Direct Manual

For Those Wishing to

Marry a Foreigner

The first thing is (if you are still sure that you do want it and you will not give it up in a month) good photos. Do not try to look differently from the reality. The truth will come out and you will regret it. Your photos must be natural, taken by a professional photographer. When scanning them, make sure they are light enough and the size does not exceed 100KB and 800×600 pixels; always save them as JPEG. You will have to email them and you can have difficulty sending large ones; if you think you will be OK, think about your correspondent because her facilities may be worse and will not let her download a message of 1MB or so. By the way, a smart program called Ulead Smart Saver can help you make the size much smaller without losing the quality. Or you can you the Save For Web function of Adobe Photoshop.

In any case, you should register a free email address specially for your marriage correspondence. Due to many reasons it is not advisable to use your ISP address. As a matter of fact, you do not even have to own a PC and be connected to the Internet—you can go to a public place, just make sure no one steals your mailbox password. There are some people who like to spoof, beware of them.

Then you should compile your introduction or short description—which is basically a few words about you. Avoid stamps like “I am honest, sincere, GSOH”, etc. These qualities are supposed to be, or do you think people who do not have such qualities are in demand? It is better to tell something about oneself that distinguishes you. Make up your mind what country your darling can come from because you will find profiles of women from a lot of countries on the Net. You should also write your first introductory letter (you must attach a small picture to it, up to 25KB). The thing is that in the beginning you will be writing a lot of women and there is no sense in writing a different letter to each, especially taking into account the fact that half of them will not bother to answer, just like you will not answer half of the letters that you will get. When you write a lady for the second time, it is time to write something personal, patterns will not do. I also advise not to write too long letters. A letter should not exceed a thousand characters (use MS Word to count them) because if it is too long it may not be read fully. Instead, write oftener. However, please do not write every day!

Another important piece of advice: use simple English, do not forget about commas and divide your letters into paragraphs, altogether make them readable. Never forget to run your spellchecker (if you use Outlook Express, check Tools→Options→Spelling tab→Always Check Spelling Before Sending). First, letters are one of the few means to introduce oneself and if you appear a careless person, you may be declined. Second, you write someone who is not a native speaker, even if she knows English. Be it your lady or a translator, do not let them curse you trying to make out what this asshole wrote.

Finally, never send your letters as attached DOC files and try to send them as plain text (Tools→Options→Send tab→Mail Sending Format→Plain Text in Outlook Express). Attachments must not exceed 200KB in size.

OK, let us log on to the Internet.

You go to dating servers and either study the profiles there or place your own profile. (The best way is the first). Then you write letters (emails) to women whom you like or wait for letters respectively. Yes, women, rather than a woman. Most of them will not suit you so you had better have a few to choose from.

As an alternative, you can use the FAPIA, that is the Free Ads Papers International Association or something like that in your area. It is a good idea because many women that act on their own use it unlike the dating servers where you will find a lot of profiles placed by marriage agencies.

I must warn you again that there are lots of marriage scams on the Internet. If you are reading these lines after reading the previous page, you must be a brave fellow who knows what he wants. All I want you to do is not to be a coward who wants it and is afraid of everything at the same time and will always ask stupid questions like “Is it for real? Can you guarantee?”, etc. Either you go for it or forget it. Just be careful and smart.

The point of the previous paragraph was that a lot of ladies whose profiles you will find on the dating sites use agencies. Some of them might turn out bogus. How can you check it? There are a number of means. For example, you can ask for your lady’s address so as to send her a present, hire a person in her town and ask him to take a picture of her with your specific present (for example five red roses and a teddy) and email this photo to you as soon as possible (I presume that you have seen her photos before and will see if it is her). Ask the man to tell you if he finds no such address or her agency there and not to tell anything to the agency (obviously, if he is looking for an apartment and sees that is an office, he does not have to tell the name of the person that he is after, he must just make sure that it is the address that you provided and there is no mistake). A good reason to do this even if you do not have much doubt is that you will give your lady a pleasant surprise. So it will work for you anyway.

Another idea is to see how often she writes you. If she writes you long letters every day, you might become suspicious, especially if you know that she uses an agency because it is not possible to come to the agency every day and write long letters to someone whom you have never met. Women usually have to work or study if they are young and just remember: have there been anything in your life that you wanted to do every day, for example go to the gym? Did you really manage to do it every day and do you still do it now? If yes, you must be a great man. But not all people are great.

Think about paperwork and anything you may need when you go abroad and bring your fiancee here. Consult your lawyer, look for good websites that have the information you need, ask people. Find out about the customs in the country that you may have to visit. It may be both the customs house and the traditions

. You should be loaded for a bear.

As your relationship is getting closer you should learn her street address, phone numbers and other details. Do not try to do it too early because you will be given false ones and it is absolutely justifiable—no one likes when one’s privacy is violated. But if you develop serious relationship, you have the right to know more (not everything, anyway).

Then try and find an alternative for contacting your woman, for example if you know her phone number, think of a relatively reliable independent person whom you can ask to send your regards to her. If the phone number that she gave you is that of her agency, you may learn it in this way. You can also check if she is actually reading your letters and writing the stuff that you get presumably from her, if you ask this person to tell her your comments on some of her letters and wonder what she can add to something that she wrote you. It will be clear from her reaction what is really going on. Actually, it is best to contact her via a few quite different ways. When all your communication goes through a sole agency, you cannot be sure that you get her letters and she gets yours. So try and locate some translation services in her town and use now them, now her agency. Finally, it is recommended to find an independent interpreter to translate for you when you come to her because of the reasons mentioned before. The interpreter should not be associated with her agency and it is good if you find him or her shortly before your arrival so as to prevent her agency from getting in touch with him. The trouble is that an agency is not usually interested in similar developments and if they learn about your plan beforehand, they might bribe or threaten the interpreter. So make sure they do not know anything about it, tell them that you do not need their interpreter for some reasons (that you do not have to disclose). Probably, you should not let your lady know about it either unless you use the same person as your interpreter and an alternative to contact your lady.

However, do not be too suspicious. Just make sure you are not going to get swindled. A more important point is to be a real man and a real gentleman, do not forget it. So, while you should be careful, you must not look like a coward and miser.

Please be correct to the interpreter. It is not fine to have a bad interpreter; however, you cannot check if he is good or bad unless you know the language very well—but what is the use of hiring an interpreter then? So do not try to catch him translating something incorrectly, you may look silly. Just learn a simple rule: if an interpreter never asks you to repeat, it must be either an excellent interpreter or a very poor one. As a rule, it is easy to tell the two. You should also remember that English is not actually a language but rather a complex of languages. Within relatively small Britain people from different regions sometimes do not understand each other, let alone the entire world. Basically, the English language that is taught in Russia is closest to the one that used to be spoken in the south of England a score ago, so if you come from America or Australia, you may have difficulty even communicating with an interpreter. Anyway, please remember the simple rules:

never speak simultaneously with the other person and if you say something, please be kind to wait for the translation and the answer. Only after that you are allowed to speak. I must note, however, that there are interpreters (me, for example) who are capable of simultaneous translation, but nobody can translate if two people speak simultaneously. So even if your interpreter allows you to speak while he translates you, it does not mean that you can speak when the other person (that is your lady) does
speak slower and a little louder than usual
make sure you pronounce words as a television broadcaster does. Separate words from one another
try and avoid any slang, sayings, idiomatic expressions
even if your people understand you very well, realize that they do it because they have been communicating with you for many years, they know your expressions, your way of speech, your pronunciation and they can sometimes actually read your thoughts and understand you if you say a word or half a word. An interpreter is obviously different
do not say too much. Your interpreter may be shy to interrupt you but he may forget the beginning when you finish to speak. It is best to say one or two sentences and wait for the translation. This will also help your words to be translated more literally than when you tell a long story and the interpreter will rather retell it in Russian than translate. And you can see if he makes mistakes. It is easy to say a lot of blah-blah in Russian when you said a lot of it in English, but if you said just one sentence, it is hard to distort it. However, do not say a word at a time, complete your sentences, because the languages differ and for example if you say “there is” and wait for the translation, intending to continue “a man… in my town”, you will not hear anything unless you complete the sentence, because in Russian we say literally “in my town is one man” and as you can see, “there” here is not translated into Russian and what you place at the end of such a sentence we place at the beginning
basically, do not speak too much . You can get everybody tired and bored with you

Finally, there is a point that may have made you wonder and I must tell something about it. Where to find an independent agent, attorney, confidant or whatever you call him, who will help you to find out more about your lady, first of all if she is there? It is best if you have come to that town before and know someone in person, but if you don't? Well, of course I mean that I can be a good solution. But I do not want you to think that I wrote the above stuff just to get you use my service (and, by the way, your lady does not necessarily live in Odessa). I can give you another idea. When you start corresponding with a lady, try and find a male penpal from the same town. I think it is not hard on the Internet. After you develop some relationship with him and see if you can trust him, you can ask him to do you a favor as your friend.

If you know some Russian and would like to try and correspond on your own, you can find a lot of information on teaching your PC to understand Russian fonts in Paul Gorodyansky’s site (in English).

OK, you know everything now. I will end this manual with these parting words: be a real man and a real gentleman. Remember, it is lack of these qualities that force our women seek a husband abroad. They need no sissies nor misers nor jerks nor cowards nor irresponsible men or keyboard Romeos — they have already had enough of them. So be strong and confident, serious (when needed) and responsible, reliable and generous. Don’t get paranoid; don’t be a fool either. Be reasonably honest but don’t forget that it is integrity rather than honesty that women value. Be a Man. And you shall succeed.

In a Nutshell

Make sure you can afford it in all respects
Be ready to go across the ocean
Do not fall in love with a photo
Never send money to a woman you have never met in person
Meet women in their country first
Do not use the same party to meet women and talk to them
Never use translation software
Do not ascribe all red flags to cultural differences
Do not get fixated on one woman, keep your options open
Do not let anyone control you
If the lady is from Yoshkar Ola or Lugansk, watch for scams

To learn more, go to the Frequently Asked Questions page.

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