Hi guys,
On the 'Your Trip To China' board on this forum, I read the 'BEWARE-It usually does not work out the first time!' thread, all 18 pages of it. I've done a lot of reading on this board since I joined, and I found that to be perhaps the best, most informative thread I've read-so far, anyway. The intent and spirit of that thread basically is to warn and provide advice/guidance for first time visitors to China, as well as suggestions on how to be as prepared as possible beforehand by getting to know the lady you will be meeting.
I wanted to try to start a similar thread focused on the initial stages of contacting and getting to know the lady. To do so, I am going to put myself out there, explain how I've gone about things, and invite advice/criticisms from those of you who are far more experienced with these ladies, and in dealing with chnlove. This will all be done in the context of chnlove, since that is where I am coming at this from right now. If the moderators think this thread is redundant or inapproriate, just let me know and delete it. However, the chnlove setup is a new one for me, and I am sure for other newbies here. I think it would be good to have one thread aimed at this for new members to look at. Well...here goes.
Profile What I did with my profile is this; in the very first sentence I stated I am poor. Now, I am not poverty stricken, or I wouldn't be doing this. But I decided this would help weed out the gold diggers and scammers to an extent. I reinforced this subtely throughout my self description. For example, 'love can't be bought or sold' and 'love doesn't need money to sustain it'. I also mention, without boldly proclaiming what a wonderful family man I am (lol), that I am raising my 6 year old daughter by myself. I learned a long time ago that a man raising his own kids by himself catches the attention and interest of women here in the west, and I would imagine that would apply (perhaps moreso) to ladies from a culture that emphasizes family to such a great extent. I tried to present myself as humbly as possible.
Contacting the ladies There are three ways to initially contact the ladies-cupid notes, responding to admirer mails, or just directly sending an EMF. I'll explain how I went about this (so far) and why.
Cupid notes Someone on one of the other threads basically denigrated this way of making initial contact, calling it cheap looking. For myself, it reinforces what I said in my profile-I don't have huge amounts of money to throw at this process. If you do, good for you, go for it. But I am not looking for a woman who is going to judge me on how much money I can spend. I don't want her looking at my bank account. I want her looking at me, the person. I also want to know that the lady has some level of interest in me before I contact her. So I sent several cupid notes out. I can then look at her response to see how she fits what I am looking for-and more importantly, see if she took the time to really read my profile. To me this helps eliminate some of the translator scamming that is talked about on here. If she doesn't talk about my profile in a way that lets me know she actually read it, I am not going to respond with an EMF-I'll save those for the ones who show a certain level of seriousness in taking the time to read what I wrote. I've sent out 8 cupids, and only 2-3 appear to have actually read my profile.
Responding to Admirer mails Scottish Rob stated that these are all come ons from the agency, and not to respond to them. I didn't completely take his advice, but I did take it into consideration. Like the cupid notes, if the admirer mails do not address what I said in my profile, I will not respond to them. Very few of them show any signs of having read my profile, and most of them are obvious come ons. I've also taken to responding to every admirer mail from the Changsha P216 agency with reason A-the lady is not suitable. The photos from there are photoshopped to death, and many of the emails are more or less blatantly offering me a 'good time' if I come there to visit the lady.
Responding directly with EMF's as first contact This doesn't work for me, and I do not intend to do it, for several reasons. For one, I want to know the lady has some level of interest before I invest my hard earned money into getting to know her. I can gauge that with the cupids and the admirer mails. For another, if I just send an EMF I've wasted at least 2 credits before I even know if she is interested, or real, or maybe is already involved. For yet another, I can get a bit of a read about where she is coming from before I ever directly write to her by letting her either respond to a cupid, or by sending me an admirer mail. I can also tell something about the agency she is using in this way also.
So far I have contacted four ladies. One is a lady who responded to one of my cupids, one I am very interested in, who has been on the top of my list all along. Unfortunately, I contacted her right near the beginning of their spring festival, and as was suggested to me when I mentioned this on another thread, it took her a while to respond back because of it. She apologized for taking so long to respond, said she was still on her holiday, but had contacted me as soon as her agency had gone back to work. There are two other cupids I am interested in answering but I am not going to at this time. Both addressed my profile in a way that let me know they read it. One I like very much, but I am holding back to see how these other contacts go first. If the first round of contacts don't work out, she is at the top of round 2. The other lady, although she too responded in a way that showed me she read my profile (quoting it directly and commenting on what she quoted), I am not sure if I will ever contact back; her photos I am sure are photoshopped, and although they aren't the rolling on the bed in her skimpy nightgown type, she IS emphasizing her ample cleavage, at 45! Lot of purple eye shadow too.
The other three I contacted are from my admirer list. Two of those responded directly to my profile. Of those two, one I am on the third round of EMFs with, and there has been a good q&a back and forth with her. She seems completely genuine, and in fact her emails are saying things I could have written myself. The second of these two is going on my blocked list. Although her admirer mail adressed my profile, her follow up to my first EMF did not expand on that like I asked, she said some things that tells me she is probably a little spoiled, she is a little bit younger than my target age, and so although she is very cute I'm going to end that one quick, I think.
The third one I just contacted, and am waiting to hear from. Although she didn't really respond to my profile, I liked her a.m. and her profile, she fits the age group I am looking at, and to be fair to her I have expanded my self description since she contacted me originally-she was one of the first to send me an admirer mail, actually. She's kinda been my 1a all along.
After blocking the one lady, I am going to limit myself to talking to the other three. They are all from different agencies and different parts of China. Hopefully eventually one of them will stick out to the point that I will narrow it down to her, and focus on her alone-we'll see.
So far, this is what I've done and how I've approached this. I've also done the reading available on the agencies that chnlove provides, particularily checking the ratings, and also from reading what is said on this forum about different agencies. Like I said, I am avoiding Changsha P216 completely, and a couple of the other agencies too, based on this examination.
~Roy~