Wiz, I have news for you.. IF a lady is worth it - paying a few measly bucks to be able to contact her IS worth it ..

You assume the ladies know which site men pay and which ones don't...

Times are changing faster than you ( or I) can know, Wiz .. We are out of the game.. I wouldn't claim to advise any person on what dating site is 'best' .. the 'best' one is where you find the lady of one's dreams !

You said it.. so perhaps you should be listening to those still IN the 'game' ...

I consider myself very very very very lucky I found Mila by accident. Single and travelling around just to see things and saw Mila by chance. Loved her eyes. We got a chance to talk and everything is history.

So I wont comment on how to find the one and what sites, agencies, approaches might be good...but I can't help but see how travelling and matchmaking have their similarities.

There are some people that like the all-inclusive trip arranged by a travel agent, including guided tours and excursions and they just pay the money...then there are some people who like to book everything themselves and keep the hotel and food and drink and fun all seperate for more flexibilility or because they know how and can save money doing things this way. And there are people in the middle of this spectrum spread all over it.

Same goes for the search. Some guys have no clue how to look, some just go look for themselves, and everything in between. There are services directed towards each type of guy...so maybe instead of starting off with which service is best to use...maybe figure out what kind of guy you are first?

Froid

I agree with you that each to their own and firstly should look to find out what will be the best way to suit his need.

Having worked in the travel industry for years..... I agree with your analogy and I know that I will never use a travel agent because I prefer to search and do everything by myself. Of course on the way I have saved a lot of money so managed to increase the mileage longer when I was seriously searching.

I remember those early days that I had sussed Aeroflot's system out.......and was able to book flights to Ufa for less than 200 GBP return... by waiting till around 11 PM and knowing when the price changes take place. After I got married I paid for my wife... only 111 GBP to bring her to the UK........those were the good old days. Now we have to pay an arm and a leg to visit Ufa.

Here what I wrote back then....


I am sure that most of the men, who have found their wives abroad, originally have not made a conscious decision to follow this path. It is clear that all of us pursuing a woman in Russia/Ukraine came across the idea of dating and marrying an FSU woman, by accident or by chance.

In my case and due to my job I had to travel extensively around Europe and in the USA but had never visited the East European countries before, until 2004. My 20 + years relationship with an English woman had gone wrong and finally finished in 2003 and I was in a limbo as you may say.

We have to be honest and admit that men are visual creatures and the large pool of very beautiful Slavic women, their willingness to accept large age difference, is very appealing and irresistible. The family concept and ties, I read in many places on the internet for example, is deep ingrained into them and the easy and feminist attitudes in their relationships shown by their Western counterparts, makes them more alluring and sought-after. The overt show of their sexuality and attention to their appearance is something that we all like and look for. Having lived in the UK for over 30 years, I don’t find English women appealing anymore.

In 2003, I had a business offer to visit Lviv in Ukraine and my reservations and attitude changed after that trip. In the next 2 years I made several business trips to Ukraine, visited many places and of course learned a lot about the place but still had not thought seriously in finding a partner there.

In 2005 and after a long thought and consideration of my circumstances, I made the decision to search for a partner in the FSU countries and made a plan on how to go about it avoiding the possible and ever presence of scammers on the dating sites. I corresponded with a lot of women and finally the spring of 2006 the list of prospective women came down to 3 which I made plans to meet during the summer. I met one of the women 2 times in Greece and we had a good holiday but not clicked and then visited another one in Kiev with the same result.

In August of that year one of the women (my ex Russian girlfriend) with whom I was chatting on MSN and had told her previously that I was not interested to meet or have a relationship with her because of her age (41 yrs old) and the fact that she had a 12 years old son, visited England, got in touch with me, we met for a drink and after that we started our relationship. After a 7 months stormy relationship, in March 2007, I had enough and finaly made up my mind that our relationship was not going to work. When I left her house on my last visit to her all I wanted to do was to keep quiet for sometime and try to forget her and everything that took place between us.

NOTE: I wrote this post back in summer 2007 and I think it's appropriate to repeat in this thread.......

What happen next continues here: viewtopic.php?p=94#p94

Well that is exactly the trade off you take. Pay someone else to do work that you do not want to, or are incapable of doing.

I travelled all over Scandinavia on my own with no help for years, but when I first wanted to go to Russia I was lost. How the hell do I find a reasonable place for White Nights in St Peter?!?!? What's an invite letter? How the hell do I figure out this visa thing!?!!?!? Getting from the airport to the hotel seems to be an issue too. Travel sites IN Russia were useless I found. I ended up using an agent in Toronto who I found by accident and who spoke Russian. She found me an excellent Russian B&B that was spartan but reasonably priced. I saved enough I stretch my vacation budget to 9 days in Russia even. Now I just use them for invite letters and do the rest myself or with Mila's help.

I am very independent but sometimes having that extra help along the way is worth paying for as shown above.

Even though I have been out of the searching mode for a while I think involvement in the forums keeps me pretty up to date on things. Personally for me a trip to meet someone would have cost $ 3000-5000.00. Spending a few dollars to give me access to quality women was a very small part of the cost.

When I was at the end of the searching stage I was using Elena's and FreePersonals. I have heard nothing to make me feel either site is better or worse than it was then. Free personals was nice that it was free and I see nothing wrong with using free sites. However I wasted a lot more time on FP than I did on Elenas. Free websites are a great venue for armchair romeos who get their rocks off by writing some gal who even though she is beautiful and hot, they are never going to get on the plane and go meet her. Still some of the women on the free sites said they got 500 letters the first day. My experience with the free sites was that I got half the response or less that I got with Elena's and the women tended to stop writing much sooner. If your time has value, it may be worth paying.

I have heard good things about Merry Dating and Mamba and although I have never used them I have suggested them to people.

As far as travel agents. I used them prior to the internet being so popular but I would never think about using one now.

My view on the 2 free sites mentioned is that Mamba is very good because, by and large, there aren't any scammers there. This is principally because its not aimed at WM. It can be hard work though as a lot ladies who do speak English don't bother putting this in their profiles.

I had a quick look at Merry Dating and in the first few pages I saw half a dozen scammers I recognised from Cute Only, which is full of them.

It has been sometime ago, actually over 4 years, since I had a profile in any site and visited regularly..... so what happened to Merry Dating today.... I am not aware. I expect the scammers will always find their way to any new site...... but I think there is an easy way to avoid them.

When I first created a profile to Freepersonals for the first week I did not uploaded any photo of mine..... and yes my email box was full of the scammers messages. After a week it went nearly dead and then I uploaded my photo and kept all the scammers emails for future check list....

It took me very short time to accumulate a large number of genuine ladies which I directed to my own site, where I had all the necessary information and yes all possible scammers and dating good time girls... didn't bothered writing again. Also the ones with little understanding of English fell on the side of the boat but few genuine who made the effort to read and understand all about me.....wrote back and it went from there. This plan worked for me......if you want take a peek at my site...still on the server!

Wiz - Personal site

I didn't even bothered to hide my big belly in my photos.....

I am sure all of you have read the debates and comments about the NEW platform PLM created by the old style dating agencies to by pass the IMBRA law in the USA and reading various comments around, I wonder how many people think that it's the new way to go, when searching for a partner in the FSU?

I know the subject has been discussed here: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1125&p=9526#p9526

But what I am interesting to know is, how the new type of internet dating would help newbies in their pursuit to find an FSU partner?

Of course I am not talking about these people who never make a move to go there and only use their keyboard as a form of entertainment!