Reintroduction

[Lysander]

Hello everyone. It's been a very long time since I've posted, but I'm back now. In the interval I was married for 6 years and recently divorced. And the entire thing was a wonderful experience. We had a good marriage and perhaps the best divorce in history. We agreed on everything. It was over in 3 weeks. More accurately, one hour with a lawyer and the rest of the time waiting for the state of Nevada to make it official. We are still best of friends. Still actually living together as if married and I wouldn't trade the experience for anything. We celebrated our divorce by traveling to Mexico together. I'll get into more details later.

In the meantime, I've renewed my interest in Russia and have spent the last 6 months studying Russian on my own and I'm planning a trip to Moscow and elsewhere in August. I'm not so eager to get remarried and have arranged no meetings with anyone in particular but I'm open to the possibility.

Anyway,

Talk to you all later. 

[BillyB]

I'm not so eager to get remarried and have arranged no meetings with anyone in particular but I'm open to the possibility.

Welcome back Lysander. There's a growing number of men against marrying but as you know, if you want to bring a lady overseas over, marriage is in the cards.

[tfcrew]

  back.

[2tallbill]

Welcome back to the forum!

[Lysander]

Thanks all for the welcome! Billy, tf and 2tall, good to see you all again :-)

I'm curious how the game would be different this time. Being mid forties rather than mid thirties now, and being that Russia is not quite as poor as it once was and America, not quite as loved as it once was. So I'm guessing the image of 5 or 6 guys being swarmed by hundreds of beauties in a romance tour circa 1998 is no longer quite valid. Though maybe it still is in Kiev or Dniepro. But if someone has recent experience, by all means share. Like I said though, I'm not writing to anyone now and this upcoming trip is more of an exploratory nature. A chance to run into people and practice Russian. Maybe take an intensive language course.

[jone]

Lysander,

Congratulations on handling your divorce like a grown man.  So many get into situations where they hate their ex wife.  A marriage can dissolve and still be remembered fondly.

I think you will find that the FSU ladies are more sophisticated in their responses now.  Stay away from the Pay-per-chat and Pay-per-letter sites. 

Welcome back.

[Lysander]

Thanks a lot jone. She made it very easy. I think we both did. And in many ways, not much has changed (yet?) We are still living together, pretty much like boyfriend/girlfriend, except we are not exclusive. She has no plans to move out and I told her she can stay pretty much as long as she wants. That way she can save most of her alimony money. The avatar pic is of the two of us in Puerto Vallarta...one week after our divorce was finalized. She has a bunch of Russian friends, nearly all divorced themselves and a couple of them seem to like me. But that would be waaayyy too weird so I'm not going there.

So maybe that's why I'm not so eager to go looking. But on the other hand I'm a free man and so open to possibilities. I can't use the typical agencies and marriage sites since I'm not truly looking for marriage. In the next day or two I will post a full report on my experiences with details that I think would be very helpful to newbies and even some experienced guys halfway through the process.

[ML]

A couple of points:

1) Usually somewhat strange when 2 people divorce that are as congenial together as you 2.  Best marriage partner to have is a person who is a good friend.

2) Also strange that you lived with and are still living with a Russian speaking person, and now are learning Russian . . . on your own.

[Lysander]

Yes I agree it is strange. But still good. I know a lot of guys who are friendly with their ex wives but they usually go through a period of mutual anger and then move on. It is weird to go from marriage to divorce as if nothing happened. But it is what it is. Quite possible, maybe even likely, that we will just slowly drift apart. Or maybe not. Don't know what to say. I just roll with it.

As for language, my story is a strange one here too. Many moons ago I lived in Poland (went to medical school there) and used to speak pretty decent Polish. I've long since forgotten most of it but when my ex and I first met still spoke it pretty well. Her English was not the best at the time, but she spoke in Belorussian and I spoke in Polish with some English mixed in. It kind of worked.

I got into Russian at the start of the year and have been studying it since. Every now and again we try to speak in Russian but it just feels odd so we end up getting back to English. For Russian I use Pimsleur, Rosetta but best of all a website called Italki, where you can get language lessons for just about any language. Just talk in Russian on Skype for an hour a few times a week and after a while you get better at it.

P.S. has Andrewfi been around recently? Also, not sure if people are getting my PMs. I sent out a couple but when I check in my sent box they aren't there. Even though it has all of my PMs from 2006-7 when I was last active on the board.

[cc3]

 
P.S. has Andrewfi been around recently? Also, not sure if people are getting my PMs. I sent out a couple but when I check in my sent box they aren't there. Even though it has all of my PMs from 2006-7 when I was last active on the board.

Thankfully, that Putin-loving, USA-hating malcontent does not frequent this forum. Go to Manny's hyper-russified RUA forum (Russian Ukrainian Adventures forum: ruadventures.com) to find him.

[Lysander]

Thanks for the info, cc3. But I'm afraid I'm also a 100% Russophile and think Putin is awesome. Hope we can still get along. Let's save debate for the anything goes forum.

[cc3]

OK 

[cc3]

I live with my fiancee in Lviv. She is an internally displaced refugee who had to flee her home in Luhansk when the muscovites invaded...thus my anti-Putin orientation.

[2tallbill]

Also, not sure if people are getting my PMs. I sent out a couple but when I check in my sent box they aren't there. Even though it has all of my PMs from 2006-7 when I was last active on the board.

All my sent PMs are missing from the somewhere after 2006 as well. I still have my received PM's

[Faux Pas]

All my sent PMs are missing from the somewhere after 2006 as well. I still have my received PM's

If you don't tick the box to save the PM, the PM will not save

[2tallbill]

If you don't tick the box to save the PM, the PM will not save

Man, I wish I knew this earlier. Everytime I write a letter to an old member
inviting them back to the forum. I write a letter with some links etc. Then I
copy and paste it until I get to the magic number of 10. Then next time I do
this I have to do it all over again.

If I had saved just one of those PM's I wouldn't have to rewrite it a bunch of
times. Oh, well I'm glad I responded to Lysander's post.

Udachi!

Bill

[Lysander]

I live with my fiancee in Lviv. She is an internally displaced refugee who had to flee her home in Luhansk when the muscovites invaded...thus my anti-Putin orientation.

Totally understand. It would be a boring world if we all agreed on everything. Stay safe and all the best for you and your fiancee :-)

Thanks for the tip, faux pas,

[2tallbill]

The biggest difference between now and the olden days are Social Networking
and the proliferation of computers in the FSU. Back in the old days, nobody in
the FSU had them so they had to use an Internet Cafe. The newer translating
programs are much better (but they have their limits) and they have Mamba
and various FSU social networking sites like VK.com

These days every girl over the age of 14 has a smart phone. Even if a girl lives
in a mud hut in Siberia and eats only whale blubber, snails and grubs then she
has a Smart phone. So if a girl always looks to be online at Mamba it's probably
because her smartphone is logged in. She could very well be sleeping.

Maybe the days of desperate girls who will marry any Western man are gone,
but I say good riddance. Desperate girls act desperately and I have always
recommended avoiding them. Many things are the same, boy meets girl. Boy
must win girls heart or she isn't going to leave Mamma and all her friends. 

Here are some links about using Mamba

http://www.russianwomendiscussion.com/index.php?topic=14615.msg399905#msg399905
http://www.russianwomendiscussion.com/index.php?topic=17975.msg386793#msg386793

ML has a slightly different theory about Visit Many than I do. Of course I am right
(how could I possibly be wrong?) but I would advise reading both and using what
you think would work for you.

You can read about both of our theories here.
http://www.russianwomendiscussion.com/index.php?topic=14615.0

Udachi!

Bill