The Russian Experiment

So a bit over a month back I got drunk. While this event is not remarkable in any way, I did break the "do not drink and surf" policy.

Apparently, I signed up for a Russian Mail Order Bride Site. Quiet, lemme explain.

Having totally forgotten about it, I got an email saying I had received a message from one of these women. Now when I signed up, I didn't put any kind of personal information whatsoever. It was just a username (not dykmoby).

I had the seed (okay, maybe seed is too pure a word) of an idea. I filled out my profile using one of my old profiles back in the humiliation-on-the-internet days (dating sites). No pictures though. I would see if I was internationally undateable.

So over the next week I got about a dozen or so emails (5 in one day) from ladies from the former Soviet Union. Thus stage 1 was complete: I don't come off that bad.

Stage 2: Post A Picture. Not the worst, but not the best either. I waited to see the response. After one week, one email. I concluded that I was indeed internationally undateable.

Then last weekend came around.

20 on Saturday.

25 on Sunday.

41 on Monday.

When I finally pulled the plug tonight, I had over 140 emails.

Now I felt guilty. In all likelyhood, all these women just spammed potential Western Husbands just to improve the odds. Add to that, there was a certain desperation to some of emails I read (cost $3 an email, but my curiosity got the better of me). Kinda sad.

It did give me an idea for book though. You see the site offers these "tours" where you go to a couple of major centers and have "socials" with the women. Apparently the men are outnumbered about 10 to 1.

That would be an amazing story. Fiction or non-fiction (or even a documentary). What drives the men to seek mates half-way across the world and propose after meeting them in what is essentially a glorified cocktail-party? What are they looking for that they can't find at home?

And there's the women of course. I get that many of them have never been married (the site is pretty explicit about that) but why seek mates, who don't speak a word of Russian or Ukrainian? Hostile conditions? Are Russian men weenies?

Ad of course there's the business of setting this up. Who do they market to? Is it profitable? Is this a cynical enterprise that preys on lonely men and women for outrageous profit? Is it still doing good works despite the money involved?

Maybe I'll call it The Road to Odessa.

So anyways, that's the latest social experiment. Up Next: Going to a Halloween party in tights at work. Career Limiting Move? Definitely a social limiting move...