Happier Abroad Forum Community

Okay, so I've been communicating online (eharmony so far and I've signed up with ColombianCupid and MexicanCupid) with a few women from Mexico and Colombia. These girls are attractive and seem genuine, they definitely have a different kind of speech from the way things flow in convo with an American woman. They seem eager to push things forward and are more blunt about asking serious questions about a plausible relationship, what I am looking for, etc. One of them is a student and has already invited me to come down and meet her.

For those who have gotten started with the online route, what are some good tips/pointers as to how to go about this? Mind you I am looking for serious girlfriend prospects, not just random flings with slutty women, and of course I don't wanna get hosed, are there some good questions/tests that I can ask them, ways that I can present myself or communicate with them, so as to differentiate between the genuine and the scammers, between the quality ones and the hood rats? I get the advice about downplaying your networth, I'm a middle-class guy anyways (by USA standards), good Engineering field job.. I am just talking to them about common interests, family, travels, etc so far while hinting a little about my job.

As most know here, I'm married to a Filipina. But long before I ever considered dating/traveling to Asia I took 4 trips down to Brazil. This happened because my first wife and I had a timeshare that was 80% Mexican properties. We got divorced and I got the timeshare (since been sold). Lo and behold, I found out that one of the properties that I could stay was the Caesar Park Ipanema!

I was so excited to take my first trip down there. I remember calling and booking my flight thru an outfit called Brol.com. The gal that helped me was Brazilian. I'll never forget the words that she had for me. She told me "be careful of the ladies of Brazil. They aren't enough men to go around down there and they love the gringos. It's very easy to get a pretty girlfriend. She continued saying that she makes a lot of her money from divorced Americans who go back down to Brazil to visit their ex wives and children. She went on to say that Brazilians who move out of Brazil suffer a "fish out of the aquarium syndrome" meaning that Brazil is such a unique and warm culture, if one is brought back to the US, they usually end up hating it so badly, they move back to Brazil."

This sank in. I live in frickin' Seattle which has the "Seattle Freeze" and it's chilly even by American standards. Ain't no way I'm going to bring my hot Brazilian bride back to Seattle. My guess is that other women from South American would fell the same way whereas bringing over an Asian lady to Seattle works much better because we have a huge Asian population.