Guys here under 35

[Boethius]

The forces that drove your wife to send you that first email are exactly the same that drive women to agencies: the desire to find other options as they are dissatisfied with the choices and the men that they have at home. In other words, the same social and economic forces that drive the MOB business are the same forces that IMHO led to your marital bliss 

Whoa, you can't possibly know that, and that's quite a leap to make.

[Misha]

Whoa, you can't possibly know that, and that's quite a leap to make.

Why? Sure, one can never know anything with certainty, but it is naive to think that one is somehow the sole exception and exempt from larger social forces.

[Boethius]

You can't know what his wife's motivations were.  She lived in an area not far from Scandinavia.  It's not uncommon, in those areas, for women to date Scandinavian men. 

[Misha]

You can't know what his wife's motivations were.  She lived in an area not far from Scandinavia.  It's not uncommon, in those areas, for women to date Scandinavian men. 

Yes, because they can't find men measuring up to their standards in their own cities. Again, IMHO the exact same reasons why some women join agencies.

[Boethius]

Not necessarily.  You can't know what any person's motivations are.  The only way you will know is if SJ's wife chooses to grace us with her presence and share her motivation, or SJ does.  You also can't know that women join agencies because local men don't measure up to their standards.  There are plenty of women on "MOB" sites who eventually meet and marry a local man.  So did such a woman's standards suddenly drop? 

It's about casting a wider net.

[Misha]

It's about casting a wider net.

Ah, so for SJ it is casting a wider net, but when others do the same thing it is because they are weirdos derided by SJ even though he knows nothing about them either...

[Boethius]

No, for his wife it was about casting a wider net.  I don't think you understand this.  I, as a woman, do.

As I stated previously, SJ has never stated everyone looking for a wife from the FSU is a weirdo.  He posted that he finds it weird that men would look to the FSU to the exclusion of dating locally.

[Misha]

No, for his wife it was about casting a wider net.  I don't think you understand this.  I, as a woman, do.

As I stated previously, SJ has never stated everyone looking for a wife from the FSU is a weirdo.  He posted that he finds it weird that men would look to the FSU to the exclusion of dating locally.

SJ assumes much. IMHO few men date RW to the exlusion of all other women. Most simply want more options.

[Boethius]

I don't know about that.  How many times have I read all WW are fat, or man hating feministas, or only care about a man's wallet?  You have stated you couldn't find a Canadian woman who was height/weight proportionate, and those you found attractive were not willing to move to a smaller centre.  None of the foregoing sounds like "more options" to me.

ETA - In the end, all that should matter is whether or not all involved are happy.  In perusing some threads on any forum, one will indeed come across situations which are more about exploitation or ego than finding someone to cherish.  Happily, they are the minority. 

[Misha]

I don't know about that.  How many times have I read all WW are fat, or man hating feministas, or only care about a man's wallet?  You have stated you couldn't find a Canadian woman who was height/weight proportionate, and those you found attractive were not willing to move to a smaller centre.  None of the foregoing sounds like "more options" to me.

More options implies someone who will be more attractive or have other traits that will make them a preferred potential marriage partner.

P.S. The more I think of it, the more that SJ's case is pretty typical. Odds are quite good, that his wife was looking for better options as she did not find a local husband, and I am certain that her looks played an important role in his decision to pursue her. In other words, SJ is not quite the exception that he thinks he is as he is not that much different from all the other men who end up marrying a woman from the FSU. Sure, the methods used in this particular case varied somewhat from the MOB norm, but driving forces behind it were pretty much identical to all the other examples we encounter of Western men marrying women from Russia. I am sure you know the expression involving pots and kettles ...

[dbneeley]

I don't know about that.  How many times have I read all WW are fat, or man hating feministas, or only care about a man's wallet?  You have stated you couldn't find a Canadian woman who was height/weight proportionate, and those you found attractive were not willing to move to a smaller centre.  None of the foregoing sounds like "more options" to me.

And how do you know that these men are being honest with themselves, let alone with an email list?

There is so much stigma in some quarters with the entire subject of searching for a wife abroad that it can in some guys create a huge amount of defensiveness--so they may overstate the case regarding their looking beyond their own borders. In fact, the "MOB" designation itself is a part of this stigma...even though it is not accurate.

In other cases, of course, some of these men haven't much of a clue and lack the social skills or basic factors of attractiveness to be successful locally. These would, I presume, be some of the "weirdos" referred to originally.

Trying to dismiss the original post as referring only to those "searching exclusively" for an FSUW is disingenuous. He stated more than once that "many if not most" of the men involved in this quest were "weird" or "strange"--painting with a broad brush.

He did not address that for most men in my experience, it is not a question of looking exclusively to the FSU.

Indeed, my own experience seems typical in that regard--I'd have been quite happy to find the right lady next door or around the block. What is not typical is that I didn't much care where I would find my mate--any continent would have done nicely (although I probably would not have had much success in Antarctica!) In fact, the bookmarks of ladies I had a potential interest in included ones in Asia, Europe, and both South and North America at the time. Had my initial trip to Ukraine not turned out so successful, I was seriously contemplating trips to South America and China. As it happened, I met my wife on my first trip here to Ukraine--and the rest became quickly moot. (Until that trip, I was also still searching locally, by the way).

I had plenty of opportunities to marry during the many years that had passed since my divorce--but I never found a lady I believed would be a good potential match at a time when I was prepared to remarry.

Also--I read recently that a survey last year indicated that about fourteen percent of those marrying had met online--the largest single source of meeting, in fact. Whether that meeting is on a dating or marriage introduction site, a site dedicated to an interest or a hobby, or whatever hardly seems particularly relevant. To stigmatize those who may use one particular kind of site versus another--within some rather broad boundaries--seems definitely illogical and quite unfair.

David

[Ade]

The thing, though, is that had she been French or American, she would never have bothered writing you. An attractive French or American woman would have had plenty of good men vying for her attention at home. She would not have had time to look for men in Norway and send them an email. The forces that drove your wife to send you that first email are exactly the same that drive women to agencies: the desire to find other options as they are dissatisfied with the choices and the men that they have at home. In other words, the same social and economic forces that drive the MOB business are the same forces that IMHO led to your marital bliss 

Ah, buts that's where you're wrong; over the years, between my ex and my current wife, I exchanged many a dating email with various nationalities including Canadian. There were two that I remember distinctly that almost tempted me to travel; one was British the other was Austrian both were successful and similar ages to my wife. I'm not exactly a fat, balding old man living in a trailer park you know, and this is Europe where travel and relocation is not such a huge deal.

[Ade]

Long winter nights are never dreary.

[Ade]

No, for his wife it was about casting a wider net.  I don't think you understand this.  I, as a woman, do.

As I stated previously, SJ has never stated everyone looking for a wife from the FSU is a weirdo.  He posted that he finds it weird that men would look to the FSU to the exclusion of dating locally.

And then there are those that are unable to find anyone to date at home perhaps because they have, um, "issues". Issues which would remain invisible for a woman with a different culture and language background. At least for a while and then when they do wake up to reality they leave only to be labelled a GCG...

Most of us have seen the videos of the socials with strange men; it's these types that make up the majority of MOB males. Those sweaty guys with the nervous laugh living in their parents basements and the aggressive control freaks that western women wouldn't go near with a barge poll (unless they are damaged themselves).

The men in the couples introduced by Jack that David knows about are just a tiny fraction of the men chatting to women on these MOB sites. We know that most never even get on the plane; I know of many women that have been promised visits for years by individuals and they continue to hope that one day... And of others that do get a visit only to find out he's actually married, a control freak or worse. Some of the stories just on the Norwegian Russian forums are so surreal it's difficult to believe some of them and these are just a small number of the total stories out there from a very small nation of 5 million people.

[Ade]

I don't know about that.  How many times have I read all WW are fat, or man hating feministas, or only care about a man's wallet?  You have stated you couldn't find a Canadian woman who was height/weight proportionate, and those you found attractive were not willing to move to a smaller centre.  None of the foregoing sounds like "more options" to me.

Yes, it's this strange perception that all the local women are old, fat, ugly, materialistic, non-traditional or taken. Just look at some of Andreas' posts - he says the same thing about Norway. Ha! It's just a joke, because I know these women exist in droves. What he's saying in reality is that he can't attract any of the women locally that he likes therefore they don't exist, to admit otherwise is to admit that he is somehow lacking. And this is the same for guys in Canada, the US, UK, wherever. When these guys go to the FSU, Thailand or China they are hiding their partner attracting liabilities of home behind language and cultural barriers and of course leveraging the economic disparity for good measure.

It goes without saying that not everyone involved in international dating is like this - a lot of the guys on this forum are attractive, intelligent successful guys that seem socially well adjusted and wouldn't have problems getting dates anywhere.

[Ade]

Not necessarily.  You can't know what any person's motivations are.  The only way you will know is if SJ's wife chooses to grace us with her presence and share her motivation, or SJ does.  You also can't know that women join agencies because local men don't measure up to their standards.  There are plenty of women on "MOB" sites who eventually meet and marry a local man.  So did such a woman's standards suddenly drop?  

It's about casting a wider net.

My wife says it was more curiosity than anything. She had no grand design of finding a western husband and moving abroad. She certainly hasn't had bad experiences with Russian men that you hear so much about on these types of forums; before me she had a long term relationship with her ex (a lawyer) and moved to Moscow with him for some years until she broke up with him. She'd never been registered on a Russian dating site either. The dating site she extracted my email from (embedded surreptitiously in my profile) was blocked to Russians but through some quirk, her PDA's IP wasn't. She'd heard about it on a (non-dating) forum and was browsing there when she came across my profile.

So, it was a curiosity meets synchronicity.

I just remembered, and I may have mentioned it in a post way back when, but I was tired of all the attention I was getting from the 19 - 21 year old Filipino girls on that site so I deliberately put some of my more awful pictures there (taken when I was very ill) to deter them. It was a few of these that attracted my wife and caused her to send me that first email. Life is just a very long chain of coincidences....

[neo]

SJ,

Forgive us for being cynical, but if you told that tale to me on a plane I would not believe you.

I'm not saying its rubbish, but generally speaking anything that departs so far from "the norm"
is either true  or a complete fabrication.

Unfortunately a lot of men choose to "distance" themselves from what they perceive as the "wierdos'S"
by creating elaborate tales of how they met their wife from Siberia "by accident" in order to feel
morally superior to the vast majority who use dating websites. What makes your tale "extrodinary" is
why any woman would go to such lengths to meet one individual they know nothing about?

You are being critical of men who use FSU dating sites to establish contact and class them (in the majority)
as being wierd or obsessive yet you don't see anything wrong with a woman, who by her own admission
had no problem meeting men in her own country going to some strange lengths to secure contact with you?

Imagine if we were reading this from a mans perspective, and the man was going to these "strange lengths"
to bypass various firewalls etc to establish contact would you not consider him to be a bit "wierd?"

Most girls i know end up with marriage agencies not because they can't secure dates in Russia/Ukraine but
they have failed to meet a suitable life partner. I don't think your wife can claim any sort of moral superiority
over these girls because she decided to turn into Jason Bourne on her manhunt

And by the same token I don't think you can claim any sort of moral superiority/reduced wierdness by virtue
of the fact you chose to respond to a complete stranger from russia who contacted you in such a way,  for every
positive there is a negative - the fact she responded to a set of what you describe as "awful" photos on the one
hand suggests she is not superficial but to a cynic it just suggests she set the bar very low

There is a danger in generalisations, yes I grant you there are a lot of what an average joe would consider "odd chaps"
in the field, but then to one of my friends who married his unversity sweetheart your tale would had you and your
wife labelled as a pair of "odd folk" as well.

There is a simple explanation of course, clearly she saw "something" in you that made her want to break the normal boundaries of courtship behaviour to establish communications, and you saw something in her that bypassed the "this is not really something a normal scandinavian girl would do" and you ended up married.

So how does that no apply to a guy seeking a profile of a girl on a FSU site and thinking "you know what, she could be the one"?

I have never bought into the idea that ANY guy can claim some sort of moral highground for their "accidental" meetings of RW vs guys using agencies, you have just taken a different path, the fact you have taken the different path does not precludeyou from the fact that others would still see that path as being "wierd" just as you find others choices "wierd".

Heres a quick (and deliberately extreme) example:

(A)i go down to Stavenger for the weekend and meet a hot russian girl in a bar. she wants a relationship but it transpires she works as a hooker and needs a visa asap.

(B)I go to a bar in Kristiansand and meet a local girl. she says she has "issues" and doesn't want to marry until she as least 30.

(C)i write to a girl at a FSU agency. she lives at home with her mom, she wants to get married and have children. Shes happy to stay in her own country but can't find a guy who is serious enough to settle down and not just use her for sex.

(D)I get a letter via hotmail from a woman in Moscow, i don't know anything about her, she offers to visit me and is a "woman of means". it turns out her husband was an armed robber and shes made off with the loot and is looking for a safe haven.

two questions,

aside from the travel costs, Which of these is likely to result in the best option for a LTR?
which of these options if i pursued them would make me "wierd" or "not wierd"?

[I/O]

I deliberately put some of my more awful pictures there (taken when I was very ill) to deter them. It was a few of these that attracted my wife and caused her to send me that first email.

So your wife was actually looking for a sicko.

[Misha]

It goes without saying that not everyone involved in international dating is like this - a lot of the guys on this forum are attractive, intelligent successful guys that seem socially well adjusted and wouldn't have problems getting dates anywhere.

Let me guess, you are one of those men  :evil: The simple fact of the matter is this: it is much more difficult for women in Russia to find men if they set any standards. Many attractive women will not be able to find men they consider marriage material. Women are thus more likely to make some compromises to find a man that meets at least some of their requirements in a partner. It also makes women that much more motivated when they do find a suitable partner. I am willing to admit this: dating was much, much easier in Russia because of it and yes if you are even somewhat attractive and not too old then you can very easily date women in Russia. 

[Faux Pas]

So your wife was actually looking for a sicko.

 

That didn't take long

[Misha]

My wife says it was more curiosity than anything.

If you were to ask married women who met their husbands via an agency, I wager that at least half would say the same thing. They were curious, they did it on a lark, etc....

I was getting from the 19 - 21 year old Filipino girls on that site

Why do they think they were writing?

so I deliberately put some of my more awful pictures there (taken when I was very ill) to deter them.

Did you really think they were writing you because of your rugged good looks? I keep getting requests from women in various African countries to add me as a contact, but I know better than to think it is because of any photo 

It was a few of these that attracted my wife and caused her to send me that first email. Life is just a very long chain of coincidences....

You do know, I hope, that most if not virtually all Western/Russian couples invariably invent tall tales explaining how they never meant to marry a foreigner but it was all serendipity.... 

[Misha]

the fact she responded to a set of what you describe as "awful" photos on the one hand suggests she is not superficial but to a cynic it just suggests she set the bar very low

Well said neo.

[Boethius]

Or maybe she didn't think the photos were awful.

it is much more difficult for women in Russia to find men if they set any standards. Many attractive women will not be able to find men they consider marriage material.

I have heard WW say the same thing.

[Misha]

Or maybe she didn't think the photos were awful.

I have heard WW say the same thing.

Yet, somehow, attractive WW invariably don't write to random men in other countries 

[Boethius]

Uh, yeah, they in fact do.