What made you decide to pursue an EE woman??

[BillyB]

and my three daughters, who were hesitant at first, now say they can't imagine life without her.

It's natural that our family and friends will be skeptical of us marrying a woman overseas. Now my family likes my wife more than me. My wife is so kind, they tell me if I get divorced, it has to be my fault.

[GuppyCaptain]

You say this  after two dates.   The test of your patience comes later.  RW who speak English can be difficult.  How you resolve differences is critical, and a language barrier makes it 3x the challenge. 

Even more important than your determination is her determination.

It is too early to know, yet if you decide to become exclusive, I suggest you ask for her commitment to study English.  My advice is not one class per week, but at least three per week with homework in between classes.  You pay of course, and insist she uses the best teachers, preferably private lessons.  Then monitor closely her progress.

I speak from experience.  If she stays on course even after some inevitable storms, you have a winner.

Thanks Gator. Good advice. The language classes topic will be broached in the next few days towards the end of my trip before I leave to go back home. I will ask her if she will take them and stick to at least three per week (as advised by someone else as well) if I pay for the classes.

My plan is to return in about a month and a half towards the middle of May if everything goes well and I'd like to see a noticeable improvement in her English at that point. I will commit to improving my Russian as well. Not to be selfish but the latter is less important than the former as the ultimate goal is to make a family and home in an English speaking country. Okay, American speaking country for you Queen's English speakers on here 

For now we anxiously await date number three in about a dozen hours.

[msmobyone]

I never looked for a specific country or type. Could have fallen for the girl next door as well as one from the other side of the planet. As it turned out the one foolish enough to want to marry me lived in Moscow.

 

I was put on a FSU orientated dating site as a joke, by some mates and was shocked to find FSU / EE women tended to have longer legs, look good longer, brains and strong family orientation.

[ML]

I only went on one date with FSUW who needed an interpreter.  One of the most painful experiences of my life.  Never again.

And then later, I refused to meet with another FSUW whose daughter (on phone when I called when I was in city) told me her mother had limited English.

However, a year later, this same gal contacted me and said she had been taking English lessons on Internet and wanted to meet, if I were interested.  We met, and I was quite impressed with her English progression up to maybe 4-5 out of 10.

I was so impressed, and thought she might be a keeper (based on several variables, not just that she was learning English), so I gave her $300 or $400 (can't remember which) as we were parting for the final time on that trip to take some private lessons.

WOW, within 6 months she had progressed up to 7-8.  Now, as it turned out, she had IQ of 148 (as she told me, and I believed her), so that might have something to do with it.  But, on other hand, I think I heard or read somewhere that lower IQ people might actually pick up foreign languages quicker because they don't think so much about the illogical things in the new language.

But, point being . . . some of them can progress quite rapidly.  However, don't count on it being a sure thing.

Oh yes . . . she and I . . . she was quite passionate and professed to love me more than any woman has ever told me.  But, she was more volatile than I could handle.

We stayed in contact via email for several years, although it has tapered off the last couple  of years.

She continued to study English and became highly proficient; probably a 9 based on her written English.  And based on her English, her company promoted her and assigned her to be the point person in conducting business all over Western Europe.  She has thanked me profusely many times for being the catalyst that got her started on this very successful career path.

[ML]

But as to the original question,  my answer is quite similar to Chicago Guy.  I had been going to FSU for business since back in 1999.  I noticed the gals, but was involved back in USA, so only looked.

Much later, I was not involved in USA, so started combining business trips with meeting the gals for romance.

I was in FSU anyway . . . but I would have sought out the FSUW anyway because they were quite a bit more slender than the women in most other countries that I was familiar with.  And due to the economics, I knew I could 'trade up' with them to a greater degree than I could with women in most other areas of the world.

I did not consider Orientals because their way of thinking was just too much different and they were mostly too short for me.  South Americans too volatile and tend to really pork up over time.

Short answer:  FSU women are slender, and because of economics we men can trade up to obtain higher result regarding several variables than we can obtain in home country.  For me . . . younger was a major variable because of the sex drive aspect.

Men, don't kid yourselves.  It is the economics that allows this to happen . . . not that you are so great.  If the FSUW could obtain a local man with the same economics as you have, she wouldn't give you the time of day.

However, the good news is . . . that true love can develop over time . . . even as economics is the beginning point.

[alex330]

I think I heard or read somewhere that lower IQ people might actually pick up foreign languages quicker because they don't think so much about the illogical things in the new language.

I believe there are different factors which can affect the ability to learn different languages. Playing a musical instrument it said to increase your ability as does the age at which you learn. Younger people can pick up languages faster than those who are older. You see this many times in the children than come over here and speak much quicker than their parents.

Also knowing several languages allows you to pickup additional ones much quicker.

[SANDRO43]

Playing a musical instrument it said to increase your ability

Or singing. Since music requires 'sound sensitivity', having a 'musical ear' helps in picking up foreign phonetics much more quickly .