Whatever happened to Seeker and a few others for that matter?

[GregfromGa]

Did they just get tired of all the pissing matches?

[Turboguy]

I am sure a lot of people do get tired of it all.  There are lots of old time members who I wonder about.  There are a few that I am still in touch with and they are doing fine but just got bored with it all.  Some I think ran into life changes that made them less interested in participating.   The last I heard of Seeker he was doing fine and thought he might come back and participate more someday.  People get bored.  People get disillusioned.  I do like it when they do pop in from time to time and hopefully some will do that.

[Gator]

They obviously lost interest.  Why?  Many reasons as Turbo stated.  Another reason is that some men eventually realize that marrying a RW will take an incredible amount of effort and not worth it in their opinion.  A number of the married men are busy with babies; you know the demands that creates.   

If one left RWD simply because of a pissing match, perhaps they were the ones who got wet and didn't like it.  I have had a couple of encounters that left a sour taste in my mouth, yet not having a fragile ego it gets put away in the circular filing drawer.   
 
The posts at RWD fall into five categories from my perspective:  pissing matches, repeats of  tedious issues (such as age gap),  entertaining chronicles, new and insightful information, and the bizarre.  To fade away because of pissing contests seems lame because one can ignore them and find something interesting. 

Personally, I am intrigued by the hodgepodge of personalities here.  Admittedly,  I am not as enthused as in the past, and I participate between visits by a RW.  If I were dating AW with no thought about RW, I would vaporize. 
 
You asked about Seeker.  He is still around, and I gather that his relationship with Rina is progressing. 

Seeker is so conscientious that he literally was spending too much time at RWD endeavoring to be a good moderator (studying every word, searching the archives for related history, striving for balance,...).     It was stealing time from his life outside RWD.  In other words, he is a really good guy...makes one want to forgive Seeker for his liberal views.     With some encouragement by each of you, he may return.

[GregfromGa]

I liked Seeker as well. I hope he's doing good. He's a friend on facebook but I never see him online to chat with him. You hit the nail on the head with him Gator.

[TwoBitBandit]

I've been on these boards for a long time.

I've been damn near everywhere in the FSU it seems: Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Omsk, Irkutsk, Tver, Novosibirsk, Kiev, Kharkov, Lugansk, Dniper (which I abbreviate because I can never spell it right), Odessa, Kherson, Krivoy Rog, and probably some other places I forgot about.  I speak fluent Russian and have probably dated over 100 Russian and Ukrainian women.

Despite my experience, I only jump in when I have something material to add, like when I wrote a trip report last summer or when I have direct knowledge that can help a poster.  After my trip report, I vanished for several months and didn't even read these forums.  I really only wrote a trip report because I felt I had something useful to contribute.

Gator, your characterization of "the five topics" (pissing matches, repeats of tedious issues, entertaining chronicles, new and insightful information, and the bizarre) is a pretty accurate characterization.

A book I once read when I was at the university gave an analogy: Imagine you're hosting a dinner party.  You decide to prepare a turkey.  During the meal, you overhear one of your guests commenting to another, "This bird isn't really turkey.  It's poached platypus!"  You know that it's turkey, since you bought it at the supermarket in a big bag that said "turkey" right on it in big letters.  The statement is so absurd as to not really even warrant a response, and it's clear that the speaker is just trying to create a scene.  So how to you respond?  Should you insist that it's really turkey?  Or should let the issue go?

And so it is with these forums.  Once you've read them for awhile, all of the issues recycle and what's left is mostly people creating drama.  (e.g. Billy's thread.)  I make it a point not to have pissing matches on the internet with strangers.  It just doesn't add any value to my life or to their life.  Almost everyone on these forums is pretty reasonable, but a small minority of you out there are, well, simply drama queens.

After awhile, as the issues repeat, people just drift away.  Who knows where KenC has vanished to.  The guy named "LP"?  MarkInTx (aka MarkLeftTx)?  SmoothOperator?  Ronin?  and lots of others I can remember when I started reading a few years back.

The most interesting part of these boards has been to meet a few of your in real life.  I had a couple of drinks with Jooky on Saturday afternnon when I was in his area for an unrelated reason and we shared war stories... it was good clean fun.

[GregfromGa]

I remember Jet as well. Nice guy living down near Miami. I for one always appreciated what KenC brought to this table. I've met a few members over the years. I actually attended one guys wedding in West Palm Beach. He never posts anymore but we still talk a few times each month. We usually call each other with situations that occur with the women we are married to. I met TomT once in Kiev. We had dinner at a Globus Cafe over looking Khreshatic with my wife and the lady he was dating. My wife and I had a great Cuban dinner with Gator. Certain threads reminds me of the cartoon where the lady is telling the guy to come to bed. He's sitting at the computer. He says I cant because someone on the internet is wrong.

[neo]

I tend to blog here when I am in country to give me something to do during the tedious hours when a girl I am seeing is at work or i have nothing planned.

After a huge amount of years in country I am pretty bored by the whole place so tend just to hang out at the apartment. when i get back to the 'real world' i am usually too busy with work or contributing my rubbish to other fora related to ferraris and such hobbies that my real life entails.

I like to contribute my often irreverent light hearted trip reports to give another few to guys who possibly take things more seriously than me. I think some rebel venturers such as myself also do not entirely take this thing as seriously as some mantra would suggest it much and see it for what it is which is dating in a different country with a different set of cultural issues to deal with. there are plenty of guys I know who date girls from italy to Singapore and do nothing more than go to a bar pick em up and start a relationship, I think way back in the day when we all first started very little was known about travelling to the FSU and marriage brokers in general, since travel blogging became so endemic in the interweb age its become almost a normal thing to do and there is never the sense of adventure flying into the unknown as those early days were.

people ask me why i take such a non-serous attitude to what i am currently doing and the reason is simple - very little is new or unknown any more, dating in FSU and dealing with agency girls became as normal as meeting girls down the local bar back home, having travelled lived and worked in lots of countries its just another day at the park so i probably don't feel I have anything to contribute very much these days that has not been said 1000 times from others.

if it works out with the current girl I will probably be too busy with her to pay much attention to here and just get on with it, if it does not work out then i will probably spend a few hours involved in introspection of my failings with others so that some use may come of it or not then i will probably just go back to the rest of my life until the next time i feel compelled to go berserk and do it all over again or not as the case my be.

generally since these days i intermix infrequent sorties to the motherland with conventional dating arrangements I am not a 'dedicated pursuer' so don't spend as much time board trolling as i once did.

My best advice these days to newbies is don't go - call me cynical but its such a well fished pond and the younger girls are becoming so westernised and used to us durak's chucking around hard currency (i am the worst offender) there is nothing there you could not really find back home and for sure the risks (especially with the younger set) are hugely higher.

there are lots more single girls so there is still fun to be had, but we are playing with a different game than 10 years ago so all you have is more choice but probably coupled with much more competition for the best and less ability to swing above your batting average.

[dogspot]

That reminds me. Seeker emailed me the other day...

[Rubicon]

I tend to blog here when I am in country to give me something to do during the tedious hours when a girl I am seeing is at work or i have nothing planned.

After a huge amount of years in country I am pretty bored by the whole place so tend just to hang out at the apartment. when i get back to the 'real world' i am usually too busy with work or contributing my rubbish to other fora related to ferraris and such hobbies that my real life entails.

I like to contribute my often irreverent light hearted trip reports to give another few to guys who possibly take things more seriously than me. I think some rebel venturers such as myself also do not entirely take this thing as seriously as some mantra would suggest it much and see it for what it is which is dating in a different country with a different set of cultural issues to deal with. there are plenty of guys I know who date girls from italy to Singapore and do nothing more than go to a bar pick em up and start a relationship, I think way back in the day when we all first started very little was known about travelling to the FSU and marriage brokers in general, since travel blogging became so endemic in the interweb age its become almost a normal thing to do and there is never the sense of adventure flying into the unknown as those early days were.

people ask me why i take such a non-serous attitude to what i am currently doing and the reason is simple - very little is new or unknown any more, dating in FSU and dealing with agency girls became as normal as meeting girls down the local bar back home, having travelled lived and worked in lots of countries its just another day at the park so i probably don't feel I have anything to contribute very much these days that has not been said 1000 times from others.

if it works out with the current girl I will probably be too busy with her to pay much attention to here and just get on with it, if it does not work out then i will probably spend a few hours involved in introspection of my failings with others so that some use may come of it or not then i will probably just go back to the rest of my life until the next time i feel compelled to go berserk and do it all over again or not as the case my be.

generally since these days i intermix infrequent sorties to the motherland with conventional dating arrangements I am not a 'dedicated pursuer' so don't spend as much time board trolling as i once did.

My best advice these days to newbies is don't go - call me cynical but its such a well fished pond and the younger girls are becoming so westernised and used to us durak's chucking around hard currency (i am the worst offender) there is nothing there you could not really find back home and for sure the risks (especially with the younger set) are hugely higher.

there are lots more single girls so there is still fun to be had, but we are playing with a different game than 10 years ago so all you have is more choice but probably coupled with much more competition for the best and less ability to swing above your batting average.

And with that last bit of advice Neo it sounds like I better quit while I'm behind; unless of course the next time I go I get some behind, and than I'll be back on track 

[neo]

I was just thinking rationally once for Rubicon (Rare)

Back in the day we did not know any better, given we know ALL know better you would have to be batshit insane to go through this just to end up with some bird who will drive you mental within 3 months.

[philb]

I have to agree with both Gator's and Two Bit's take on things.  I have been a member of this board since about the time it first came into existence.  Before that I was a poster on the PL board.

Having been married for 5+years my experience in regards to the search really is no longer applicable.  The rest of it has been gone over a couple of hundred times before.

I check in every now and then.  If there is something I can contribute I do...  But for the most part my wife keeps me busy and the two of us keep ourselves happy.  She is on her way to Ukraine and will be spending the next 3 months there.  I will be joining her in a couple of weeks.  I will be spending 6 weeks there.

[CaptB]

Hi all,

I think the last time I posted something was last August (our 7th wedding anniversary).............and before that my trip to Corpus to see my friend "jb" and his wife (they are doing well also). Yes..........I get tired of the never-ending "pissing matches"........."know-it-alls".........."keyboard romeos" etc. etc.............
I am sure the dating scene is much different now...........than 10 years ago..........so my advice would be "dated". I do think about the RWG/RWD "geezers" from time to time.
My wife has been fully adapted to American culture for quite a few years now. She is a manager at a Kohls department store, teaches classes a a local university center and even substitute teaches.......when she can squeeze it in. She is on her second new car (both of which she purchased herself). My Mother-in-law has visited 3 times, my sister-in-law once.......and my niece 4 times. Yes.....my wife and I want to kill each other a few times a year.......but for the most part........we really like each others company and we have many common interests. Yes......I think if your marriage is really working.....you do lose interest in frequenting the RWD. That......will ultimately be the price for success. Not necessarily a "negative" thing. I do think about all of the people I have interacted with.....and have met in person....from time to time. For me...and my wife...it has (and still is) been one big adventure.....and many folks here are a part of that.


Capt B & wife 

[TomT]

I met TomT once in Kiev. We had dinner at a Globus Cafe over looking Khreshatic with my wife and the lady he was dating.

That was in March 2005 but it seems like a hundred years ago. The most valuable lesson that I learned on that trip is that if it feels like something is not right, it usually isn't. Like a durak, I played it out to the end... as did she. 

[Kuna]

Hi all,

I think the last time I posted something was last August (our 7th wedding anniversary).............and before that my trip to Corpus to see my friend "jb" and his wife (they are doing well also). Yes..........I get tired of the never-ending "pissing matches"........."know-it-alls".........."keyboard romeos" etc. etc.............
I am sure the dating scene is much different now...........than 10 years ago..........so my advice would be "dated". I do think about the RWG/RWD "geezers" from time to time.
My wife has been fully adapted to American culture for quite a few years now. She is a manager at a Kohls department store, teaches classes a a local university center and even substitute teaches.......when she can squeeze it in. She is on her second new car (both of which she purchased herself). My Mother-in-law has visited 3 times, my sister-in-law once.......and my niece 4 times. Yes.....my wife and I want to kill each other a few times a year.......but for the most part........we really like each others company and we have many common interests. Yes......I think if your marriage is really working.....you do lose interest in frequenting the RWD. That......will ultimately be the price for success. Not necessarily a "negative" thing. I do think about all of the people I have interacted with.....and have met in person....from time to time. For me...and my wife...it has (and still is) been one big adventure.....and many folks here are a part of that.


Capt B & wife 

Nice to see your posts when you do pop in on these rare occasions. 

Whilst never a prolific poster CaptB definitely had an influence on my search through his words of wisdom...  a rare commodity in this journey.

[HiTech]

I also very rarely post. At times it will be months between visits here. In many ways I forget my wife is Russian during our day to day life, so this board does not really enter my mind very often. I have no desire to debate the methodology of relationships or best methods of this proceeds. So why jump into most threads.

I believe many of us have learned how lucky we were to have found what we were looking for, because in hind sight, the odds are not really good in this endeavor and the vast majority of men who start out on this quest do not find what they are looking for.

I find it almost depressing to read most trip reports, because I see the hope, but know the chances of success are not great and for most, they  will encounter a lot of pain. When I started out trip reports were the most interesting thing to read because they helped paint a picture of what I was in for.

I see myself as incredibly lucky to have gotten threw the mine field of finding a women in the FSU. Just take a count of members on this board vs the number of them who have been married over the last 5 years.

I would absolutely do this again if I would know I would find Alyona.

When I ask myself , knowing what I do now, with out knowing the out come, would I still wanted to do this quest? I'm not sure I would advise myself or others to do so.

HiTech