My FSU vacation: how to test the waters?

[skeptic]

A few weeks from now, I'm going on a two-week vacation to Russia and Belarus and would like to use that opportunity to see for myself whom to believe: the HappierAbroad's official line of thinking, or my own skepticism. In any event, two weeks (even less) is not enough to form a long-term relationship, unless, of course, you fall in love with someone strongly enough to keep communicating by Skype and plan the next meeting. But I'm not really interested in that turn of events at this point; I would only try to see for myself whether all that is being said about Russian women vs American women (including the long-timers who are originally from FSU) is true or not.
However, testing the waters is easier said than done. Here are my concerns.

- I'm naturally an honest guy, not interested in leading anyone on. Since I'm not intending to start an overseas relationship, how can I test local women without leading them on? I don't think it's acceptable to make Russian females responsible for their American counterparts by acting towards them the way AW act towards us. But how else can I test their attraction to me? That's one of the most important think, isn't it?

- I'm not good at cold approach. Sometimes it works, but only if I have some props at hand (e.g. asking for directions). Since I'm largely familiar with places I'll be visiting, I might not even need to ask anyone for directions. As long as everything is running smoothly, I'm not depending on anybody. And if I do force myself into cold approach with no props at hand, I'm too afraid to sound weird. Do you think Russian girls are attracted to men who sound weird?

- I'm originally from those very places; in fact, I've spent the first 16 years of my life there, having my share of being bullied at school. As such, those people are not really foreign to me. I'm as fluent in their language as they are. All this makes me disillusioned about how nice and open that society supposedly is. On the other hand, I'm not familiar with their dating culture very much, because I left too young to be serious about dating. Is it possible that a particular society is not very nice in general but is great for dating? How would you recommend me to disregard my childhood baggage while trying to objectively see how good that society is for men dating women?

I have more concerns, but let's discuss these few first.

[zboy1]

Please post your experiences in Russia on the forum, skeptic. I would like to see someone who is a skeptic (no pun intended), go to a foreign country and post whether or not what Winston posted was true or not. Hey, you can never be sure until you actual go abroad and see it for yourself.

[anamericaninbangkok]

Russia is like anywhere else IMO in that there are positives and negatives. I went to Yekaterinburg for 10 days about two years ago for business. Let me preface my next statements; I'm married and I don't cheat. There were plenty of stunning women and it was relatively easy to walk up and talk to them.

One of my most memorable experiences was going to a coffee stand in a mall. There were 6 or 7 models selling coffee. The idea was they give you a cup of espresso or whatever and then hopefully you'll buy a kilo or so of the stuff. For the first five or ten minutes all of them wanted to know everything about me. I got the impression if I wanted to take one or two of them out, they would have done so.

Another memorable encounter was in a gym. I was there with a pro boxer and he needed to run to make sure he stayed on weight. An extremely attractive, fit woman who was exercising began asking all sorts of questions about why I was there, what was I doing later, etc and handed me her phone number. She was not shy at all. I never called her.

In my experiences with Russians, it was a little difficult to crack the shell but once you did they were as warm and friendly as anywhere. Just be yourself and perhaps consider tweaking your attitude....weird? Weird to some might be attractive to others. If they don't like you, so what? f**k em. Move on to the next woman, it's a numbers game.

My opinion about the whole touring bit; if you are willing to have a woman who mainly wants 1) you to be the breadwinner 2) or wants to move to America, then this is a great service for people because it cuts through the bullshit. Just like here in Thailand, I never believe that "all Thai men drink, all Thai men are bad, etc. Rubbish. What it might be is the level of men these women want are unattainable because of their social status or attitudes on marriage or life.

Be honest...what I've found is that even though a woman may be hurt or angry, as time passes she will appreciate the honesty. If she doesn't, oh well. As long as you carry on your relationship with her with integrity, you have nothing to feel guilty about.

As far as your baggage, the onus is on you. When are you going to let go? Just go in having an open mind, be smart and cautious, and let the chips fall where they may. That's all you can do.

BTW - I am not one of these men who subscribe to the mentality "American women now have dicks, they're all fat, etc." I got laid regularly in the US and had an attractive girlfriend before I moved to Thailand. The relationship just wasn't going anywhere so we split up.

[***JP***]

A few weeks from now, I'm going on a two-week vacation to Russia and Belarus and would like to use that opportunity to see for myself whom to believe: the HappierAbroad's official line of thinking, or my own skepticism. In any event, two weeks (even less) is not enough to form a long-term relationship, unless, of course, you fall in love with someone strongly enough to keep communicating by Skype and plan the next meeting. But I'm not really interested in that turn of events at this point; I would only try to see for myself whether all that is being said about Russian women vs American women (including the long-timers who are originally from FSU) is true or not.
However, testing the waters is easier said than done. Here are my concerns.

- I'm naturally an honest guy, not interested in leading anyone on. Since I'm not intending to start an overseas relationship, how can I test local women without leading them on? I don't think it's acceptable to make Russian females responsible for their American counterparts by acting towards them the way AW act towards us. But how else can I test their attraction to me? That's one of the most important think, isn't it?

- I'm not good at cold approach. Sometimes it works, but only if I have some props at hand (e.g. asking for directions). Since I'm largely familiar with places I'll be visiting, I might not even need to ask anyone for directions. As long as everything is running smoothly, I'm not depending on anybody. And if I do force myself into cold approach with no props at hand, I'm too afraid to sound weird. Do you think Russian girls are attracted to men who sound weird?

- I'm originally from those very places; in fact, I've spent the first 16 years of my life there, having my share of being bullied at school. As such, those people are not really foreign to me. I'm as fluent in their language as they are. All this makes me disillusioned about how nice and open that society supposedly is. On the other hand, I'm not familiar with their dating culture very much, because I left too young to be serious about dating. Is it possible that a particular society is not very nice in general but is great for dating? How would you recommend me to disregard my childhood baggage while trying to objectively see how good that society is for men dating women?

I have more concerns, but let's discuss these few first.

My only advice to you would be to be yourself and be genuine. Women in that region do like genuine people with honest intentions. Remember also that the experiences some us had in FSU are different but in the end it's up to you to make the best of your vacation. Have a good trip and keep us posted

[xiongmao]

Yeah, post your findings here (and some photos!). I wanna see photos full of women in microskirts, and none of the women should be shorter than 5'7"!!!

My opinion is that you shouldn't lead women on if they're marriage minded. My monger mate here has left me a trail of destruction to tidy up in his wake!

So maybe you're better testing the waters with hookers or bar girls who know the score, well I had a bit of a try of a p4p Chinese woman the first time I came to Guangzhou. Nobody got hurt as a result. Just take precautions with who you meet and what you do with them.

You might find love on the first trip though, in fact I wanted to marry the very first Chinese girl I met. In fact 25 women later and she's still in the top 5.

There are a lot of Russian women here in China, but I can't say they're any better than the Western women back home. Also they don't age well. And they can be a bit hard to understand (I'm not talking about the language barrier).