How much, indeed? Nothing in fact: said and that’s it. But if it were that easy, this story with a big sum of money in finale couldn’t have happened. Here is how it was.  

New Zealand is a wonderful country, however it too has many lonely people who want to settle their personal life. Even if they have to fly more than 24 hours in a plane for that!  

Our character, Francisco, had some experience of communication with Russian women when he started writing to Marina: long blonde hair, big blue eyes, soft, feminine, domestic, alluring. Oh, she was the woman he had been dreaming about! They corresponded for half a year, before he came to meet with her. In reality she turned out to be even better than in the picture. When she cooked him his favorite dishes, he thought that it would last forever.  

Inspired with new impressions he returned home and at once started the process of getting a new visa to Russia. He wrote to Marina every day, but she didn’t reply. Some more silent days had passed before he received a short note: “Call me!”. Marina rejected him.

In a private conversation she said to me that he didn’t make her feel a Woman by his side. Whatever efforts she made, he as though didn’t notice them or took them for granted. He never paid a compliment to her, didn’t court her, didn’t give flowers, didn’t speak about his feelings. Only after Fransisco returned to his homeland and wrote to her that he had started getting a new visa to Russia, she concluded that probably he liked her! Marina thought well and decided that she couldn’t live SO through the whole life. “To feel she is Woman a woman must have Man beside her”, she said.  

Francisco didn’t give up an idea to marry a Russian woman and started corresponding with two more girls and planning his next trip.  When he met with one of them he knew straight away that she wasn’t the right one and Francisco began to go out with the second one. Do you think he has changed his behavior?  

Here is the argument he offers: at first a woman must give a positive signal that she agrees to accept a man’s courting and then the man starts it, i.e. initiative must come from a woman. Probably it is the case in Western society, but it shocks Russian women. In Russia it is a rule that a man must court a woman and try to win her heart. He must burn fire in a woman’s heart by his actions.

“Why do they seek traditional women with family values but at the same time treat us like western feminists and expect from us the same way of behaviour as many western women have?” Natasha, the second girl of Fransisco, asks me. What can I answer to her? I can only prompt Francisco to take a bouquet of flowers to their next date. But he comes without it again and again and waits for a positive signal.

Well, your stakes, dear sirs! Will Francisco leave with nothing or Natasha will become his bride? While you are estimating Francisco’s chances, let me calculate an approximate sum the unsaid compliment cost him.

- correspondence for about a year;

- presents on holidays and birthdays to the three;

- airfare from New Zealand to Russia and back (twice and it seems to be not the end).

I’ve calculated about $10000. Guys! It doesn’t cost anything to pay a compliment and not to pay can cost you a lot of money.