... in response to Tests all work - Now for a question., posted by Jeff S on Jan 15, 2005I tried Cherry Blossoms because I had written to several women at eharmony.com and none of them responded. I decided the whole idea of eharmony.com knowing more about my needs and interests than I did, and then taking $50 per month to make my decisions for me, was bogus, and went to Cherry Blossoms because I used to be a mailman and had stuffed many of their magazines into single guys' boxes. And at $19.95 per month, blossoms.com was affordable and showed me pictures right away, which eharmony.com was too snooty to do.
I got mail right away from my ad. I had worded it in such a way as to indicate that I had no money, and as far as I could tell no pure gold-diggers bothered to write me. I did mention that I just needed someone to care about, and posted a photo that showed me with my dog, wearing a shirt with Japanese characters on it (me, not the dog. The dog was naked.)
The first woman to write me was a cosmopolitan Chinese woman. I drooled over her considerably because she was very attractive and over 40, but reconsidered when she said she wanted to be manager of her own salon. Different interests. And although I enjoy studying languages, when she told me she had to use software to translate my letters, I was discouraged and decided I wasn't really in love with her enough to make the journey to China. Then I got a response from Jovie, just a generic thing saying she'd like to know me better. Then I got a bunch of letters, all from Filipinas.
I wrote to all of them regularly and gave them all an equal chance despite the fact that some were not beautiful or even close. Jovie I barely considered because I thought she WAS beautiful and I didn't think she'd really be interested in me because she seemed quite religious and interested in having her own family, which I had not put much thought into because I'd never had a girlfriend who'd inspired me to want to raise children. I was religious when it was popular in 1972 but had since settled on my own mixture of Buddhism, Taoism, shamanism, etc., so I wasn't sure if I should write her back.
I got letters from a Filipina contract worker in Hong Kong who insisted from the start that I tell her my email address, which according to the Cherry Blossoms staff was a red flag. Her English was good and I liked her but in her pictures she was never smiling. She almost got me because she was the most aggressive.
A pre-school teacher (a divorced Filipina with a small child) was hot on my trail and I liked her even though she giggled constantly in her messages (hehehehehehe) which was okey but made me nervous.
A rather unattractive girl who liked to cook wanted me pretty bad and for a while she was first in line because I felt she was sincere and intelligent.
A divorced over-40 schoolmistress Filipina who spoke better English than me was interesting but she had 4 kids and I was afraid she was out of my league, educationwise and professionally.
One day I took a look at the women who'd contacted me and thought, what the heck, and I went into the pictures and wrote to the most beautiful women in Cherry Blossoms. Including Jovie, but she was the only one who'd contacted me first. Only one of my cold contacts wrote me back, and her response was somewhat tentative sounding.
Except Jovie, she wrote me back too. She wrote me in detail, responding to the specific points in my letter. For example, I'd said I liked Asian food, and in her response she listed several of the dishes she liked to cook, and said that cooking and gardening were her hobbies. She was college educated and had been working full time in the same office for 13 years. She stressed that she was a devout Catholic and wanted her own family. I was falling for her fast, so I wrote back and said I was not what most Christians would consider a Christian, and until I met her I hadn't put that much thought into raising a family. I was surprised when she wrote me back immediately, still interested.
After I'd been corresponding with all these women for a while I felt like I was cheating on all of them, so I re-read every letter I'd sent and every one I'd received. I looked at all the pictures. I decided that if I didn't say goodbye to all of them but Jovie, I would be ripping myself off. She was the one I wanted. Her smile was the one I wanted in my house, in my life, and in my heart.
It was Jovie's idea to get on the webcam after a few weeks of sending emails. That was the opposite of a red flag in my opinion. When the webcam first came on, I was shocked because she didn't look like the low resolution photos that had been on Cherry Blossoms. Then she smiled...
And when Gerlie peeked through the curtain from the booth next door, I couldn't help but wonder if maybe smiling might be something that runs in the family. My final decision was based on the good background (happy family), detailed and timely responsiveness (her letters didn't sound like generic responses), sense of humor (indicates maturity and intelligence), and the 2000 facets of Jovie's smile.
