slamboard

I doubt that there is
anyone reading this
who has not
witnessed long term
relationships that
were begun and/or
ended as the result
of social activities on
the Internet.

Early adopters of
social media are
not representative
of the general population, but there have been many waves of adopters recently. I think it is time for someone to start a serious study to determine whether social media and online dating have been beneficial or detrimental overall.

My wife and I were aghast when we found out that a certain blogger had left his wife for another blogger after a few months of mostly online flirtation. Wait, we were not aghast at that point. It was more mild disappointment and guilty bemusement. The man had left his wife and driven 11 hours or something to be with his new lady who had just recently left her spouse. The two started playing house in a new place. It was blogged about. The ‘aghast’ part came when he returned to his wife after only a few weeks. Oh, and he stopped blogging (yeah, right.)

Successful online matchups are not as apparent. I know of at least one personally. I just heard about a self help book for single women that deals extensively with online dating.

Why do beautiful, educated single russian women sign up and create profiles on all of these Russian Bride sites? Here are a few understandable reasons:

• The desire to move to a place with a more vibrant economy with better job prospects
• The perception that Western men are more considerate husbands and more sophosticated individuals than any potential Russian prospects
• The desire to move to a place with more natural beauty/better climate/more exciting culture

I think that the women are mostly correct in their assumptions. I think their opinions related to the character and personal hygiene of broad groups of men may be a case to the grass being greener on the other side of the curtain. I hope that the realities of the situation, both good and bad, for Russian women who come to America on a Fiancee K-1 Visa filters back to women who are considering this life choice. Marrying someone from a different culture has its challenges. Considering the fact that a best selling book claims that men and women are on different planets, a little perspective is in order.

The men in America and Western Europe live in a culture where there is a 50% chance of a marriage, ANY MARRIAGE, failing. I certainly hope that most of them have a firm enough grasp on reality to know that looking for a wife in a region with a depressed economy is not a panacea. A marriage is a lifelong commitment and a life long negotiation.

Read my Kimkins.com series here and see all the Kimkins-related Slamboard posts here.

Thanks to Kimkins Dangers, we may have some new insight into the truth about Kimmer aka Heidi Diaz. One of their readers found this PlentyOfFish.com profile of “Kimmer2″. PlentyOfFish is a popular free dating site started around 2003. This profile lists Kimmer’s son’s age as 16, which would date it about two years ago.

Could this profile be a hoax? At first, I seriously considered the possibility that the profile was faked. But here’s why I don’t think that’s the case: the uncropped photos on this profile, which appear to be of Heidi and her son Brandon (who is now about 18 years old) have not to my knowledge been seen anywhere else online.

Take a look at the picture with the marina in the background. Heidi send this exact uncropped picture to Catherine to crop and use as her before picture for Kimkins.com. Catherine has never released the uncropped photo to anyone else. Neither of us had seen the uncropped seated photo until now.

If Heidi did indeed create this dating profile herself, it seems quite likely that she is now an older, perhaps heavier version of the woman in the blue sweater. After all, why not post the red dress photo if that is what she looks like now?

Also, the profile says Kimmer is a former foster mom. If Heidi did not really have foster children when she accepted money fundraised in their name (summer of 2006) then she could perhaps find herself facing criminal liability for fraud.

Things are only going to get more interesting.

LoversPlanet.com is different from other popular personals sites. The girls are screened by the webmasters using a formal telephone interview. I have seen some other personals sites that require everyone who signs up to provide a lot of personal information to make sure they are not cheating spouses.

LoversPlanet.com is geared towards men living in the Western World who have the desire to meet and possibly marry a single young woman from Russia. Many men have the perception that these women value family and traditional marriage more than the women in their own locality. Obviously the things that these women want include the opportunity to emigrate to a country with better prospects for education, employment and quality of life. They also want support and security.

The trend of men in Western Europe and North America dating Russian brides and Russian girls is sometimes criticized as creating relationships that possess some fundamental imbalance. I honestly think that similar imbalances exist in scores of relationships between people of the same nationality. Immigration rules in the USA have been changed in recent years to protect women who use this kind of service from the kind of man who would use be so unscrupulous as to use the threat of deportation as a trump card in a relationship.

Men who join LoversPlanet.com can send introductory emails to approved women free of charge.