Home Read an Except Q & A Book Topics Live Calls Romance Tours Translation Services Contact Us Helpful Links
Her First 90 Days Fiancee Visa More About Women From: Russia Ukraine Latin America Asia
Learn Russian Phrases Scams

Russian Women Guide

A "How-To" For Nice Guys

By Bud Patterson

A must-read for anyone seriously considering
the search for a foreign bride!

110 pages including color photos.
(PDF version only.)

Buy It Now!

Send a check or money order to:
Bud Patterson - book
PO Box 264, Williams Bay WI, 53191

READ THE ENTIRE PREFACE HERE!

She was sitting with her friends, laughing and twirling curls around her finger as she sipped champagne. I recognized immediately her long red hair, cream colored skin dotted with faint freckles, and emerald eyes. She reminded me of Meryl Streep in “The French Lieutenant’s Woman”, she was so alluring and feminine. For months this stunning woman graced the cover of the Foreign Brides Magazine my employer published and circulated around the globe. Now, here she was waiting patiently to be discovered at an up-scale nightclub in St. Petersburg, Russia. The lights were low. The music was foreign but effective. Something hopeful was in the air for the 28 men and 230 women attending what was, for me, the first of many romance tour socials. It was December, 2001.

Seeing an opportunity to say hello I took a bottle of champagne to her table, introduced myself and was invited to join her and her friends. (Take a bottle of champagne to a table of Russian ladies and you will always be invited to sit down.) Her name tag said Victoria. I asked her how it felt to be a famous Russian cover girl. She smiled but didn’t understand. Her English was as good as my Russian. One of the social’s interpreters came to our rescue and we talked.

I explained I'd seen her on the magazine cover, how she stood out among so many others in the following pages. Men from everywhere had called my agency to ask about her. They wanted to know who this mysterious girl was, how old, where from and, of course, how they could meet her. Many vowed to find and seduce her. As our interpreter translated all this I was struck by how matter-of-factly Victoria handled my flattery. She listened a long time, smiled politely and said in English; “It’s nice.” “So” I said, “I have to ask you – how many men actually wrote to you in the last several months since you made the cover of the magazine?” Again in English and thoughtfully she said “I zink about… tree hundred.” I managed to swallowed my champagne without spitting it all over myself. “300?! Wow! Well, I’m hardly surprised. You got so much attention. I swear I talked to 3 or 4 guys a day about you! And of these 300 guys, how many did you write back?" She said she had written to most of them at least once. “So then, how many of those 300 men have you actually met?” This had to be the last girl who needed a romance tour social to meet someone. I wasn't prepared for this answer either. “Von.” “ Vo - One? That’s it? I couldn't have heard that correctly. No way! Not after all those phone calls, all those sporty guys pressing me for any morsel of secret information I could give them. This girl was quite attractive. If any guy was considering a trip to the former USSR in search of happily ever after, this girl could talk him off the fence and into a 727 faster than he could say “Do svidanya”

Sensing I didn't have the whole story, I asked how it was possible that she had only met 1 out of the 300 men who had written to her. Through the interpreter she explained one guy on a previous Romance Tour had written and added her to his list of invites for one of the socials. She came, they met. He invited other girls as well. He invited her for one date, then said he would call her and didn't. “But, what about all those others who wrote you Victoria? Didn’t any of them come to meet you?” She shrugged her shoulders.

We talked politely for awhile before I was drawn away to check up on the other men. Only one or two guys met her that evening. It's one thing to grace the cover of an international singles magazine - quite another to be 1 of about 600 women these 28 guys would meet in the next 12 days. I noticed later she and her friends went out to dinner with one of the nicer clients on the tour. It was not a date for only her, but it would have to do. She and her friends came back two evenings later to beg their way in to the 2nd of three socials that week, but were denied due to the agencies one social per tour attendance policy for women. I caught a glimpse of her standing in the doorway, her frustration was obvious and understandable.

One year later I heard Victoria got engaged to a man she met for the first time at a social, with no prior correspondence. I was happy for her! I only knew her for about an hour, but she seemed so sweet. I was happy for me too - no more phone calls from so many hormonally-fogged guys.

Our meeting happened at the beginning of my exposure to the whole foreign bride phenomenon. To be honest, I didn't believe Victoria’s story. Not then. In the next 5 years I would learn how typical her experience was for the vast majority of foreign women who join a marriage agency. Many letters, maybe a meeting, maybe a date but probably not. And I learned that Victoria was lucky – she DID get engaged. I would meet many, many women like this redhead, who would tell me a similar story but without the happy ending. It is the whole reason I am writing this book.

This was not my Viktoria, whom I also met that week in St. Petersburg. My Viktoria is even lovelier, so lovely every guy on the tour made a point to meet her the night I did. To my good fortune they all balked and moved on. I met the honey of all honeys at my first Romance Tour social. It was her 4th. No less than four Romance Tours had come and gone between the time she joined the agency and the time I met her. In 4 socials, I was only the second guy to ask her for a date. Later, when Vika and I attended a social together, me as a Tour Director and she as my fiancee, many of the men approached her to tell her how lucky I was – and they were right! Lucky that so many had overlooked her, so I could find her and my life could become so blessed.

THE VAST MAJORITY OF FOREIGN WOMEN WHO PLACE THEIR PROFILES WITH MARRIAGE AGENCIES IN HOPES OF FINDING THEIR LIFE-PARTNER WILL DRAW MODEST ATTENTION, RECEIVE LETTERS, FLOWERS AND SMALL GIFTS - BUT ULTIMATELY NOT FIND THEIR LIFE-PARTNER FROM ANOTHER CULTURE. WHY? READ ON!

The agency I worked for from 2001 – 2005, is one of the leading international marriage agencies (IMA) one may look to for help in finding a foreign bride. During my time with them an informal study was done to determine how many men who ordered ladies addresses would ultimately participate in a Romance Tour or arrange solo travel to meet the girl(s) they were writing to. The number surprised everyone, so they recalculated and sure enough, it was correct. Want to take a guess? How many of the hundreds of men who ordered ladies addresses, presumably to find love, would one day get on the plane and go abroad to meet someone? That magic number, for this agency, one of the largest and most successful of its kind… was 3%!

3%!!!

Now, try to wrap your mind around this: Since the birth of the international introduction business ten years ago, thousands of exciting, attractive, marriage-minded foreign women have joined IMA's. They come from Russia, Ukraine, Latin America, the Philippines and other countries. Many could be models, and some actually are. The others are accountants, doctors, lawyers, teachers, retail clerks and waitresses. They're basically happy with their lives, they tell us, but are missing that one special man who would complete them, how they hope to find him, maybe through such an agency. They invite us to take a chance and write.

Many of these hopeful women have heard of or know someone who met her soul mate and is now living abroad with a loving husband and children. These same women have little faith they will meet a monogamous, kind and responsible man in their own culture. One girl from Kharkov, Ukraine told my telephone audience “I suppose there are just too many beautiful girls here, and competition for a man is very big. Even the good men find it hard to be faithful.”

Over the years, thousands of guys have responded like love super-heroes to the rescue – pledging their affection and promising to come – but in the end most of them didn't go! Why? What happened? What went wrong? We saw the profiles, we wrote the letters, heard the sweet accented voices from thousands of miles away. We imagined that first face to face at the airport, the gorgeous smile greeting us, the excited eyes. We made ourselves promise, when the time came, to keep our eyes above the shoulders and not look so obviously affected. We swore we'd go with all the resolve and determination we could muster but in the end - we didn't go!

Though there are plenty of keyboard romeos out there enjoying correspondence without commitments, I truly believe the majority of guys who begin this process by writing do actually intend to meet the girl of their dreams, should she surface from the mountains of foreign bride profiles on the web. But just as we're on the verge of a life-defining love experience we can't stare down our fear of being duped into some marriage-for-a-green-card scheme. Women of such quality couldn't really find true soul-mate value in us...could they?

Confiding in our friends, coworkers and family is a disaster - so sure are they we'll ultimately be humiliated. We let them convince us, however unintentionally, that we don't deserve and shouldn’t expect that kind of love. After months of correspondence with a terrific girl, we start to listen to those voices. The closer we get to finding HER, the more we believe the nay-sayers , until our hope collapses and we bow out. Whatever the reason in the end, we fail to garner enough strength, confidence and support to get on that plane and go! And the chance we lose - and these women lose - can't be measured.

And what of the women who join these agencies in Russia, Ukraine and other countries? In the grand cosmic love lottery, they know they have to play to win. They tell their friends and family about our letters. They dream about us and what they will say to us when we first meet. They'll be ready to explore their beautiful old city showing us with fresh enthusiasm places they've seen hundreds of times before. But when a year of socials or a bundle of letters leads to no dates, no meetings and no love super-hero - they'll too lose heart and move on though many hold out until it's just no longer practical. It's quite common at romance tour functions to meet women who originally posted their profile 2 – 3 years ago! How are they still available? Because the vast majority of men who have written them will NEVER meet them!

There are thousands of women in Eastern Europe, Latin America and around the world who deeply desire a life- partner for all the right reasons. In their search for a husband, they emphasize character, values, reliability, trustworthiness and responsibility over money, looks and citizenship. These are not stupid, desperate women trying to escape their tragic circumstances by offering themselves to the first Neanderthal who will carry them over his back to his homeland. They are talented, practical, resourceful, frugal, often highly educated, self- respecting and strong. They are here for the same reasons you are, with all the same hopes and fears and, like you, they are worthy of the love they seek. I don’t mean to over-dramatize, but this is the one critical point I have to make in order for you to benefit from anything else I have to say here. It's quite possible the realization of that love for any one girl hinges almost entirely on you, my friend. You and your decision to go and find HER!

I have met and interviewed hundreds of Russian or Latin American women since my first trip abroad in 2001. I ask them all the same basic questions: Why are you here? What made you decide to seek out a foreign husband? What kind of man would you like to meet? What are his qualities? How does your family feel about this? Is it hard for lovely women in your country to meet a marriage-minded guy, and why? How do you feel about the age of your partner? Do you want to have children? Would you like to meet someone who already has children? Are you prepared to leave your country for love? And so on. The answers are not what most of us would think. Their sincerity is obvious and unrehearsed. I can’t tell you how many times I've thought to myself when meeting a hopeful foreign-bride-to-be, “Man, how is it possible this lady is alone and single ANYWHERE ON THE PLANET? She has so much to offer someone. She wouldn’t be single for a day in America.” And yet there she was, sitting quietly at a corner cafe or a romance tour social with a few of her girlfriends - and no guy.

I've also met hundreds of men seeking to learn more about these women. They're good men, I believe, with good hearts. They leave me with no doubt were they to meet the right girl, they would be good husbands, attentive fathers, thoughtful lovers, and true friends. But they seem confused – too beaten up by the perceivable crap-shoot that has become dating in America, too unsure that they can be loved and cared for by such exciting but completely foreign women. I've met the lovely women, I have met the sincere guys and my deepest desire and biggest challenge is to help them find the self-confidence and determination to find each other.

This book has a unique focus and purpose. It will offer up-front, direct, no-nonsense information that will empower the would-be foreign bride finder whose still fence-bound, unable to take that decisive leap out of self- doubt and into self-realization. I want to do everything I can to encourage you to move beyond these pages to the greatest love experience of your life. I've coached hundreds of men to break their dating paradigm so they could meet these amazing women and change their lives and destinies!

This book will be the end result of all those interviews, talks, and heart to hearts. I've chosen a conversational format to closely resemble those very discussions. Here, I am simply passing on what I've heard and seen countless times, and what I personally believe to work and to not work. Many of the men who eventually found their love abroad would tell me later our coaching sessions and live interviews of foreign women were the crucial factor in their decision to get on the plane and go in the first place.

What follows is a collection of personal observations and suggestions. I believe the quickest and most direct route to finding HER will be achieved through partnering with a reputable international marriage agency (IMA) whose resources, employees, affiliates, and database of womens profiles are all current and reliable. Of course, you should always use caution when attempting to meet anyone over the internet. If any suggestion I write sounds improper or inappropriate to you, please don’t follow it. Ask yourself after each section if this sounds like a book written by someone who is passionate about helping good people find each other? Does what’s written here just seem to make good sense? And if you can answer yes, turn the page and read on.

Because my experience is primarily with women of Eastern Europe, (Russia, Ukraine, Latvia,) Latin America (Colombia, Peru, Costa Rica) and the Philippines - please assume my use of the word “foreign” applies to these cultures only. Most foreign women who seek their husbands through international marriage agencies are from these countries. Please also assume the IMA's I'm referring to, are based in America. I believe them to be accountable to the consumer public and laws. Attempts have been made by members of congress seeking to govern IMA's in general to lump all world-wide agencies together. This is dangerously inaccurate - I believe most American based agencies to be quite ethical and responsible in their practices. I cannot say the same for all agencies in the world for obvious reasons.

Now let’s talk candidly about what you need to do to meet your lovely foreign bride. After all, candid advice well heeded in your search could save you hundreds, if not thousands of dollars and lots of unnecessary heartache. It can help you find HER! This is my very best attempt to show you what this experience has to offer. If you're a nice guy, with traditional family values, this is my best argument for you to get on the plane and go.

Find HER! The one you've waited for. The one who waits for you. The love you were meant to find. Do it now. She is real. She is out there. And if you go to her, I won’t be seeing her someday, sitting quietly unnoticed at a social or in a cafe. I won't be asking why she has yet to find someone who truly loves her.

Thank you for reading my book – and good luck in your search!

BP 2007