Like any man I assumed the right character would come with the right picture.

Yes, I was still young and had much to learn.

By the time my parents kicked me out (I was nearly 29 so they were right about it) I understood that the chances I would not meet my dream princess without some activity from my side were very slim indeed. My job was ok, I had my own place with enough space for a family. But as far as understanding and dating women….I still had no clue. Honestly for a woman to get me to notice her she would have to club me over the head.

Sure I had met some women and went on dates, with all that follows from it, but it never a lasting effect. But this is about international dating, not the local adventures.

At the time I started, internet chat and dating were new. International chat with programs like ICQ was more to meet friends than to find romance.

One if my first international contacts was through ICQ. Her name was Helena, no not from half Greek and half Egyptian, living in the USA and being trained as a medic. For the first time in my life I would sit up until 2.00 am chatting on the computer.

I never found out what happened. One day I was chatting with her and she promised to be back later. The next day when I saw her online she replied she did not know me, and was married, living in a different place and a different person all together. Either ICQ was not reliable at the time or something really strange was going on. Or perhaps she decided to stop a game she was playing with me.

About the same time I decided to join a dating site, and where most men would choose to start writing, I reasoned that women got too many replies already and sent out interest smiles, waiting for those who would smile back before investing serious effort. My profile said ‘Nice guys finish last’.

Soon a got a penpal. Yes, this was not a love thing, it was a penpal. She was a girl living in Argentina. We wrote about our daily lives and shared thoughts and feelings. But I would get back to her later on.

My first real life encounter was with an Ukrainian woman. She had already made the jump to the USA, and divorced her first USA husband. At the time I did not look for sites about the hazards of international dating. She was talking a lot about how she missed the Russian food, her city of Odessa. And strange enough she seemed to be very interesting in visiting me in my place, and wanted to live in Europe. I found an excuse to visit New York (buying a golf set) and surprised her with the message I would be there the next week. She reacted confused, and when I visited she managed to miss my calls, work late for the first meeting and basically dodged me except my last evening. She looked really classy and stunning, and I fell for her like a brick. She had reserved at the Marriot for dinner, expensive but nice location. A strange thing was that the name she gave for the reservation was different from the last name she used with me. After dinner I got a kiss on the forehead, and we parted ways. The next day I went by the shop where she was supposed to work to say goodbye, but she was nowhere to be found. After I returned and finally got her on the phone she told she met someone else. Make of it what you think.

Back to my pen pal. Shortly after I returned from New York she was moving to Croatia, as it was her dream to live and work in the land of her ancestors. As the distance to Croatia is not that far (compared to Argentina) I decided it would be interesting to visit Croatia and see my pen pal. Unfortunately, at the time the Argentinian economy crashed and her father could no longer afford to pay for her expenses in Croatia. As she did not find a job, she had to return to Argentina before we could meet. She went through a rough time, and I was one of the few friends who stayed around. And suddenly I realised that her letters had become more personal and her friendly feelings changed in to deeper ones. I had made a promise that if she could not return to Europe before May 2001 I would visit her in Argentina, and I kept it. She booked a tour of the country, and asked me if I was ok with a double room. Yes, I was ok.

The holiday was great, and I can still advise Argentina as a great holiday country. Many different kinds of climate and wonderful nature. And I returned with the idea she would come to live with me soon. And then I made classic, may be fortunate mistakes.

Having sold my house and waiting for the new one to be built I was living with my sister. Not exactly the ideal situation to explore family life with a relative stranger. So I told her to wait until my new place was ready. While this was happening she would be living in Buenos Aires. This led to the second mistake. My male instinct of providing took over and I sent her a monthly allowance. I should have noticed a change in letters earlier, but did not. She did not want to come on a short holiday, wanted to wait until all was finished. Then when my new place was ready I told her to book the tickets. At this time she got a job on a yacht and would be gone for 1 month. A once in a lifetime opportunity she said. One month became 6 weeks, and I was wondering if something happened. Then I received the ‘dear John’ letter. She had taken the time away to think about what happened and make a decision for her life. The thing is that she had fallen in love with another….woman. She had not expected this although she had been bisexual a long time, which I knew.

Now I am a strange guy, and while it was the end of the love relationship I did manage to keep the friendship with her. Until today I still write her, and she knows all about my later adventures just as I know about her daily life.

While I was waiting for my girl from Argentina I got a message from a Polish woman. Curious as always I replied, and we were writing for about three months when she said she would have time to visit me in Holland. I was a bit confused because I am a one-woman man even in a long distance relationship. But I agreed to meet her and we spent a nice day together. A few months later she visited again. And once again I kept a friendly distance. She invited me to see Poland, but I knew that if I did she would have high expectations. Shortly after I got a letter in which she was clearly angry at all this, she was looking for a life partner and would not get response from me. My answer was straight. She never asked me anything and I had always maintained a distance. Not because she was unattractive but because my heart belonged to someone else. I could not give her anything more than friendship. Of course I never got a reply.

Few months after the beak-up with the Argentinian penpal I renewed my profile. And soon I got a smile from a woman in Ukraine. To be honest I was sceptical of Russian (and Ukrainian) women after my previous encounter and the stories of disaster in my own country. So while reacting to her with some caution, I joined some internet forums on the subject. And soon found out that if I would believe all that was written there I should leave this woman alone. But my curiosity prevailed and after a few months chatting and a couple of calls I visited Kiev. The woman I met there was exactly the same as she was in her letters and mails. But the chemistry we were both looking for was not there. On the day before the last of my visit I had a serious talk with her about it, and as a result we formed a real friendship. This gave me a new insight in the mind of a woman, and we were exchanging many ideas. After a short relation she had with another Dutchman broke, we compared notes on profiles and tipped each other about sites to use. On the forums I would use her insights (which I could predict with 100% accuracy) as a secret weapon, often to the disagreement of the men.

Thanks to the Ukrainian pointers I wrote to one woman in Russia last October. Soon we felt more than a casual attraction. Some kind of link existed that would make me come online the moment she would log in to the chat, and we could read each others state of mind by reading the e-mail. And by December I had already decided that of the three women I was writing she was the one I would visit the first.

The visit was in March, not too long after my father died. With my history and experience, I was not going to be conquered easily, and I had been very clear about the fact that I would not consider having feelings before our meeting in person. No dreams, may be a little hope.

When we met it was clear after the first day I found a woman who was falling in love with me more than any of the others before. And she was way ahead of me in feelings when I still had a little doubt. But soon I knew we had no problem living with each others flaws, and were very similar in our way of life, upbringing and views on family and future. This was the one I had been searching for. At this moment I have visited her for the second time spending 7 days 24 hours together, and the application for her visa to experience life in my country is in process. We have no doubts about wanting to spend our lives together, but I think it is only fair to leave her the freedom to decide until she has experience of what might be her future environment.

So my international dating adventures seem to be finished, with a happy ending. What I left out here were the non-internet and national encounters. They were present too, as I never excluded local women from my search.

I have never been a typical person, and neither does my story represent the typical view of men searching women on the internet. It just shows that it is possible to find real friendship and love online.

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