russia since 1992.
I wonder how many of those marriages are still happy and intact now.
I'm going to write Jim a personal e-mail to ask him to clarify some things for me. For instance, why does he really think it's a better idea to marry Russian than American, because he seems more cynical than to believe that. If he does, that will be a relief to me.
Lux
You have some problems don't you? Not all is scam and disaster. I know too many success stories to believe much of what 'Jim' has written. Who is this guy? What are his credentials? There are so many women involved in this you wouldn't believe it so it stands to reason that there are a few bad apples. Only today I found a girl that I had a brief contact with on a scam site. It happens all the time but the responsibility for all this lies with the man not the woman.
If you left a fully loaded wallet on a seat on a city train in New York and you finally recovered it 2 days later do you think there would be anything in it? No, exactly. An opportunistic thief took advantage of you. If anyone is stupid enough to send a perfect stranger around the other side of the world money what do you expect will happen?
As regards the numbers of failed marriages I would need a lot more convincing than this guys website. Where does he get his numbers from? I, once again, believe it is the responsibilty of the man to explain everything to the woman about what she can expect in the States. It isn't a golden paradise and she is going to have to work etc....
If you have read any of my posts you will see what I think of writing letters. It isn't impossible but it is damn near. It is open to all kinds of problems. I fell heavily for a very beautiful nut earlier this year and a chunk of last. I went to see her and she had problems. She wasn't trying to scam me exactly but she had a whole weirdness going on that I am still trying to absorb. Yes a little money changed hands but it wasn't anything serious.
The preferred way to do this as I have said before is to write some letters to some ladies in a particular city or area. Then hook up with a reputable agency - and despite what 'Jim' would have us believe there are many. Try Kherson Pearls in Kherson Ukraine you will have no regrets.
Then off you go and start meeting women face to face. If the agency is honest you will be covered. They know the girls personally, they will tailor the profiles to your particular needs.
I have found a wonderful lady in Kherson with the aid of this agency.
Now a word about motivation. My lady wants out of Dodge. Of course she does nothing awaits her son there but a life of basic poverty. BUT she isn't going to just run off with anybody. No she also wants love, dignity and respect. Her desire to leave makes her more flexible and willing to adapt. I see nothing wrong with this. She and her son get a better life and love and I get a loyal, beautiful wife that knows what being a wife is all about.
Where is the harm in this?????
These women are far more likely to make a go of their marriage than a Western woman. Why? Because they have their backs up against a wall AND they have certain inbuilt character attributes that speak to that. They are geared up from infancy to believe that family is the cornerstone of life. All they want is to have a loving husband and children. They want this scenario in love, peace and security.
We western men offer that. That being the case why in Gods name do you think they would blow it in a transatlantic divorce?
I will tell you who has the disaster. This is the guy that is not looking for a wife really he wants the beach bunny trophy type that he could never get in America. So he goes to St Petersburg, spends some money and 'buys' a 12. Then he brings her back to America and she gets a surprise. He is up to his eyeballs in debt, lives in a small apartment in Queens and earns just enough money for them to get by on. She quickly relizes she has 'attributes' and says piss on this I'm off.
I could go on about this but I am going to stop here. Frankly pessimistic unfounded posts like this irritate me. They will effect all the guys who have been successful or even just at this for a while the same way.
This is not a game for those who are not committed or who are broke or who are dumb enough to be taken then blame the entre FSU for their own stupidity.
Lux I would suggest that you listen to what I and others tell you. Learn how to filter and don't listen to a bunch of doom and gloomers who have a slick website.
Anyone else want to comment because I am done and disgusted.
Lux,
The risks of getting involved with a russian or otherwise foreign women are real and tangible.
There are no ifs or buts about it.
But when you compare them to the astronomical amounts of potential negative consequences you face by marrying among the vast majority of western women, the risks to the eastern option are worth the effort.
I'd suggest you spend as much time reading about the positives as you've obviously invested in the negatives before calling the whole thing off or continue to bash it in any way.
In the end, you may very well find that marriage in and by itself is not a good idea for you, lol..
What Izi said about eastern women's family affiliations and their loyalty to it is a double edge knife, because on one hand they seriously want to have a family of their on and I honestly believe they will devote themselves to it like no other woman in the western world ever would. But leaving the family they grew up with and are currently devoted to can cause problems after she moves to your country and she no longer has that familiar support system.
All of this is something both sides should be able to discuss openly to find whatever works to prevent problems.
When I first read this forum about 1,5 years ago I had some feeling of shit around. I was shocked with the ammount of topics devoted to scam and all the stuff. Actually it was much of a shock because I opened my own agency just I guess 2-3 months before that and what we were doing was white and fluffy.
Years passed...:-) What I understood that it is a matter of perception and luck how to treat this. I heard a lot of bad things, yet my own experience was showing that among our girs only very small amount was having not fair intentions while the ammount of men who were leading to different bad things was just incredible. Do you think that Izi's "Qweens guy" is something rare? 3 of every 5 men! 1 more of these 5 is either a pervert or a mentally il person and only one seems to be more or less credible.
All the fuss about scam is because:
1) Scammers are ususally much more active than the usual users.
2)Men begin to shout every time when they fall a victim but very rarely when they are sattisfied.
3)Most men seeking a Russian wife are older than 37 years and thus they are not too good at using Google, this forum and other useful tools which help to get important knoledge how to protect yourself.
One last comparisson. Around 500 people are killed each year in the air crashes, more than 1 million die in road accidents. But for some reason many people are affraid to fly and all the media become just crazy when a plane crashes while I don't know a guy who would be affraid to sit in a car.
Lux,
As an embarker upon this process perhaps your time would be better utilised 'getting out there and doing it' rather than quoting your 'newbie' copy & pasting that some of us have read the likes of for years previously.
One thing that I will not criticise you for though is doing your research, so many guys run before they have learnt to walk.
When I went to Kherson 2 weeks ago all I saw were honest beautiful women that wanted nothing more than a real man to take care of them and build a relationship with. I saw some men around town and in the internet cafe that were obviously Australian and one or two Americans. Quite frankly these guys would never in a million years find anybody in the west because they were goofy looking oddballs. Other than a couple of other fellahs who by the way seemed to already have ladies I had no competition. It felt great. I got paid a lot of compliments and I freely admit I sucked it up.
So I agree with what Felicedate is saying. I Think the men pose a bigger problem than the women!
In addition to there being a real competition for men in Kherson the ones that do go over from the west are not exactly either there for the right reasons, have the resources or are kind of rough looking. I seemed to be top of the hit parade and it made a nice change I must say. According to a bunch of stories that my interpreter told me about men who go over there I was a decent apple in a barrel stuffed with nuts.
Age seemed to a really big factor. Men that claim to be 45 when it is obvious they are 60. In one case the guy came back again 1 year later and had gone from 45 to 40!! Then of course the deceptive photos just like the women. He sends pictures of Rock Hudson and looks like Walter Mattheu in reality.
One twerp went out there with a little calculator type thing. He went through the catalogs and typed in the birthdate of each woman and picked his dates on the strength of the matching result he was getting based on birth signs!! He only came up with 2 and saw them decided they were no good within about 5 minutes and said that was it, he was finished, then flew back to the States!!!!!!!
Crazy men. No wonder I was popular!!
well from everything I keep reading it seems that most of the men are definately older and most think of this as a game. No wonder they cant find a wife, anywhere for that matter. If the men dont understand that it takes work to make a marriage, then it's no wonder they cant find a wife anywhere. I have known a few guys who have been listed on FSU sites and thought it was a big joke and all they wanted was a trophy to bring home, and frankly that is not why a person should get married. If most of these guys dont understand what it takes to make a sucessful relationship then they are, in my opinion, just plain stupid or out to play games. And the guys I knew had in no way the funding for this kind of venture to begin with, so guys if you get scammed it's probably your own stupidy to begin with, so please shut up and grow up.
There been some very oddball posting on here of late. Regarding sexual innuendo etc. Piss-off - is all I will say to there discriminating and degrading thought patterns !!!
Hi nas, like i said I'm simple I say it like I see it. well I'm off to Belarus in Nov. then I'm taking a train to Kiev. After a few more emails I'm not sure I think she might be wasting my time, but we'll see. The trip will be enjoyable though. I am still not sure I like seeing more than 1 woman on my trip but I guess I'll see what happens. I just really enjoy knowing that the women there have a good sense of family values, that is hard to find here where I live.
NNN88, I'm not cynical just realistic, relationships take work from both sides that is just a fact. sorry if I miss understand you. If I do please explain.
I read here because I try to understand psychology of the western men.
The man with which I corresponded 2 months ( +SMS), has told that doesn’t plan to get divorced, he wants the mistress for some time. When I have asked "Do you the supporter or amateur of sex - tourism?" He has told that I don’t understand him that he is deeply offended and has demanded explanations. When I have written that such conditions offend and humiliate me, he has ceased to answer in general. He sincerely names himself the decent, considerable, fair person.
It is normal?
Please, tell to me!
NNN,
What he told is obviously NOT what you want, but why don't give the poor married guy a break and appreciate his honesty?
He could have just as easily told you his wife died of cancer while driving her mercedes benz into a light post after the police chased her for committing mass murder in a kindegarden school...or some other lie.
Just move on...no point in hanging on to those feeling of humiliation and offense. Not all men seek the same things.
Good luck to you.