Agencies, Matchmakers & the Class Struggle

[John O]

Aaron brought up many interesting topics in his "Case in Point."

I've always looked at the agencies (including correspondence agencies) as a convenience for those of us who can't afford to or choose not to live in Latin America.

I've always suspected I could have better luck finding the right woman if I lived in Cali for a time, maybe 6 mos. to a year instead. But for various reasons, I chose to make the regular short trips of 10-20 days. So far, I'm still single, but that has more to do with me & my own trial-and-error process. Fact is, I've met many wonderful ladies in the agencies, definite marriage material.

I've also made a number of Latina friends both here & abroad. Interestingly, almost none have ever sought to introduce me to eligible ladies. Fewer than my American friends (men & women) and far fewer than the Filipina ladies I used to work with. Those gals are veritable matchmaking machines. Even tried repeatedly to hook up a gay friend of mine once (chuckle).

My theory on the lack of matchmaking Latinas has to do with their famous jealousy & possessiveness. Just don't want to share their amigo gringo with another female, it would seem.

As far as the socioeconomic issue, I've noticed a universal law at work: The more we have, the more we want. The better educated, upper-middle-class women I've known (Latina as well as gringa) have more options, so they have higher standards. They generally want guys who are younger, better-looking, and with a higher standard of living.

I've had several sometimes painful experiences with such Latinas; they can be quite demanding, though not nearly as much as gringas in their position. And while such "high quality" women don't often join the agencies, I suspect they're also harder to attract & keep.

Class-wise, our best results as spouse-seekers seem to lie with middle and lower middle class Latinas, women who want to leave their country and "get ahead." Thus, Colombia is the perfect place for so many of us.

Just a pile of generalizations & opinions, of course, based on my own experience. YMMV...

[HansErich]

... in response to Agencies, Matchmakers & the Class St..., posted by John O on Aug 1, 2003

Dear John,

I complety agree with you.However in Brasil it is not uncommon that girls set up other girls with a gringo friend!!
I do not know (yet) how this is in Colombia.
Also in my years that I lived in Argentina I saw many times that Argentinas set up other guys with their GF's...!

I also think that most upper class latinas are NO marriage material with all respect. Indeed they are mostly spoild rotten by their daddies/mommies or by their upper class (latino) BF's!
TO maintain such a woman in USA or Germany you surely would have to make SERIOUS money;-)
NOT my cup of tea.

I prefer schoolteachers,nurses,even factory workers or women that work in shops. Yes even women that are (for obvious reasons) unemployed I would nOT decline if they have what I am looking for.

Doctors,lawyers,bookkeepers and the like.....are usualy a Pain in the A......

My 2 € cents.

Hans-Erich.

[DOMINGUIN]

... in response to Agencies, Matchmakers & the Class St..., posted by John O on Aug 1, 2003

For John O

You made some interesting points. I was in Bogota for three weeks in June and met something like 43 women from two agencies. I thought that the women were just what I expected, cautious, but almost always very pleasant, and usually emphasizing how much their immediate and extended families meant to them.  In Bogota, I never asked a woman if she was with another man or dating a foreigner from the agency, I thought that it wasn't my business, unless we got to know each other better.  All the women I dated were well educated and usually very good conversationalists, (certainly in Spanish).

I did date several upper class women.  One lady's ex-husband is a colonel in the Colombian army and I got the idea that the officer class of the Colombian army is not exactly a meritocracy, its based on money, privilege, family, etc.  I also didn't make the cut after the sita and the first dinner date with this woman, but as beautiful a woman as she was, I knew that it wasn't a real fit, and I got over it in less then 24 hours.  

But, the best time I had in Bogota was with a very attractive secretary, 36, with a university degree and never married.  In terms of class and affluence, lower middle to middle class, but in terms of her attitude and her outlook on life, she was a queen.  She was very friendly, quite open, very specific about what she hoped to achieve in her life, but never manipulative or pushy.  I was invited for dinner to the apartment she shared with her widowed mother, it was modest in size and furnishings, but immaculately clean.  We are still in touch.

I'm not sure that I have enough experinece yet to verify  a correlation between class/affluence level and willingness to leave Colombia for a gringo husband.  But the experiences I had certainly don't contradict your "theory."

Dominguin