Using Web 2.0 to meet ladies from the FSU and beyond

[Sculpto]

I have been saying in the debates about methods of meeting for quite some time that guys should consider using social networking sites and other methods to meet ladies.  I am starting to realize that not everyone is tech savvy and may not be aware of how such sites work and how they can be used to a western man's advantage.

So, here we go.. a primer in Web 2.0.

Everyone has heard of Myspace and Facebook by now.  There have been a small but growing number of FSU people on both sites for quite some time, but, Myspace has always felt like a teenie bopper hangout and Facebook really isn't designed for meeting strangers so they aren't especially useful for searching for a potential wife.

What people may not know is there are a multitude of other social networks out there.  Some of them are topical and some have just evolved into favorites for people from certain regions around the world. 

Here is a SHORT list of social networks that are active that I have checked out at some point, and, re-checked for this thread.  There are many many more social networks worth investigating.  Often when someone finds one they like they stick with it even though there are other bigger or better sites, so, it is worth it to investigate beyond what I am offering.

Hi5               international with correspondence and local connections seeming to be the bulk of traffic

Shtyle          nice looking site a bit oriented towards younger people.  LOTS of FSU ladies of all ages.

Sonico          More Spanish speaking oriented but plenty of people from everywhere.  I met my Tijuana friends who accompanied me to the concert a few weeks ago through this site.

Wayn           Topical site specifically for travelers.  Not unlike hospitality club.  Lots of FSU people.  It is possible to view "friends" travel plans.  They send out a list of people coming to your area.  There is always a consistent number of FSU ladies coming to California.  To make this site work you really have to use it every day though, otherwise you miss potential connections.  I never met anyone from it, but, got lots of "sorry I didn't get your message in time".  If anyone is doubting how many FSU people are getting tourist visas to visit the USA this site is a myth destroyer in that regard.

Vkontakte     This is the largest russian language social network and now has an English language interface.  I believe the owner f the site is also heavily invested in Facebook.  This thing is HUGE.  There are literally millions of members.  It is a friendly site.  Every single lady I asked to be friends with agreed.  Correspondence was decent.  I made some nice friends when I was still in search phase and remain friends with some.  Remember a while back I posted a thread about a girl from Lugansk.. scammer central.. she is a real sweetheart and as real as a girl can be and will make some guy very happy. 

There is a certain amount of spam that occurs within these sites.  But, because you can post messages on a persons page, if they are a spammer or a scammer they get flushed out real fast.  Most of the managers of these sites will eliminate a spammer of scammer immediately, within minutes of a complaint.  That is a great protection on the front end. 

If you find a nice lady since they mostly have their own computers there is a much better than 50-50 chance they will also have a web cam.  I used to get their phone number before going to messenger with them.  After talking on the phone if I liked them I would get them into cam chat.  Once i had them in chat, I would call and watch them answer their phone.. seems stupid.. but.. people like it.  its funny.. and it verifies things.

When you start looking at photos of FSU ladies and see images from their vacation in USA, Europe, Thaliand, Egypt.. it becomes clear they have means and many of them have the potential of visiting you just as easily as you have of going to see them.  And guess what, most speak English quite well.

Want to check out ladies from a certain region?  Most sites let you search country and city.  Fancy a lady from Tashkent?  No problem.  Want to see the wild girls in Riga?  No problem. 

I have also found that ladies are a lot more open than what agency sites lead us to believe and they are more ready to respond honestly when the immediacy of chat is the communication method as opposed to writing letters.  Letters seem so impersonal.  Chat is almost hyper real.  Some ladies are shy, some are real wild tigers.  Be CAREFUL!  LOL.

The scam factor was pretty much eliminated.  I kept up correspondences in this way until just before I met "A" in real life.  Once that happened I let the ladies know I met someone.  None of them wanted to stop being friends and all of them were happy and wished us well. 

Now, here is the downside.  These ladies aren't being coached by agency managers.  Their age requirements are honest.  You can see their friends lists.  It can be a bit discouraging when some superhotkova has 800 friends in her list from 75 different countries.  But guess what, 99.9% of those friends are never getting on a plane.  Let a lady know you will be in her area and her interest level will go up dramatically!  But, when they have so many options, it does bring up some questions.  How you deal with that is your problem. 

I have had some requests for "sponsorship" and I quickly removed such ladies.  There have been a couple of offers of "take me on vacation and I will give you sex".  Again, write them off.  But, those kinds of interactions were by far the exceptional.  Most of the ladies I met seemed very sincere and a hell of a lot more open than those I wrote to on any agency site.  I never once had a lady ask for a gift or even flowers.. no hints.. nothing.  Just normal people enjoying the international freedom associated with Web 2.0. 

Have fun guys.  This information was kept under wraps for a long time, but, I don't see any reason to continue to do so.  Just keep in mind that where you might have been used to guaranteed response from agency sites, that is not always the case on social networks.  There is no money involved, so, the ladies will respond according to their real interest in knowing you. 

[MatryoshkaMan]

Great post Sculpto. I see it like this - if you are looking for someone over 35, go with the regular agency routine and try your luck, but if you are looking for women under 35 forget all those agencies that are trying to pull the wool over your eyes and reach for your wallet simultaneously - use dating and social networking sites that have a large population of young, hip, tech savy and worldly RW!! Yes most of them have not seriously considered looking for a man overseas but it seems a high percentage are willing to engage in chats maybe out of pure curiousity. BUT! Big but - watch those age differences. These girls will laugh in your face if you have unrealistic expectations. They are young, confident and cosmopolitan - and they certainly do not want to date grandpa just to flee the FSU. In fact a high % of these women will have to be dragged out of their country. Don't get all heavy-duty at the start, play it casual like they do. Post good photos of yourself! No webcam shots that make you look like a pedophile/axe murderer/kitten torturer! Find a photography student or a friend with some nice pro-level gear to take some professional pictures of you in a few different settings from formal to outdoorsy. Don't scare them off with a profile that spells out your life's plan for the next 50 years. Keep it light.

Most of what I say applies to WWW.SINGLES.RU (thanks again MISHA!)- which in my opinion is a treasure chest of sexy RW. In the 3 weeks I lived there I had one of the best times of my life, chatting away all night with perhaps 2 dozen hot ladies. Sure you might get only a 25% response rate (or less) depending upon your looks and profile BUT! there are MILLIONS of women on there. Write to 1,000 and you will be chatting with 250! That might be an exageration but it certainly is possible. Had I continued to feed my addiction there I could spend 24 hours chatting and messenging and it still would not be enough. How serious are these women? Well read their profile! It states what they are looking for. Just search for women who: 1) speak English 2) are looking for a serious relationship/marriage/family and you are off to the races! And best of all (especially to those guys paying big agency fees) the site is basically FREE. You pay $15 for a 6 month VIP MEMBERSHIP and the reason you do that is to access all search parameters (spoken languages is the key one). Other than that payment you never need to pay another penny and a lot of women will freely give you their Skype/ICQ/Email without hesitation. Then you can communicate with them to your heart's desire. One thing works like a charm - send roses. $1 from your account and you can put a rose on their profile page and it works like a charm. Whenever I did this my response rate went up for 1st introductions and also the women that you are already chatting with will love this jesture. Yes its cheesy but it works!

One other great thing about this site is that you can really focus your search on one geographic area if you so choose. For example you want to go to St. Pete, just search there, you will find probably 10,000 women if your search parameters are wide enough. I total I think there is something like 40 million + users and at any one time there is anywhere from 20,000-100,000 users on-line.

Unless you are a 96 year old ogre with a 5 foot high mole on your nose you should be able to establish some promising contacts within a few weeks, especially if you do as Sculpto advised and mention that you will be in their city soon. Just mentioning that will perk their ears and show them that you are not just another time wasting keyboard romeo.

It turns out that I "met" my #1 on freerussianpersonals.com about a week before I signed up for singles.ru. Had I have not met her on that other free site I am almost 100% sure that I would have found my next wife on singles.ru.

Sign up and let the games begin! Put the deadbeat scammer mafia controled marriage agencies out of business! They are an endangered species anyway and the spectacular rise of social networking and dating sites will kill off all but the most niche players.

I wish you all well. Life is a great adventure and the pursuit of a dream RW is amongst the finest experiences any man can have!

[Missouri-Hunter]

Good post Sculpto. I saw that reference to Web 2.0 earlier and had no clue what it meant (and I'm still not sure), but I understand searching for those sites you listed. 

[Missouri-Hunter]

Well, I was wrong. I tried shtyle first, found 900+ communities, so I searched for Ukraine and found one guy looking for medical students. Then I went to Vkontakte and you can't even look at the site without registering, have to read the TOS in Russian etc. It asks where you study, so it sounds like more of a college deal to me.

I failed. 

[GQBlues]

Intriguing post Sculpto. It seems like a split, from what I remember back in the days, between Virtual Tourist and Romantic Planet (before it became a scammer's paradise). I remember having met so many people from all corners of our globe using VT. I went to visit and stayed with people in their world, and vice versa. It was difficult to determine which one was more exciting than the other. Me coming to them, or they coming to me. Either way those days were such a blast.

It was VT that led me to my adventures in FSU as Ukraine/Russia were the next targets of destination for me. I had just cruised, socialized, and met women from CZ/Slovakia/Hungary.

Curious question though. With all the friends you amassed in any of these sites, do you personally know if any of these people actually got married from people they've met though these sites?

[Sculpto]

do you personally know if any of these people actually got married from people they've met though these sites?

Personally know?  No, because I only met a couple of ladies in real life that were already here.  One became a friend, and the other wanted to get married because she had arrived int he US on a tourist visa and wanted to stay.  The one that became a friend was 25 from Kiev, the other was in her mid to late 30's from Novosibirsk and was definitely a high level woman with an accomplished career in Siberia and motivated to do the same here.  I have heard of marriages second hand.  The main difference between seeking this way and through an agency in terms of the ladies mentality is the GOOD ladies on marriage sites are actively seeking marriage, where, on the social networks ladies might wish to find someone to marry, but, that is not their primary goal for being on the site.  I do not see that as a negative though, on the contrary, because I question the reasons someone might be so focused on getting married.  But that is just me.  I came to appreciate the honesty, and frankly the obvious competition, on social networks.  It was like a breath of fresh air to me after the BS I went through using agency sites.

[Sculpto]

Well, I was wrong. I tried shtyle first, found 900+ communities, so I searched for Ukraine and found one guy looking for medical students. Then I went to Vkontakte and you can't even look at the site without registering, have to read the TOS in Russian etc. It asks where you study, so it sounds like more of a college deal to me.

I failed. 

Not sure what you did wrong Hunter.  When I do those searches I get tons of ladies, 18-40+, totally hot and average and even some very unattractive ones.  All kinds, NORMAL people. 

Vkontakte also has people of all ages, there are 30 million plus members.. why not sign up?  There should be a place to click for English.  If it is not on the front sign up page just open a second window and use google translate to translate the page so you fill things in correctly.  Once you are in, you will find the little brit or american flag for the english interface.  Its free so why not sign up?  I have never gotten one single spam offsite from Vkontakte and in over two years as a member on three onsite, and, both of those profiles were removed almost within minutes of getting the spam.

[Sculpto]

Virtual Tourist

Gq I hadn't even thought about VT.  I am on there constantly doing research for Mexico most recently but also before all my trips to the FSU.  It is a fantastic resource and people are really helpful.  Hospitality club also has some real potential for someone adventurous.  People offer homestays at no cost, or just to meet up with people and show them around.  For someone intrepid they could just plan to BE in a certain place, make some contacts through hospitality club and off you go.  Imagine showing up in Odessa to "hang out", staying at someones house who will introduce you to their friends and watch your back, just because they like meeting foreign people!  Only a real dork wouldn't find an excellent lady to get closer to. 

I think Aloe has a very unique story of how her and her husband met.  Not exactly web 2.0 but a niche of it.  Aloe, if you read this can you tell us again how you and your husband met please, its such a great story I think it will hammer home the point. 

[Misha]

It asks where you study, so it sounds like more of a college deal to me.

Do you use Facebook? Vkontakte is the Russian version of Facebook with pretty much the exact same setup, including asking for the place where you studied.

[Misha]

Curious question though. With all the friends you amassed in any of these sites, do you personally know if any of these people actually got married from people they've met though these sites?

I met my wife through a Russian dating site (singles.ru). We have been together a bit longer than three years.

[Sculpto]

Do you use Facebook? Vkontakte is the Russian version of Facebook with pretty much the exact same setup, including asking for the place where you studied.

I expect to see Vkontakte update their interface pretty soon.  It is a bit clunky compared with Facebook, but, it isn't bad.  I searched California and found tons of ladies who were either already here or who had been here or were planning a trip.

[Misha]

I expect to see Vkontakte update their interface pretty soon. 

I agree, they will catch up quickly enough 

[Missouri-Hunter]

I've never used facebook, myspace, blogs or any of that stuff, so my navigation skills on those sites are zero. I'm on several UBB boards that function very similar to this one, but when I get on a site with so many choices of what to click on I'm lost. I'm sure I could learn with a bit of time, but right now I'm still clueless.