Winter Shoes for Cross-Country Running

© Anna Polosina, 2016

© “U Nikitskikh vorot”, design, 2016

Chapter 1. Preview

When did I get the idea to write this book sharing my rich experience infiltrating London Introduction agencies? About a year ago. I cannot say it was a treat to write. Not quite. Fact was, even I couldn’t figure out what on earth I was writing it for.

The budget of the book inspires awe. It equals the cost of a good car, no more, no less. Even a premium car, sort of. An inquiring reader could ask: why the agencies of London? Because, in my late 30s and early 40s, I tried to use everything I had to my advantage. Men on the Moscow market looked to me all like the boys from the History of Literature or Liberal Arts department of University, where every representative of the masculine gender is valued much higher than his market price. You know any man feels like a good catch in the conditions where the supply is constantly shorter than the demand and competition is far behind. But should you cross the road, you will find yourself at the Physics Department, where the demand will sharply reverse and the most average girl from the Liberal Arts Department will get more than her fair value of male attention and even adoration. But this is exactly what we are looking for! Just as that average girl from the Liberal Arts Department, I turned myself to the equivalent of Physics department, to look for my share of womanly happiness with subsequent capitalization.

This long and winding road first brought me to the dating Agency specializing in fair business, then to an Agency featuring not enough paid members, then, by my pure carelessness, to another circle of this forlorn Agency which by then was absolutely deserted, then to an Almost Ideal Agency and, last of all, to the Most Expensive Agency. If I look back at the costs, my least fortunate investment turned out to be the second round at Agency with Almost No Members. But what characters did it put on my way!

The Young Granddad of 53 was the first to open the door to the world of introduction agencies. What did he tell me? Not to show the best picture but stick by the plain one, because this way the date is programmed to trade up. The Granddad was handsome enough, but I tagged him as “Fat Face” (undeservedly) at the first glance of his picture. To find the exact girl he wanted, he had to meet 50 or 60 damsels in 6 months, according to the statistics he explained to me. Some encounters only lasted 15 minutes. He preferred to set their trysts in Starbucks, appreciating the coffee shop for its concept of inexpensive self-service. Young Granddad froze his membership and, having lived together with some lucky girl for four years, got back on the single market, with many dates ahead. But the Granddad was unabashed. He had a timber and furniture business, having begun as a carpenter, and was used to hard and heavy work. When I told him my plans to find a suitable man in just ten dates, he was openly skeptical. I forgot to ask him if his lucky chosen one retrieved her frozen membership or if she had to pay for it again. Our date lasted a couple of hours, then Yana came to join us. Not thinking it proper to pay for my friend’s wine, Granddad withdrew, and I found his tea in my bill, which was oddly logical. Granddad was a clever cookie, I readily shared his lessons with my comrades on the hunt for love, or for a diamond in the dust, as I sometimes put it. I should note that he was the only man I met who considered the result of this game as his clear goal, and the process or hunt, as work.

If I forgo mentioning one or two insignificant and not particularly eager suitors, the next one to appear on the horizon was Baldie.

Baldie was a youngish-looking country gentleman from the North. From Norfolk. Not overly burdened with knowledge, education, working or personal experience, he was naïve as a child in all matters, except the prices in the shops on both sides of Bond Street and of the real estate in Mayfair, and was very wary of womankind’s supposed desire to use him and their overall greed. One could assume that Baldie was acting based on the motives of Supreme Justice, trying to hunt out the most profiteering specimens. Otherwise, why would he mention, in his resume, greater wealth than he really possessed? No doubt, to discover and catch the gold digger, and then put her to shame? I don’t know. He was moderately generous, proudly respectable, and outrageously dull.

He also was in love with the attributes of luxurious living that he could afford. He unashamedly loved those that were out of his reach, as well. To satisfy his passion, he needed money. After roving the seas between three Greek islands on a yacht for some ten years, and squandering the best part of his inheritance, Baldie, who turned 44 by then, decided to become a developer and turn to installing bungalows with all modern conveniences, in Norfolk countryside. Their prices ranged from 300 to 500 thousand pounds. His enterprise was destined for well-to-do retired people, tired of London, longing to sell real estate in the capital and settle in an unpretentious bungalow. Like in the Russian ad: “Tired of living on the Moscow Golden Mile? Go to South Butovo!” Baldie’s scheme was like it, but it was a serious business. What I didn’t know before was that a bungalow differs from a cottage, having no porch, and possibly even no basement. They looked pretty miserable. I was not impressed, and neither were the senior citizens, I suppose. I never saw one of them there.

But Hope was high with Baldie, and his plans bathed in its diamond light. He dreamed of buying a flat in Belgravia, of seeing the sights of Japan, of making a car tour in the South of France with Louis Vuitton suitcases. It was pathetic, I admit. But Baldie’s fatal mistake was introducing new girls to the Carrot King.

Oh yes, the Carrot King was Baldie’s mistake. After several dates in restaurants, bars, and cocktails in Landsborough (Baldie had not yet acquired a membership in a London club where more refined bachelors usually invite) the moment came for him to invite me to Norfolk. I went there alone; Baldie waited for me at the train station. I was quick enough to realize that he did not invite me to check if I was ready to share the joys of countryside idyll in the near future. That made me feel melancholy. To entertain me, Baldie drove to introduce me to the pillars of the local society, to the rich and famous, to the Carrot King.

To be quite direct, British chaps always struck me as total prudes in terms of gender-related material aspects of relationships, and intentionally careless in the financial aspects of courting. No use explaining further to those who understood. To those who did not understand, I will tell no more. Not to disappoint you, I will just say that you may be luckier than me.

The Carrot King, whose name I was quick to forget, confirmed my ingrained suspicion that hypocrisy was part of national character, rather than a cultural trait of the islanders. But I am running ahead of the story. So, Baldie decided to show me which houses he has access to and which big shots he rubbed elbow with. The most famous inhabitants of Norfolk were Stephen Fry, an aristocrat who, by some miracle, was not bankrupt, and the Carrot King. As the latter’s nickname suggested, he grew carrots, enough to saturate the world market. Baldie had arranged to meet with him, but the millionaire did not respond to his persistent calls. So Baldie went straight to his home. The house was open but we had to ring the doorbell for a long time before the sleepy Carrot King appeared. He was not tall and had a strong built. There was nothing special in his appearance but he had a good sense of humor and a very lively charm. He saw our couple obviously as a new source of entertainment, which made him wake up.

Baldie once mentioned that he came to the agency following the call of his heart, for which he had to divorce urgently. The other reason was that a friend of his did so. “Has your friend found what he wanted?” I learned that after his divorce, the friend did not look for The One, but for many, which he did not keep secret. The agency even chided him for that, reminding him that they did not specialize in one-night-stands, and that the girls who were paying too, did not plan on amusing, for an evening, a man who did not even hide his polygamous preferences. To make a long story short, the friend did not hit it off with the agency. I wouldn’t be surprised if the friend was the Carrot King himself. I witnessed such candour in the matters of gender roles only once before, in an oil Siberian magnate. Foregoing any Brit preludes such as small talk, the Carrot King pelted Baldie with direct questions: “How many times have you met in England? This is your third date? Have you ever visited her in Moscow? No? And you really believe that she’ll have sex with you?” He did not ask this latter question, not aloud. He kept his outward manners. However, a timely pause implied it clearly enough. Not so quickly, Baldie replied with an affected laughter. He would go to Moscow in a month or so (his trust payments probably came in quarterly). I had wholehearted fun, finding an adaptor and converter who translated Baldie’s intentions from Russian to English and from women’s language to men’s one. The Carrot King went on with his solo: “What, haven’t you even sent her a car with a driver, to London? You do have the nerve, mate!” The myth of British gentlemen’s poetic in today’s materialistic world of love was dispelled. The touching naiveté and affected carelessness were just hiding their habit of not spending a penny in vain, and their certainty that nobody would take offence. To tell you the truth, I have always thought so.

Here, I should digress. I have a habit of offering a drink to my dates in my hotel. Before or after dinner. Or even in daytime. It was a sort of a test. The waiter always asks, “and you, are you staying in this hotel?” If the man just stares at me helplessly, I say: “Yes, of course,” and he fails the test. The right answer is: “No, but it is not a problem.” The man can also follow the waiter to explain the situation in private, or just look at him so that the waiter does not ask any questions and just brings the bill to the man. Only once, I liked the guy so much that when I saw the waiter approaching, I told my companion what I would like to drink and ran off to the loo like a coward. Truth is good but happiness is better.

But let’s return to Baldie and the Carrot King. After having a good fun at the expense of his friend, the Carrot King said that he would gladly join us at dinner in a Norfolk restaurant that evening, which he did, to Baldie’s displeasure. Carrot King won 2 goals to nil, making Baldie appear a complete idiot. Such was the result of Baldie’s attempt to boast the new gal before Carrot King, and his connections with Norfolk best people before me. I never saw Baldie again, or replied to his letters. Why would I bother? He had a good friend who could explain everything.

Chapter 2. Headhunted

Non-members deserve a special chapter. A girl should be warned against them beforehand. To be warned is to be armed. A representative of the elite agency, hereafter called the Agency with Almost No Members, told me about that. Sometimes, she said, we suggest you also meet non-members. An owner of a polo club, millionaire and horse breeder, who was a member of her agency, invited her once to a polo match, where he introduced her to his friend, a millionaire and polo club owner, just like himself, and a handsome man. Your subconsciousness fully agrees that a good-looking man is most probably not a member. It’s only logical. The new friend tells the agency girl that he is single but not sure about the idea of finding his True Love via an agency. The agency representative is persistent in persuading him to come to a date or two with some choicest female members, to get an idea about the agency’s service. Who would predict the outcome of these test dates? Right you are! Both girls are charmed and eager to deepen the relationship. But our Childe Harold says that they are very nice but alas, not to his taste. My subconscious mind obligingly suggests: if he is available now, I may be the one for him! What about yours? The story is good, excellently told, the manipulation works like a charm. My respect. But, as the great Samantha from Sex and the City once said: “Good on paper, bad in bed.” Remember this: a non-member is a fellow whom the universe did not give any money to pay for the membership, but, as compensation, awarded with some extra confidence. Yes, it’s pathetic. Instead of a melancholy polo club owner who despairs to ever find a girl of his dreams in the throng of his groupies, you will be offered a head of a legal department from the City, a marketing consultant from an advertisement agency, a private events planner, or an orthopedist. There is no harm in all that, but you should keep in mind that the man can call and then disappear; invite you to a dinner date and then explain his reluctance to be a member by the fact that there are many more single men than single women; or ask a waiter to take away the nuts for three pounds, explaining that you won’t eat so much. I should tell you more about nuts. By then, I already learned all about this ruse of the agencies and rejected all the non-members’ advances at an early stage. The manager of the agency called me to plead for a man that, in her opinion, deserved an exception. He was really good, she told me, he could easily buy a membership and he was just looking around before making a final decision. A very famous lawyer, the internet is full of his speeches at various professional conferences and at the United Nations. Owner of an old mansion and a unique collection of paintings. Single, no children. He may be the very diamond in the dust that I may snatch from the Fate’s hands if I am lucky, before the jewel goes to retail. Could you resist? I was duped. The fellow was really young and not very repulsive. He worked in a well-known company and specialized in the defense of Bangladesh Talibs. He told me his unflattering opinion about the previous, less classy agency. He only had sex once during his year of membership, but it was in the first evening, when he met a girl who felt just as lonely as him. I asked if he ever tried to further this glorious encounter by sending some flowers to her home or work address. He regarded me as if I was nuts. I even felt awkward. Yes, I thought so. But still, I would think that selling one’s professional competence to the Taliban would call for more lavishness and extravagance, perhaps with a whiff of moral degradation. It just did not fit together with the boring frugality and detailed calculation of the quantity of sex per pound spent. I just can’t get rid of my en-grained romantic rudiments!

Interestingly enough, as long as I was in the Agency with Almost No Members, it seemed to me that the problem was my choice of the agency. Later, when I found the Almost Ideal Agency, with enough members who suited my expectations, I understood what caused the problems: it just was designed this way. My goal was not just finding a life mate. For that, I could use the internet, to make sure that I was not alone, and there were some superb male specimens who are just in the same circumstances as I. It was not that.

A while ago, I came up with a phrase: “To sell for nothing to buy for fortune and to make a bad marriage you shouldn’t be overtalented,” please point out my copy right when quoting. Well, the agency caters for those who are not ready to marry badly and are ready to pay for it. No, that’s not it, either.

People come to the agency to answer the question: “What do I do wrong?” The reason is not working crazy long hours, nor the total absence of worthy men (or women) around. It’s something else. The membership price suggests both parties’ serious intentions. And the solitude is usually the price for refusing to compromise on the quality of relationships as well as the quality of the partner.

In different agencies, I often meet the same candidates. They are passing from the Agency with Almost No Members to the Almost Ideal Agency, then go on to the Most Expensive Agency. I don’t exactly know what is the matter with them. Everybody is looking for a diamond in the dust. Not finding it, they double the stakes, or… It’s like a casino. But deep down below, there is faith: they believe that somewhere in this world there is somebody who is just right for them, and who is waiting for them alone. Just look at me who wanted to avoid banalities… Ha!

Agency business is cynical enough, but still, I don’t compare it to medicine or pharmaceutics. No need to spell it out.

What kinds of agencies do we have? Some of them give no guarantee of even one introduction. Such is the Fair and Square Agency. They include your profile in their catalogue. You can stay at home, wait for men to choose you and then, after looking at the candidate’s profile, say yes or no to the agency. Or you can make an effort to go to the agency yourself, leaf through catalogues and choose men. Then the agency will gently push them in your direction. In such agencies, you can buy VIP status, and get offered to all the candidates. The business is absolutely fair. No guarantee, no tricks for your money. The difference between simple membership and VIP membership is not obvious but you’ll see it. The agency doesn’t pester you with crap such as follow up letters like “how did the date go, and will you have another one?” But if you go to such an agency, you should realize that you just put yourself into your Fate’s hands. If you have a regular nervous breakdown, you hear the years go by, and the biological clock going ticktock, then such an agency won’t treat your disease, but can be diverting enough, as additional option. Speaking for myself, such an agency supplied me with the Dream Bachelor. But this is a special topic that deserves a whole paragraph or even chapter, if I feel up to it.

Now, let’s talk about the agencies that are not quite fair. There are two kinds of them. Ones that works for dummies, the other ones, for the very clever clients. The agencies for dummies bring you to dates with non-members as well as paid members, but they don’t dwell on this fact. They will answer a direct question honestly and without detours, but they won’t mention it in the non-member’s profile, filling it instead with the (suspiciously subjective) praises of his character, hobbies (where do they get all that spare time?) and, to top it all, lifestyle (their salivating about his hotness can only rival the schmaltz about his character). Two types of men are especially successful with catalogue writers: the Authentic British character of a nice and friendly master of the game who decides the world’s future by phone while gardening, and the International Complicated Jet-setter’s character. Have you watched the movie “Thomas Crown Affair”? No need to explain further. Just watch it.

The apotheosis of tricking dummies out of their money is the story about professional matchmakers with psychological education and even a university degree, who would supposedly find a perfect match for everyone, scientifically. But, as many of us know, science is often many-sided. Don’t buy into science talk. Say that you know exactly what you want.

As a rule, you get 8 to 12 candidates for a full year’s membership. Some agencies include photographs in their profiles, others don’t. Funny thing is that, as experience shows, it does not matter at all. The dates are even more fun if you don’t see the photograph beforehand, though you can always ask it to be sent to you before the date, if you want.

We Russian girls should be especially aware of the fact that ALL the agencies position themselves as Introduction agencies, not Marriage agencies. Not one of them is based on the institution of marriage; the purpose of the parties is generally described as settling down. If you want a Marriage agency, look for Muslim and Indian ones. See: other cultural references… You can, of course, describe your particular expectation in the agency, and look what happens. I never tried that.

Dear girls, you are more numerous in the agency than potential boyfriends are, but don’t let this fact put you down. You should realize that the only thing that is guaranteed by the agency is our safety in the process of looking for love. Many agencies contractually forbid sexual contact on the first date. I don’t think that anybody complained. This feature is designed to protect our interests, not those of heterosexual men who are paying for getting dates. Anyway, you can always accept the invitation to look at their collection of old engravings, and check out the visible assets instead, without the slightest risk. I have seen a British reminder for girls who go for the first date with someone they met on the internet. They were recommended to give the detailed address to a friend, and send her the candidate’s profile. Then the friend should call you every fifteen minutes to make sure you are all right. You are not to drink any alcohol and you should watch the guy closely, for fear of him putting some dope into your glass of water… I wonder why they don’t sell obligatory insurance for such dates yet. In my opinion, it’s just plain awful.

Here is some more info about the agencies and their tricks. Sometimes agencies ask for a passport, sometimes they don’t. But still, it is easy to track a person by his payment details. Even if someone gave a wrong name, concealed his married status or something else, and gets caught doing this, the agency will stop working with this client without returning his payment. This is why a married man will just say that he is separated, and it will be up to you if you meet him or not. I never agreed.

One of the elite agencies used all kinds of marketing strategies. Remember that the more strategies are openly declared in this business, the more likely you are to get tricked out of your money.

One of the tricks is pretending that the agency deals exclusively with millionaires. Every candidate has to prove that his net worth amounts to 1 million pounds. A foreigner can show papers, and the overzealous girls from the agencies unexpectedly visited some of the English residents at home, to take a look at their assets probably. One of them lived in Surrey and the other one in Bristol. Do you imagine the road to Bristol? Now you understand. In 2011, this rule was withdrawn, without informing the other members. There were no more millionaires. The funniest thing is that they made a thorough investigation only on those who paid their membership in full. Non-members (slackers) of both genders were never put to test. Why bother investigating their financial status if they don’t have a million pounds anyway. Maybe the agencies had to withdraw the rule because one of especially exacting members, who was supplied with a low-budget non-member, voiced his discontent. I don’t know exactly.

The next trick is the agents’ scientific degrees in psychology and their ability to find the perfect match scientifically. In this case, the agency has a specially trained girl who, instead of interviewing candidates, interviews a full member for an hour or more. She draws up her profile, then looks for his perfect match. Total claptrap.

If the agency mixes the first strategy with the second one, it gets the best opportunity to tie a member with a non-member, on the grounds that their profiles are especially suitable. Speaking from experience, it is a technique to mislead you.

What else can I add? Sometimes you seem to find that very diamond, and think with elation that the man is available, and free. But, on learning this fact, you are not in a hurry to hit. You try to find an explanation: why is he single? You would not object to sex with the man, but you don’t want to go further. Not at all. You try to find an explanation, and you succeed. You think, for example, that he can eat you up, because he has a different energy pattern on all levels: physical, mental, emotional, and intellectual. This is not the best explanation; one can make a better effort, I agree. But it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you realize that you don’t have a chance in this situation. And it is not necessary to open your eyes. You should close them as fast as you can, and see nothing. Focus on the situation’s good sides, which are many. One of them: you are able to leave at any stage, and he knows it. If he doesn’t call you, who cares? If he sets a date then cancels it, you don’t care either. And what is most important, you know that the break-up won’t bring regrets, but relief. And this is swell. Celebrating the New Year alone, you would think: how great that he is not around, you can smoke and nobody would bug you for that. You don’t have to get a Brazilian. Nobody will try to make you eat what you don’t like. Nobody will try to make a different person out of you. You can do what you want. You are free. You can appreciate, once again, the position of a free woman who does not have to put up with shit from a guy next to her. Not bad. Not bad at all. If this is not a guarantee of bliss, then what is?