Internet love & being phished: Falling fast for the American

(This is the second in a six-part series that will run over the next two weeks at A ‘lil HooHaa)

Not a day went by without me checking my e-mail constantly in search of e-mails from Irina. After all, she was my future wife, my love … right?

OK, maybe not.

So after our initial e-mails, we had a lot to talk about. If we were going to spend our life together as man and wife, we needed to get to know each other and see if we were a true match. If so, we had to start figure out the details of all of this.

Oh so much to do and so little time. Well, not really. We had our entire lives to spend with each other!

It was in here second or third letter to me, however, where we found out there might be issues in our budding romance.

It is very pleasant for me, that you have answered my letter. Excuse, that I cannot write to you every day. I to not have a house the Internet and consequently to write to you from club where there is use of the Internet. But I cannot visit him so frequently how to want.

Wait… what? I have to wait days to get an e-mail from the new love of my life because of this? Blasphemy! How will I last? What will I ever do? This is not acceptable to me…

Oh, wait. No worries. I don’t respond every day, either, as I wasn’t as creative with my writing back then as I am now. I think if I did this in this day and age, I’d have a whole heap more fun with it.

Anyway, this letter was about her and family. She’s apparently a single child and her mother, Nastya, is 49 and works at a factory as a chief accountant. Things like this are highly important to remember as we go through the phishing aspect of things.

Details, folks.

When you are trying to get some schlep to send you cash, make sure the details work as a whole story. It’s like I told students when I taught freshman composition at a local college – a story always needs a beginning, middle and end – and they should all work together.

Irina also has a cat and she “brightens up my loneliness.” She lives in a small apartment, with no phone. Apparently, a phone cable does not come to her house. And that stinks because, apparently, she wants to hear my voice. Alas, we can’t call each other. (I can’t imagine calling Russia back in 2005 … maybe now with Skype etc.) It made me wonder though, as Omsk is a pretty big city…

She also like sports.

I give preference of aerobics and to navigation in pool or on the river. Also I like to play volleyball. In the winter I to like to ski and on skates. You love sports?

Oh my! Match made in heaven. She also likes to cook, and pizza is one of her favorite meals. Does this gal get any more perfect? (Side note: She doesn’t eat pizza much because “I watch the figure”).

She then goes on to basically tell me women in Russia are trained by their mothers to conduct household affairs etc.

Finally, she loves hanging out with her friends, going on walks and things like that – but not frequently. She loves to read and listen to music.

Here’s the kicker though – she’s already trying to goad me into things. How? Please read…

I to want that our attitudes to develop and probably once to grow in love and to us it will be
necessary to meet. Earlier I never to leave limits of Russia. I to think of it before to write to you. I to think, that probably I should leave the country and to arrive to you. I to decide, that is ready to this.

So. In. Love.

Let’s remember, too, that I kept my responses a bit shorter and more broad in nature. I did so because I actually wanted to be a little more of a mystery. I figured if I didn’t give all my information, she’d keep writing, wanting to know more.

Her next letter started to move this a bit faster, though.

You probably very much to borrow a question why I to search to myself for the husband abroad and why I to not search for the man in Russia.

I actually didn’t wonder, but hey, if you are offering.

So turns out she dated some dude for like three years and he wanted her to move in with him, but she was still in college and didn’t want to move in with him because, hey, it could totally screw up her studies. Once she made that decision, he found another woman, threw Irina to the curb and totally busted her heart.

She dug into her studies and made herself a success, but … well, love needs to happen. The problem? All guys wanted was sex! That means she can’t find herself a good man in Russia. (I have news though, people in the US – and other parts of the world – think the same way!) That’s when she decided to take it to the Internet and find herself a man.

And I very much to want that at last was found the man which can make me happy and which will be done happy by me. I very much to want to have happy family. It is main my dream in a life. I to want that with me beside to be the beloved and that he to give me the heat and tenderness. I to want to give all my tenderness to this to the man. I for the present have not found that happiness which I search. Probably this happiness will you. I yet do not know. I to want
to learn your opinion on all this?

Could this be true? Could I have found my true love? On the World Wide Interwebz?

At this point, we’re moving along quite swimmingly. So much so that there should be talk of a church and wedding bells, no?

Sheesh!

The funny part of this is I couldn’t stop – it was too funny. I knew the eventual question (money) was going to come up, but I wondered how long it would take. I also wondered how far she was going to go with this. She sent a photo almost every letter (and, yes, I am putting them in these posts because they were sent to me, thus I am assuming they are her… but who knows? Maybe it’s some dude in Chicago trying to nab some cash).

Her latest tells me how much my letters decorate her day and make her happy. We become close each e-mail, you see, and it’s interesting to learn about each other.

It’s at this point where I wonder if some of these are scripts of sorts. If it’s sent out to several people in hopes of getting one to bite on the whole idea of this Russian wife. Her next letter talks how she doesn’t like to take to “egoists” and she needs to find good people to talk to. That’s not easy, though, so she doesn’t have many close friends.

She also quoted the Bible.

From there, we start to get to the meat of this one. She likes me and all and my qualities … and now it’s time to push this forward. Maybe the biological clock was ticking?

Now probably it is necessary to tell, that I to like in people and I search for what qualities in
the future husband. In the person to me before In total his honesty and frankness is important. I to consider, that it is the most important qualities for any person.

This whole line makes me laugh. First because though I was being honest in my answers and e-mails, I definitely wasn’t being frank and I wasn’t really planning on anything. And, let’s call it out – we know she wasn’t being honest, either. So, our relationship was starting to crumble already!

I to want that it never to tell lies and speak me always the truth even if this truth will be unpleasant.

Wait… we are still doing this then?

She goes on to say through my letters that she knows I am a good and honest person with solid qualities. She, apparently, is making the correct choice with me.

She concludes the letter by telling me about her dreams.

My dreams simple. I want to be happy and to do happy on the Earth loved Me of the person. I to want to find that happiness which never on the present to have. And I very much to hope, that it will be you. For my years of loneliness I to save up big The potential of tenderness and kind feelings which is not spent yet and waits for the person to whom I shall devote all myself.

There you have it. The dream is there and, apparently, I am said dream. Happiness will be coming. Filled with tenderness and feelings.

And devotion. Holy crap devotion.

The next step was going to be made … but who would make it? And when were we setting the date for our wedding? Only time will tell.

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