Flowers

[Aaron]

... in response to She may have been, posted by Patrick on Apr 10, 2003

Patrick,

You deserve a standing ovation for that one. The claims that latinas mature faster, even at younger ages is totally hog-wash.

I think they may have stonger values "in the favorable direction," but the maturity issue is a little different.

Basically, with limited exposure and experience in life, and less responsibility, I tend to think allot of younger latinas are a little naive, and don't understand some of the kinds of responsibilites that they may face in the USA. This is something I've noticed even with ladies not in agencies. It's not necessarily a bad thing, unless it is too extreme, but I'm just making an observation.

This is one reason why I get turned off with allot of the younger girls in their early 20s. I like the women 3 years below or above 30. I relate to them better.

Also, I learned that for many latinas, dating a younger man isn't a problem, providing he's mature and "in shape."

My $1.35

Aaron

[Red Clay]

... in response to Re: Re: I totally agree with Red Clay he..., posted by wizard on Apr 7, 2003

If letter writing is a waste of time then those of us who met our wives that way must REALLY be wasting our time now that we are happily married.

[Pescador]

... in response to Re: Re: Re: I totally agree with Red Cla..., posted by Red Clay on Apr 8, 2003


About the guys that buy flowers before they meet, well the girl you might be buying flowers for might already be seeing another gringo in person. My example is on Valentines day I bought my novia some roses after we had been dating for 2 weeks. As I entered her apt I noticed this huge boquet of flowers on her living room table. Granted flowers are cheap in Colombia but these looked more impresive than the roses I bought for her. I asked who they were from she told me they were from an exboyfriend. Later she was embarrased that they came from a guy that she had never met from the agency. She kept the flowers as she liked them but thought the guy was crazy for sending her flowers and he had never met her. That following sunday the Guy called her place while I was there and was asking to come meet her family and wanted to marry her. I thought it was all amusing. I thought get in line!

Later my novia and I went down to the agency and had her data removed because she didnt want any more guys to call or write her. For those guys that want to send flowers before they meet the girl in person it might be a wasted gesture. Its a fact that a lot of the women at the agencies that post thier mailing, email and phone number get lots and lots of solicitations. My novia had so many that she couldnt focus on writing them all. Plus she figured the guys probably wrote to hundreds of women too. How I met her was she wrote me first through my data from an agency before she started getting responses to her data. Plus I was the only one to go to Colombia to meet her in person too. Thats when I bought her flowers for the first time. Writing does take a lot of effort, but as I say to each his own and love doesnt really have many rules. If there was a sure fire way of doing it we wouldnt need to listen to others opinions or experiences we would already know.

Tengan una buena dia

[Patrick]

... in response to Flowers, posted by Pescador on Apr 8, 2003

My wife also received a lot of letters from other men.  In fact, another man was getting ready to visit her before me, but when he asked her how many men had witten to her and she responded truthfully, he cancelled his trip.  Out of over 300 men who had written, only two planned on visiting.  One cancelled because he thought there was way too much competition.  The other married her.

[DallasSteve2]

... in response to Re:  Flowers, posted by Patrick on Apr 8, 2003

Did your wife really get 300 letters from foreign men?

How do I start an address-selling business?

Steve

[Patrick]

... in response to 2 Questions, posted by DallasSteve2 on Apr 9, 2003

Yes, she really got 300 letters.  She was listed with TLC, the 800 lb gorilla of the Latin match making market.

To start the business, learn Spanish, place advertisements in Latin American newspapers, build a web site and promote it.  To do well though, you'll have to quit your current job and invest a lot in advertising to the men.  I think TLC advertises in several major US publications.  I've seen their ads in USA Today in the past.  That's got to be major bucks to buy their space.  If you want to do it small time like we do, expect to work for some pretty low wages.  We made a little over $5,000 profit for 2002.  Would have been a couple of thousand higher, but this site and goodwife.com lose money and I've been too buzy (and lazy) to get the advertising running again for a couple of years.  It's a good way for your wife to work from home and earn enough for a little spending money and perhaps fund an IRA for her.  That's what we do.  Expect to lose money for the first year or two.

Unless you go into this in a big way, there's not really much money to be made.  I think you also have to compromise on ethics if you want to make more.  At the end of the day though, you've got to live with yourself, so it's a personal choice.  I don't think there's that many really dishonest operators out there.  Not nearly as many as most guys believe, but I do think most of the agencies paint an overly rosey picture of the process and associated risks.

[Pescador]

... in response to Re: 2 Questions, posted by Patrick on Apr 9, 2003


I think the ones that make money at this must be a little dishonest. My novia was part of a small local agency, and trusted her data to only this agency. The agency turned around and gave her data to TLC and they listed her in the current issue. She was pretty mad about this to say the least. They told her in order to take her data off she would have to send a signed fax "requesting it" to them in Texas from Bogota.

It makes me wonder how many of the women in thier magazines wanted to be posted, or where they get thier fotos from. I used to think they got them from women that sent them thier data or from the tours.
The women some guys are writing to from there may not have permited TLC to post her data to be sold and published. My novia had no idea that she was going to be seen by thousands of men. She thought that she was joining a private discrete singles service to meet extranjeros. She is embarrased and mad that she is in thier magazine without her permission.
Overall Id say the fotos are good to look at, but best to save the money from buying a flotila of adresses and instead save the money for a future plane ticket.

[DallasSteve2]

... in response to Re: 2 Questions, posted by Patrick on Apr 9, 2003

Patrick

We're probably too busy to give you any competition right now, but maybe someday.

I was really more interested in the rate of men writing versus meeting the women.  If only one man out of 300+ letters actually met her, that is very surprising to me.  I would have guessed maybe 50 letters and 5 visits.

Maybe what happens a lot is what happened in my case.  I wrote about 50 women in 1999, but I only met 4 mainly because of time contstraints.  I would guess that in the case of your wife 20 or 30 of those 300+ letter writers arrived in Colombia, but they chose to meet other women instead of your wife.

Still, her "actual visit rate" was surprisingly low.

Steve

[Calipro]

... in response to Flowers, posted by Yalg on Apr 7, 2003

I don't know why anyone would send flowers to a complete stranger. I think the most important part of sending flowers is the note that goes along with them. I did send flowers to a caleña once. She saw me out with another woman and stopped returning my calls. After I sent her flowers and the little note that goes along with them, things turned around. I hope this helps you out.

As for the guys that buy dinner and drinks for their dates, let me know when they are going down to Cali, because just about every time I go I run into the biggest bunch of tight wads I have ever met. Once,I went out on a double date with another american and his date in Cali. His date ordered a red bull and the club charged him around 15,000 pesos. Granted nobody wants to pay $6 dollars for a red bull but it was a very nice club. This guy threw such a stink and I felt so bad for his date that I paid for her drink just to shut him up. Let me know how your dutch dates turn out in Cali.

[Yalg]

... in response to Re: Flowers, posted by Calipro on Apr 7, 2003

I never went dutch down there, most dont have any money so its really not possible. However, I see no problem with going dutch if the woman has some money. Why should the guy always pay for everything.  You dont have to read more into my post than there is.  It was a simple question.

Well, you can say what you want but I had the experience there that guys are always afraid to say no to a woman because they dont want to be see as cheap.  Its embarrassing for most guys to not shovel it up at crunch time.  Women are far far cheaper than men, they expect a man to pay in every society even if they are loaded.  Im sure we'll here anecdotal stories, but I know that in general, and in most cases, I am correct.

Actually, your girl is a perfect example of what we were talking about the last couple days.  I remember quite clearly you posting about how your girl started asking you for a car, stereo system, etc.  when you got back to the states.  Even though she didnt have much time to stay there before you were going to bring her up here.  Women simply expect things to be given to them by men and they figure the mere fact that they are with you should suffice as to why.  They dont need to worry about questions such as, "what is the most important thing to you?"  They can say faithfulness and sincerity because they take the money for granted with American men.  Its a given.  No matter who they end up with in the states they know for a fact they are upgrading.  

I just think its always a good idea to hold back until you discern what the chick is looking for.  Sending flowers, buying presents, throwing money around tells her you are loaded and and possible a wimp by how easy she can manipulate a man into giving her things......

I still think there is alot of truth to the well known outlook that nice guys finish last in the end, while the jerks have all the luck with women......to be honest with you, in my dealings with American women, this has always been the case.  If you look at the machista playboys in Colombia, they have plenty of women and they dont treat them nice......