How Can I Go Back?

The television series LOST featured a group of people who survived a plane crash on a mysterious island.  Far far away, this island was very odd and entirely different from their lives back home. Eventually a handful of them made it home, only for the main character to realize that home was not the same anymore, and that he needed to go back to that island.

Although this show is a lot more complicated than this little snippet entails, this small portion relates in a mild sense to what I am feeling right now.  I left the US for Eastern Europe on June 1st. My trip concludes in 10 days. And I have come to the realization that what I previously thought was home, where I thought I would eventually settle down, and how I imagined my domicile being set up is no longer an option. And I am not alone in this.

Why? Well, many reasons…some of which can be explained and some of which just need to be experienced. Nonetheless, here’s my attempt at explaining some of them.

The Women

The most important and obvious one, especially to our readers.  There have been endless articles written here and around the internet about the qualities and superiority of Eastern European women.  Instead of stating the obvious femininity or the almost universal ability of every girl to cook, I’ll just go through a few things that girls said, did, or were on this trip from the various countries I visited:

• Cooking me numerous dinners, from scratch
• Showing up at the airport with a cake baked for my arrival
• Wearing a dress and heels to go for a walk
• Her: “I’m 18, and you?” Me: “Early thirties.” Her: “Oh! I love older men!”
• Her: “I wrote 18 on my birthday cake because I do not like being old.”  She turned 20.
• Her (different girl): “I don’t want to be 22, I want to be 18 forever.”
• Grabbing my shirt and telling me she will iron it for me
• Cleaning my entire kitchen unsolicited
• Bringing me homemade jam she and her grandmother made the day before
• Refusing to eat after 6 p.m.
• Putting away her phone during the entire date
• With the exception of one girl, being under the age of 25 as the object of my approach
• Happily meeting my sister as she walked by randomly on our first date
• Kicking me out of the kitchen when I tried to prepare lunch
• Having her friends help her get her coat, to leave with me from the club the same night I met her
• Actually caring about what I do for a living and my desires in the future

The most I got from their American counterparts in the past year was making hamburgers for dinner and ordering an extra dish of Thai from her iPhone app that delivers food to her apartment, while telling me about how Eric at work fucked Stefanie and how much of a jerk her boss is for asking her to put in some more effort. Vomit.

I know what’s coming. Last year I went to Central and Eastern Europe for a month and upon my return went out to a happy hour in West Hollywood.  I will never forget looking around the bar, seeing all the girls without dresses and heels on, seeing no girls that broke the 7 level, and seeing an endless sea of men waiting their turn to hit on them. I was utterly disgusted and disappointed. I cannot imagine how I will react after three months.

The Drying Machine

As you spend more time in Eastern Europe, you begin to realize that all the comforts of home are just that…comforts. They are not necessary. Is it that horrible to have to hang dry your clothes?  The first few times you are left wondering why the hell they can’t just have dryers in Europe too. But then you realize, what difference does an extra five minutes make in terms of hanging your clothes to dry? It doesn’t. This extends to almost all comforts of home — you slowly begin to realize you don’t need them.

Do I really need to have the waitress come ask me if everything is ok? No, I do not. I can wave her over when I need her.

Do I really need a car? No, I do not. Almost all major cities here have decent if not amazing transportation systems (I realize this applies more to me as a resident of Los Angeles, than say New York).

Do I really need a happy hour? I can do without seeing coworkers or friends for a few hours after work one day, drinking beers and eating fried foods.

Can I really not walk for 10-15 minutes to get to my destination? Of course I can. You don’t realize how fucking lazy most Americans are until you start walking everywhere. Only then can you appreciate how ludicrous it is when Americans try to find the closest parking spot to a store to save themselves 100 feet of walking.

Do I really need to have the espresso maker? The DirecTV subscription? The 3DTV? The BMW? The Starbucks every 5 blocks? Costco? The answer to all of these is no. We have been deluded into thinking that life is a lot more complicated than it is, morphing these conveniences into apparent necessities in order to assuage our discomforts.

The Act

I read Roosh’s book regarding smiley faces and while I thought it was a great read, I couldn’t really grasp its message until now. Seriously, if I want to leave a fucking smiley face why can’t I? Because American girls will punish you for it. You have to act as if you don’t give a shit about them at all just to start the process of moistening the vagina. The same reasoning applies to buying girls a drink, or paying for dinner, or whatever you want to use as an example. We are forced to go against ourselves as men, as the provider, in order to court efficiently. Whereas in Eastern Europe you are rewarded and respected for this behavior, as you should be.

Then there is the political correctness factor. If my true thoughts were shared on a regular basis, I would be excommunicated by most. If back when I worked at my corporate job I stated that I think women thrive in their traditional roles as caretaker of the home, that they are happier in that role, that as their weight increases and their hair length decreases so does their appeal, and that I would never hire a female employee to any position of importance, I’d be fired or at a minimum be sent to sensitivity training. Here, it is the accepted belief and would be met with a “yes of course.”

Nobody Understands

Try explaining to your coworker, your friend, or your mother why you want to visit Siberia. Or why you want to live for a year in Kiev. Or why Moscow may be worth fighting through its winters. You can’t. Unless they have physically visited these locations, they just have no idea. They don’t know what it’s like to sit at a cafe and see two girls dressed as if they are going to a wedding, drinking coffee and chatting with each other in another language. It is not possible to know what it feels like to walk up to an attractive girl, say “Hi, how are you?” and instead of their minds being trained to think this guy may be a potential creep for intruding upon 3 seconds of her day, she gets a slight twinkle in her eye and curiosity takes over, leading her to ask “where you from?” with genuine interest.

They hear the stories, but they think they are exaggerated. “Sure Law Dogger, Russian girls are that much better than Susie from Ohio. And tell me again why I should move to a city where I don’t know the language, I have to specifically ask for ice, and I can’t readily find a pastrami sandwich nearby? I’m fine here with my Prius and college football Saturdays.”

In all honesty, who knows where I will end up or what I will end up doing. I’m still trying to figure this out myself. But one thing I do know is now when I hear a random person on the streets of Russia speaking English, I feel disgust. Not comfort.

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