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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?

And one more thing… We can calculate everything, but still, we can’t count with this bit of absurdity that will be part of your scheme in real life. You can fall for the first man that you meet, and who doesn’t even suit your requirements, even though you have a guarantee of meeting the right quantity of men carefully chosen according to your criteria. You liked his profile, that’s all. You might find yourself where you get the man you really wanted remarkably far and amazingly reversed from your wish list boyfriend. Things happen. But if an agent asks you to choose, and you just reply “whatever, it’s up to you”, nothing good will come of it. It’s like at a hairdresser’s. One would like to sit and relax, and say “whatever,” but such a risk is seldom taken. Because you will have to live with the result. This is why it’s better to choose by yourself. But if you really like someone who does not suit your original requirements, take him. He is probably the One.