Re: Contacting Men on Dating Sites

[Sculpto]

Hey Faux.. now do you understand how ridiculous your own comments to Olga looked.. when you stated she had self esteem issues..

THAT WAS MY POINT.

And Jack.. you are really boring.  Go bother someone else.

[Shadow]

Just to go back to the topic....

The first RW I met contected me unsollicited on one of the (that time) major international site, for which she would have to pay credits by credit card.
She was in no way a scammer.

Exactly the paranoia regarding women contacting men they are interested in is why many RW with internet knowledge tend to avoid the agencies and sites aimed mainly at the FSU.
If they wish to be pro-active instead of sitting until the knight in shining armor arrives their chances to be seen as scammer are just too high.

[ECOCKS]

My point regarding the appropriateness of the term "unsolicited" was to try to highlight how the confusion can take place in some folks' minds. This would be especially true of non-native speakers who are often dependent on dictionaries as to meaning and missing 50-75% of the contextual clues in the rest of the wording.

Back when I posted my pic and begin sending out EOI's there were several gals who initiated contact with me as well as those who responded to the EOI's. When evaluating these responses I always looked at the first contact ones with more scepticism than the ones who I had contacted first. It seemed to work well since I avoided being "scammed" for anything more than a cup of coffee and a torte or maybe a dinner at Puzata Hata at worst.

Those who contacted me received pretty much the same response asking if they had fully read my profile which exhaustively outlined my lifestyle, dating expectations and short to mid-range planning on residence and relationships. I cannot recall any who made it more than a couple of email exchanges and got into my dating pool. While anecdotal, that seems pretty illustrative of the approach most serious guys take.

On the other hand, I recall the phase I went through which was similar to adopting stray puppies. I would be at Golden Gate, O'Brien's and Friday's in Kyiv and encounter these guys with stories of how they posted on the sites and were contacted by these gorgeous women who got them to come over, take them on extravagant dates and week-long vacations, then the guy was sitting there complaining that he barely got kisses and hugs and just could not face the truth that the gal was that type of semi-pro-dater who lives on gifts, meals and "expense money" the rubes sent for English lessons, inflated transportation expenses, visa fees, medical exams, invitation costs and such. (Ouch, don't grade that sentence for grammar, just content!)

It's a hard, hard world out there.

[Faux Pas]

Hey Faux.. now do you understand how ridiculous your own comments to Olga looked.. when you stated she had self esteem issues..

THAT WAS MY POINT.

And Jack.. you are really boring.  Go bother someone else.

You seem to be under the false impression that I wish to have a discussion with you, I don't

[Sculpto]

Ed what you have just written is essentially the approach that will net positive results.  Throw in a bit of playing in ones own league and the pro daters will simply just disappear.  

The thing is.. and this goes back to the message from my friend from Kiev.. a lot of guys want to play out of their league or they want to lead with money.. and then they will turn around and say that some girl who contacted him is a scammer or pro dater of some sort.  

There are two genders involved in this pursuit and it would do a lot of guys good to recognize that.

My point regarding the appropriateness of the term "unsolicited" was to try to highlight how the confusion can take place in some folks' minds. This would be especially true of non-native speakers who are often dependent on dictionaries as to meaning and missing 50-75% of the contextual clues in the rest of the wording.

Back when I posted my pic and begin sending out EOI's there were several gals who initiated contact with me as well as those who responded to the EOI's. When evaluating these responses I always looked at the first contact ones with more scepticism than the ones who I had contacted first. It seemed to work well since I avoided being "scammed for more than a cup of coffee and a torte or maybe a dinner at Puzata Hata at worst.

Those who contacted me received pretty much the same response asking if they had fully read my profile which exhaustively outlined my lifestyle, dating expectations and short to mid-range planning on residence and relationships. I cannot recall any who made it more than a couple of email exchanges and got into my dating pool. While anecdotal, that seems pretty illustrative of the approach most serious guys take.

On the other hand, I recall the phase I went through which was similar to adopting stray puppies at Golden Gate, O'Brien's and Friday's in Kyiv. Guys would tell how they posted on the sites and were contacted by these gorgeous women who got them to come over, take them on extravagant dates and week-long vacations, then the guy was sitting there complaining that he barely got kisses and hugs and just could not face the truth that the gal was that type of semi-pro-dater who lives on gifts, meals and "expense money" the rubes sent for English lessons, inflated transportation expenses, visa fees, medical exams, invitation costs and such.

It's a hard, hard wold out there.

[GQBlues]

Just to go back to the topic....

The first RW I met contected me unsollicited on one of the (that time) major international site, for which she would have to pay credits by credit card.
She was in no way a scammer.

My experience differed when I first started Shadow. But that's neither here or there...

I think it still falls on the man's discretion as to what he does when these things happen. FP did qualified that this isn't an absolution when he stated 'chances are', and unfortunate as that may be, he's likely closer to being right than not.

Men need to be diligent without getting paranoid...

Additionally, FWIW, I understood what FP meant when he first mentioned 'unsolicited' emails.

[Faux Pas]

Just to go back to the topic....

The first RW I met contected me unsollicited on one of the (that time) major international site, for which she would have to pay credits by credit card.
She was in no way a scammer.

Exactly the paranoia regarding women contacting men they are interested in is why many RW with internet knowledge tend to avoid the agencies and sites aimed mainly at the FSU.
If they wish to be pro-active instead of sitting until the knight in shining armor arrives their chances to be seen as scammer are just too high.

I was never on an international site. Mamba, Freepersonals or any other. My first contact with a scammer was on American Singles. They had to keep rebuilding a profile as they would only last a day or so. I knew absolutely nothing about RW or the scam industry at that time. I didn't even know that foreign IPs were blocked from most of the American sites. It was some like eventual contact that peaked my interest in RW and I investigated further. I must have been initially contacted by 30 RW or UW on those sites and none had any degree of legitimacy.

[Shadow]

The blocking of IP's and scammer problems is why sites like Antidate still discuss the best way to contact men outside agency sites. 

[ECOCKS]

"... a lot of guys want to play out of their league or they want to lead with money.. and then they will turn around and say that some girl who contacted him is a scammer or pro dater of some sort.  

There are two genders involved in this pursuit and it would do a lot of guys good to recognize that."

Yes, the hypocrisy is mind-boggling when you sit there and listen to them complain about how much money they spent, then you point out what a fool they were and they protest that they "had" to or the woman would have thought they were "greedy". Then they just go head-down and cry in their beer.

Yes, two genders ARE involved in this. Both are even humans and, giving the benefit of the doubt, they are probably even "decent" humans. However, the non-FSU participant, usually the guy, is still leading due to the reality of the economies and travel challenges faced by those citizens of the FSU.

In reality, I have no more sympathy for the woman who insists she would not dare date an automobile mechanic than I do for the guy who only expects to date his fantasy porn star. Both are mentally deficient and doomed to a life of disappointment and chaos.

I had a family friend once who bought an $18,000 thoroughbred (horse) for his daughter (uh, this was about 30 years ago) and always loved to tell us how she would someday be a professional equestrienne. He always wanted me to go see the horse when his daughter was riding around the little circles and being trained for taking jumps and navigating the course obstacles. I went once and noticed that his horse was the best in the boarding stable. He acknowledged that he simply couldn't afford any more for upkeep as the initial cost, vets bills, the trainer and tack were running around $4,500/year. That horse died at age 2 and a half, the daughter was devastated and quit riding while the Dad sort of went into shock at the thought that he had invested so heavily and faced a complete write-off. At least I saw the horse alive and healthy once though, it sure was pretty.

[FredC]

I'm kind of curious if anyone else sees the hypocrisy here. If you, the AM, have a profile on any site and a lady contacts you first, you worry that she is a scammer. Now for the contradiction, if you, the AM, contact a lady first on a Russian site that is not specifically for internation dating, that is alright.  ???
In fact it is more than alright, it is what a most men here preach " Do not get involved with an agency" or "Get the agency out of the contact ASAP".  ???
So with the above logic, shouldn't a RW that is on lets say freepersonals.ru, be overly concerned that the AM writing to her is lets say a sex tourist. ???

[ECOCKS]

I'm kind of curious if anyone else sees the hypocrisy here. If you, the AM, have a profile on any site and a lady contacts you first, you worry that she is a scammer. Now for the contradiction, if you, the AM, contact a lady first on a Russian site that is not specifically for internation dating, that is alright.  ???
In fact it is more than alright, it is what a most men here preach " Do not get involved with an agency" or "Get the agency out of the contact ASAP".  ???
So with the above logic, shouldn't a RW that is on lets say freepersonals.ru, be overly concerned that the AM writing to her is lets say a sex tourist. ???

Perhaps she should Fred. 

Of course that has absolutely NOTHING to do with a guy evaluating contacts and exchanges as to whether the woman is more or less likely to be a scammer.

[GQBlues]

Newbie John 'glazed-eye' Doe recently put his profile up on one/a couple of sites like freepersonals, yahoo, match, Lucky Lovers, etc.. In less than a week, he amassed far more EOIs and emails from fairly attractive FSUWs than he had ever experienced before. Some are fairly young, too.

He's never experienced being scammed through personals and emails before....so on he goes to the great unknown.

Anyone want to take a stab and guess what the percentages are of these women being sincere vs scammers?

[Faux Pas]

I'm kind of curious if anyone else sees the hypocrisy here. If you, the AM, have a profile on any site and a lady contacts you first, you worry that she is a scammer. Now for the contradiction, if you, the AM, contact a lady first on a Russian site that is not specifically for internation dating, that is alright.  ???
In fact it is more than alright, it is what a most men here preach " Do not get involved with an agency" or "Get the agency out of the contact ASAP".  ???
So with the above logic, shouldn't a RW that is on lets say freepersonals.ru, be overly concerned that the AM writing to her is lets say a sex tourist. ???

IMO, the whole idea of matching into an international relationship is fraught with hypocrisy on both ends. Probably more so with WM and FSUW than other nationalities. OTOH if there were no a danger of being fleeced and scammed for the men or used and enslaved for the woman the footing could be much more equal but, that's not the world we live in.

For those interested in meeting a possible foreign partner especially in the FSU, swimming in shark infested water's is required as is a large degree of skepticism, caution and (sic) hypocrisy. I am not implying the ladies danger isn't as great as the men's, that is equal.

Unlike ECOCKS when I was on EM, first contact from the lady didn't raise my suspicions. As far as I know I was never contacted by a scammer on EM. On the American site after the 2nd or 3rd time I was contacted by FSUW in the FSU, I became very skeptical of all of them and for the most part did not even consider them as women, just scams. I received 100+ unsolicited emails during this time directly to my personal email and not through the American site. Maybe it was my mindset? On EMs I put myself out there to be contacted whereas on the American sites I was looking for AW.

[Gator]

To Olga or any Other RW who cares to respond:

I spoke to a number of RW who volunteered that when starting this endeavor they had written to a number of men.  All said it was a waste of time.

One was enamored with Finnish men, so she wrote every Finnish man at one agency.  The men either ignored her or said "No thank you." 

In contrast, Olga, reading between the lines you seem to have a favorable experience with writing men first.  Is this true?

[Faux Pas]

Newbie John 'glazed-eye' Doe recently put his profile up on one/a couple of sites like freepersonals, yahoo, match, Lucky Lovers, etc.. In less than a week, he amassed far more EOIs and emails from fairly attractive FSUWs than he had ever experienced before. Some are fairly young, too.

He's never experienced being scammed through personals and emails before....so on he goes to the great unknown.

Anyone want to take a stab and guess what the percentages are of these women being sincere vs scammers?

If old John's experience was anything like mine it was 95%+ scammers. I saw these avenues as a scammer's modis operandi and rightfully so. If you are a scammer looking for a mark, go where they are

[vwrw]

Calling a women’s contact as unsolicited was inappropriate and became the reason for the misunderstanding.  Any male profile published on a dating site that is not explicitly specifying that its owner is interested only in women living within a given distance or a given country impliedly solicits contacts from women living everywhere in the world.    

Olga, it seems to me that in making his comment, FP did not attempt to address the issue of whether FSU women are entitled to be proactive and contact men first. Neither can I see that his comment was designed to indicate that FSU women have fewer rights than European and American women.

His point seems to be about the degree of probability that a purported FSU woman is a scammer.  Do you disagree that when an alleged FSUW contacts a man on a site that does not specialize in matching people internationally, the chances are high that it's a scammer?? My belief is that the chances are high. The rationale behind my belief is the ratio of scammers initiating contacts with WM to real FSUW initiating contacts with WM. Even if we assume that there are an equal number of scammers and real FSUW initiating contacts with WM, the amount of contacts a scammer generates every day would significantly exceed the amount of contacts a real FSUW does, thereby increasing the chances that a man will be contacted by a scammer.

Faux Pas, by resorting to insults when someone asks for your clarifications you irreparably damage your reputation.

[Sculpto]

 especially in the FSU, swimming in shark infested water's
 

this characterization really bugs me.  How are the waters in the FSU any more shark infested than they are here in the USA?  Please enlighten us Faux.

the Russian romance scam is a very small part of the scam industry overall and a lot more women get scammed than men.  my current girl #1 told me about a friend of hers who lost everything to an American guy.. she sent him money.. sold her apartment.. everything.. he cleaned her clock.. and met her in real life and professed his never ending love... right until the money ran out and then he just disappeared.

The risk undertaken by women who leave their country, their family and friends and everything familiar is 1000 times greater than the risk taken by the men.

[Faux Pas]

this characterization really bugs me.  How are the waters in the FSU any more shark infested than they are here in the USA?  Please enlighten us Faux.

the Russian romance scam is a very small part of the scam industry overall and a lot more women get scammed than men.  my current girl #1 told me about a friend of hers who lost everything to an American guy.. she sent him money.. sold her apartment.. everything.. he cleaned her clock.. and met her in real life and professed his never ending love... right until the money ran out and then he just disappeared.

The risk undertaken by women who leave their country, their family and friends and everything familiar is 1000 times greater than the risk taken by the men.

You'll do anything for attention won't you? If anything I desire even less discussion with you that I did earlier if that is possible. Didn't you read that post or do just continue to skip over all the pertinent information that pertains to you?

[GQBlues]

If old John's experience was anything like mine it was 95%+ scammers. I saw these avenues as a scammer's modis operandi and rightfully so. If you are a scammer looking for a mark, go where they are

IMO, unfortunate as it may be, I will agree that it is more likely that there will be a higher rate of scammers than otherwise (add or at least a fairly good number of it ). That's the pickle...

It has nothing whatsoever to do which side or gender is burdened more than the other. Scam artists only make it more difficult to what is already a fairly challenging endeavor for both sides.

[vwrw]

To Olga or any Other RW who cares to respond:

I spoke to a number of RW who volunteered that when starting this endeavor they had written to a number of men.  All said it was a waste of time.

When I was seeking my life partner, I initiated contacts with three men, if my memory does not fail me. All of these men I contacted a month before my now husband sent me his introductory letter. One of those men became main competitor of my husband and was defeated.  The second one responded to my interest with a sincere apology that he cannot reciprocate because he felt as if he fell for the woman with whom he was in correspondence at that moment. He message exhibited many signs for me to understand that he was indeed infatuated by a woman, and his justification was not just pretext.  The third never answered.
In general, I would not say that my experience of  contact initiation as a waste of time.

[Faux Pas]

Calling a women’s contact as unsolicited was inappropriate and became the reason for the misunderstanding. 

I fail to see anything inappropriate about it.

Faux Pas, by resorting to insults when someone asks for your clarifications you irreparably damage your reputation.

You are correct. I should have remained on the high ground. However, I did clarify the sentence she clearly and purposely took out of context for her own use and lobbed a backhanded insult along with it. I took issue with it. I responded with my opinion of her mental state. Insult, fact or opinion is debatable but, I was wrong for doing so

[Sculpto]

I fail to see anything inappropriate about it.


You are correct. I should have remained on the high ground. However, I did clarify the sentence she clearly and purposely took out of context for her own use and lobbed a backhanded insult along with it. I took issue with it. I responded with my opinion of her mental state. Insult, fact or opinion is debatable but, I was wrong for doing so

You'll do anything for attention won't you? If anything I desire even less discussion with you that I did earlier if that is possible. Didn't you read that post or do just continue to skip over all the pertinent information that pertains to you?

Faux.. you really are full of it.  You throw around insults like they are nothing and then make apologies full of excuses.  If you would just have a look in the mirror for one minute and be honest with yourself for even half a minute then maybe you would close your mouth and as a wise person said up-thread, stop ruining your reputation. 

[vwrw]

Exactly the paranoia regarding women contacting men they are interested in is why many RW with internet knowledge tend to avoid the agencies and sites aimed mainly at the FSU.
If they wish to be pro-active instead of sitting until the knight in shining armor arrives their chances to be seen as scammer are just too high.

My opinion concurs with yours in the respect that FSUW initiating a contact with WM risks being seen as scammer. Yet, a woman can decrease the chances of being prejudged as scammer if she initially refrains from telling her place of origin. She might say that she prefers not to say where she is from until her new acquaintance has formed an opinion of her. She can justify her reluctance to reveal this info by her desire to eliminate the distortion of stereotype’s interference with opinion formation.

[Faux Pas]

Faux.. you really are full of it.  You throw around insults like they are nothing and then make apologies full of excuses.  If you would just have a look in the mirror for one minute and be honest with yourself for even half a minute then maybe you would close your mouth and as a wise person said up-thread, stop ruining your reputation. 

It's just too bad for you that I don't care what you think, isn't it?

[vwrw]

I fail to see anything inappropriate about it.

The sentence below that one you quoted explains why I find the term “unsolicited” to be inappropriate. I do not think I can explain my point any more clearly. Sorry.