What an unpredictable...marriage! By Natalia Tkachenko Translation by Alla Musshorn
With no going into details, all life's problems are caused by search of yours and someone's place under the sun. I remember how I started my marriage search on the Internet. The very first week I felt like the entire, vital, biological, male world greedily opened its arms. In that distant 1998, or may be it was the beginning of 1999, I was dizzy from breathing the fresh spring air. So why did I sink my teeth into this new endeavor? The search for a fiancИ not only threatened to cause the appearance of a new, mysterious male type with a "foreign" label but also smelled like some new life, with different emotional and financial possibilities unlike those lost in our little post-Soviet world. I had a miserable income in comparison with the rest of the world fixed consumption norms. I made my money in the interesting world of journalism (it offered exceptional human possibilities) and I didn't spend everything, but tried to save for a rainy day! All my income wasn't spent on new things but was carefully put in a sock. For a single mom my daughter's future education was a higher priority. I didn't have a bit of hope that I could eventually buy my own apartment so I would not be burdened with my siblings coming and going. My widowed Dad, tired of his new family, and my bad tempered brother with his sloppy wife alternately lived with me in our two-bedroom apartment. My daughter and I often wandered the streets of our city at night. Under light-posts dreamily glancing at the windows I wondered if a different world exists in which I could create, breathe my own air, and live in my own dimension. At those times I couldn't hope to have a family in that crowded dwelling space where I have been living, or maybe it is better say, suffering. It could have happened if I had bought my own apartment or moved in with a lover who would have provided room for me.I didn't have enough money to fulfill my first dream although, according to Moldavian standards, 100 dollars was not a bad salary (It would probably take me centuries to save 7000-8000 thousand dollars to buy my own apartment). About my second dream of finding a financially stable lover I can say that all the choice men (I was 33 and had accumulated a number of lovers) mysteriously preferred to be provided with room and board. After "loving" the hostess, glutting and guzzling they left me alone with my financial problems. My only compensation was romantic dreams of a different life. It had become an example of the famous joke that the half of the Chisinau population was conceived in the forest park on Lake Komsomolsky. It is difficult to find appropriate places for reproduction, because almost always relatives are at home! I could accurately say that using a computer to find a husband on the Internet was a desire and a bare necessity. Thanks to foreign organizations the first Internet CafИ was opened in Chisinau. It was a learning center for professionals; historians, parliamentarians, journalists, librarians, lawyers, and economists where they learned to communicate in the modern computer world for their professional purposes. Of course we went farther than expanding our knowledge. We became famous explorers and, like Christopher Columbus, delved wider and deeper sailing in the opposite direction to discover our own India. So let's summarize one more time. Moldova is an ill- developed world, far-flung, former soviet republic with a low level of income and standard of living. It is moving towards nationalism with increasing speed by convincing Russian speaking ones out of its borders. There is an absence of solid male population of conceiving age (good guys move to Russia and other places). There is an ominous despair in the need for an autonomous dwelling space. (Oh, how many sibling rivalries would have been quelled if it was possible). All this life has no prospects. I was living in the capital center of an ex-national outlying district of an ex big Country, with the water, gas, and other delights of civilization cut off, and accompanied by exorbitant bills disproportionate to the level of income. These things made me examine the contents of the boiling Internet cauldron in the hope I could see an escape from this unsatisfying reality.
I want to thank my friend Elena again as it was her who first mentioned a couple of "light minded" dating sites such as Lovegarden. Famous sites like Friendfinder appeared in my life later on and brought my husband and me together by informing him that user XXXX is his ideal partner. The man opened my Internet profile and was astonished. He had seen my business profile before and had chosen me to be an interpreter and public relations specialist for his company out of an American governmental web - sites. This bears explaining for those uninitiated few. In the summer of 2000 I was observing the "Women and Democracy" project in the USA to tell our readers about the problems of women trafficking in USA. I am not privileged but simply lucky. My future husband sent me a short note in September then, in October, came to visit me. I wasn't really looking forward to our meeting. I had found a cute, quiet Dane on a business trip in the summer of 2000 and was ready to escape into his open arms. I had gone as far as preparing all the documents for marriage. It was not because I wanted to leave my country for another and learn a new language. Freezing in winter in our unheated crypt. I had to pay 20 bucks just to have the pleasure of limited hot water. That's how much electricity costs to run the boiler. I'll tell you for comparison that the average pension in Moldova is 10 dollars. Cool, isn't it? You would be lucky to pay only 30 bucks a month for all the utilities in the winter season. I just couldn't stay home any more and delay was almost implied to death. Why am I talking about expenses again? I will better get back to telling you the technique of searching for a partner. To tackle a foreign man into marriage like a brown bear, you have to write hundreds of miles of computer lines to other "hesitating" men so when one of the thousands of starving males will come with the intention to marry you, your knees won't shake from the unexpected happiness and your voice won't tinkle like a bell. I can assure you that a real 100% marriage type will come along when you least expect it well after you have grown tired of similar tricks many times described by other women. For example, on the way to you your pseudo lover can get "pseudo" sick or get into an accident. His permissions to leave the country can be revoked because he used to work in secret, sensitive, places. There will be more rubbish that will try to poison your confidential dreams and expectations of a better life. You will definitely find these types among your correspondents; a few greedy Europeans inviting you to visit them at your own expense, lustful black guys, and Arabians from all the parts of the world, who, before knowing your biography beg you to have sex on the internet and then send nude pictures. There will be languid, yellow skinned widowers from the Middle East, primitively erect Turks, timid Englishmen (spare me of lords!), intelligent, inventive Germans (who are especially adept at avoiding expenses). Pragmatic Australians would ask, "Why look for love so far away?" American guys (as experience and statistics says) will turn out to be the most decisive, practical people in this garrulous, loquacious, noisy, Babylon of buyers of your woman's fate. For some reason Americans are always more tenacious and swifter in pursuit than others (with the exception of those with obvious psychological disorders, which every nation has, who would pursue with no thought nor reason). Prompted by curiosity (No wonder the first white Americans were originally Europeans), he will happily visit in spite of the expensive ticket, come to you with a democratic willingness to embrace your culture and way, may even attempt to assimilate into the surroundings and, if the stars are correctly aligned (god help your luck this time!) and he evaluates the amount of money spent on the first trip; if you are not a bug-eyed, lame, freak burdened with indigestion he will ask you to come to America on a fiancИe visa reciprocally. Or he will marry you on sight, in your own town. His choices depend on the tasks, purposes, and possibilities of your present and future scenario together. According to the public opinion, living with them will be monotonous, dull, and absolutely tasteless like food with no salt in spite of all the financial possibilities (that is the price we pay for a stable way of life in a steady society). But you will achieve old age (if it coincides with God's plans) raise a bunch of grandkids and on your husband's modest pension (Please God give stability and prosperity to the society for many years!), peacefully travel with your spouse through the Old and New Worlds, saving pennies, nickels, and quarters... But that's another story!