Winter Shoes for Cross-Country Running. Анна Полосина
it all, lifestyle (their salivating about his hotness can only rival the schmaltz about his character). Two types of men are especially successful with catalogue writers: the Authentic British character of a nice and friendly master of the game who decides the world’s future by phone while gardening, and the International Complicated Jet-setter’s character. Have you watched the movie “Thomas Crown Affair”? No need to explain further. Just watch it.
The apotheosis of tricking dummies out of their money is the story about professional matchmakers with psychological education and even a university degree, who would supposedly find a perfect match for everyone, scientifically. But, as many of us know, science is often many-sided. Don’t buy into science talk. Say that you know exactly what you want.
As a rule, you get 8 to 12 candidates for a full year’s membership. Some agencies include photographs in their profiles, others don’t. Funny thing is that, as experience shows, it does not matter at all. The dates are even more fun if you don’t see the photograph beforehand, though you can always ask it to be sent to you before the date, if you want.
We Russian girls should be especially aware of the fact that ALL the agencies position themselves as Introduction agencies, not Marriage agencies. Not one of them is based on the institution of marriage; the purpose of the parties is generally described as settling down. If you want a Marriage agency, look for Muslim and Indian ones. See: other cultural references… You can, of course, describe your particular expectation in the agency, and look what happens. I never tried that.
Dear girls, you are more numerous in the agency than potential boyfriends are, but don’t let this fact put you down. You should realize that the only thing that is guaranteed by the agency is our safety in the process of looking for love. Many agencies contractually forbid sexual contact on the first date. I don’t think that anybody complained. This feature is designed to protect our interests, not those of heterosexual men who are paying for getting dates. Anyway, you can always accept the invitation to look at their collection of old engravings, and check out the visible assets instead, without the slightest risk. I have seen a British reminder for girls who go for the first date with someone they met on the internet. They were recommended to give the detailed address to a friend, and send her the candidate’s profile. Then the friend should call you every fifteen minutes to make sure you are all right. You are not to drink any alcohol and you should watch the guy closely, for fear of him putting some dope into your glass of water… I wonder why they don’t sell obligatory insurance for such dates yet. In my opinion, it’s just plain awful.
Here is some more info about the agencies and their tricks. Sometimes agencies ask for a passport, sometimes they don’t. But still, it is easy to track a person by his payment details. Even if someone gave a wrong name, concealed his married status or something else, and gets caught doing this, the agency will stop working with this client without returning his payment. This is why a married man will just say that he is separated, and it will be up to you if you meet him or not. I never agreed.
One of the elite agencies used all kinds of marketing strategies. Remember that the more strategies are openly declared in this business, the more likely you are to get tricked out of your money.
One of the tricks is pretending that the agency deals exclusively with millionaires. Every candidate has to prove that his net worth amounts to 1 million pounds. A foreigner can show papers, and the overzealous girls from the agencies unexpectedly visited some of the English residents at home, to take a look at their assets probably. One of them lived in Surrey and the other one in Bristol. Do you imagine the road to Bristol? Now you understand. In 2011, this rule was withdrawn, without informing the other members. There were no more millionaires. The funniest thing is that they made a thorough investigation only on those who paid their membership in full. Non-members (slackers) of both genders were never put to test. Why bother investigating their financial status if they don’t have a million pounds anyway. Maybe the agencies had to withdraw the rule because one of especially exacting members, who was supplied with a low-budget non-member, voiced his discontent. I don’t know exactly.
The next trick is the agents’ scientific degrees in psychology and their ability to find the perfect match scientifically. In this case, the agency has a specially trained girl who, instead of interviewing candidates, interviews a full member for an hour or more. She draws up her profile, then looks for his perfect match. Total claptrap.
If the agency mixes the first strategy with the second one, it gets the best opportunity to tie a member with a non-member, on the grounds that their profiles are especially suitable. Speaking from experience, it is a technique to mislead you.
What else can I add? Sometimes you seem to find that very diamond, and think with elation that the man is available, and free. But, on learning this fact, you are not in a hurry to hit. You try to find an explanation: why is he single? You would not object to sex with the man, but you don’t want to go further. Not at all. You try to find an explanation, and you succeed. You think, for example, that he can eat you up, because he has a different energy pattern on all levels: physical, mental, emotional, and intellectual. This is not the best explanation; one can make a better effort, I agree. But it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you realize that you don’t have a chance in this situation. And it is not necessary to open your eyes. You should close them as fast as you can, and see nothing. Focus on the situation’s good sides, which are many. One of them: you are able to leave at any stage, and he knows it. If he doesn’t call you, who cares? If he sets a date then cancels it, you don’t care either. And what is most important, you know that the break-up won’t bring regrets, but relief. And this is swell. Celebrating the New Year alone, you would think: how great that he is not around, you can smoke and nobody would bug you for that. You don’t have to get a Brazilian. Nobody will try to make you eat what you don’t like. Nobody will try to make a different person out of you. You can do what you want. You are free. You can appreciate, once again, the position of a free woman who does not have to put up with shit from a guy next to her. Not bad. Not bad at all. If this is not a guarantee of bliss, then what is?
And one more thing… We can calculate everything, but still, we can’t count with this bit of absurdity that will be part of your scheme in real life. You can fall for the first man that you meet, and who doesn’t even suit your requirements, even though you have a guarantee of meeting the right quantity of men carefully chosen according to your criteria. You liked his profile, that’s all. You might find yourself where you get the man you really wanted remarkably far and amazingly reversed from your wish list boyfriend. Things happen. But if an agent asks you to choose, and you just reply “whatever, it’s up to you”, nothing good will come of it. It’s like at a hairdresser’s. One would like to sit and relax, and say “whatever,” but such a risk is seldom taken. Because you will have to live with the result. This is why it’s better to choose by yourself. But if you really like someone who does not suit your original requirements, take him. He is probably the One.
Chapter 3. The Agency with Almost No Members
Here is one more thing you will have to face: you will make mistakes. And learn from them, since you will go your very own way. So use my guidelines, as they may just help you to find your way around. In the Agency with Almost No Members, they used the most creative approaches to try and sell me various crap. Truth be told, I cannot be sure that all of the men they tried to force on me were crap, as some were rejected outright, before seeing in person. First of all, I think that if a female is a paying member, and a male is not (if he is headhunted, as they call it), the dynamics of their relationship are not classy from the very start. If you don’t feel this way, then your outlook is just different, but for me, that is how it is. So, the staff of the Agency with Almost No Members had much trouble with me. By the way, it was the only type of agency with a business model that I completely understood, or so it seemed to me. I never managed to figure out the business model of the Most Expensive Agency, which had only full members, as they told me. But I digress. In any case, this Agency with Almost No Members was not able to deliver to me, in two years, eight candidates, as it promised. After two years, the membership ends, and you lose all your privileges, don’t forget that. I didn’t need to meet new candidates just to gain more