My name is Tim and I am a single thirty nine year old man living in the United States, Upstate New York to be exact. I never had considered using a dating agency before much less an internet dating agency. We all know that there is a stigma of desperation that is associated with this sort of thing and I am as guilty as the next person for having that perception. I have been in relationships over the years which were disappointments to say the least. Eventually I just gave up and decided that there just wasn't anyone out there that was worth my efforts. In October of 2003, I was checking the statistics for one of my web sites and I noticed an advertisement that said "Beautiful Ukrainian Brides" or something to that effect. It caught my attention as there was a photo of a very beautiful woman placed on the ad box to entice me. I clicked on the link and discovered that there were literally hundreds of beautiful women looking for a relationship with a foreign man. I saw one woman that caught my eye and then I saw that I could send her a free letter. I thought "why not. I've got nothing to lose and it might be fun". I sent her a short note of introduction and waited a couple days and didn't hear anything back. I don't even know if she spoke any English to be honest.

A few nights later I was on the internet as usual and was feeling a little lonely. I decided to search for another web site for a Ukrainian dating agency. I was completely and entirely shocked and amazed to see just how many of these agencies there are. I started to look at one and there were literally thousands of women just on this one site alone. I knew that since the break up of the Soviet Union that things were not so good over there, but I never dreamed that it could be so bad as to drive so many women to seek a better way of life. Of course I knew that the main motivation of these women was to have a better life without so many of the hardships that they suffer through on a daily basis. I honestly cannot fault them for this. Nobody likes to live with hardship. That is why we go to work every day and perform mundane tasks of servitude so that we can keep food on the table and shoes on our feet. Let's face it, everyone has some ulterior motives when seeking a life partner. In general, Men seek out beauty and women seek out security. I'm not saying that there isn't a lot more to it than that but when it boils down to it, isn't everyone after something? I think that the only universal thing that people seek out is to be loved and cared for by another person. That's the big carrot hanging out there.

I literally browsed through over one hundred pages of women, reading their profiles and admiring their beautiful features, but then I saw her. Her name was Elena and she took my breath away. Her soft shy demeanor and piercing blue eyes set my heart on fire. I read her profile and learned that she was twenty eight years old, college educated, and working as a manager. She was also fluent in English. This can be very important when it comes to communication. Her profile was both eloquent and self confident. I could tell that she was an independent thinker, intelligent, witty, and certainly special. I decided to write her a letter. There was no requirement for me to join a club or pay out large sums of money in advance to utilize the agency. I only was required to pay for her address and phone number and after that it was up to me if I used their services any further. I wrote her a short introduction letter and stated all of my vital statistics, ie. age, height , weight, etc. I remember that I started out by telling her that I was an imperfect man and was neither wealthy nor poor and that I found her to be enchanting. I also sent a close up photo of my face with a cartoon style bubble caption that said in English, "Hello Elena". Two days later I received a response from her. We have been corresponding with each other about twice a week ever since.