... in response to How many last, posted by Sparky on Mar 23, 2002I’ve wondered about that for a while, and my impression is that dependable data on that question just aren’t out there. You get a lot of anecdotal information from forums like this, a lot of it discouraging. I think that many who are successful at this endeavor move on and don’t bother with a forum like this (with some notable exceptions!). Here are a few relevant items:
"Todo que el hombre sembrare, eso también segará." (See Galatians 6:7 for the translation)
"Luck is the most important element, and you make you own luck."--anon.
"The best laid schemes o’ mice an' men/Gang aft a-gley"--Robert Burns
"Ships are safe in the harbor, but that’s not what ships are built for."--anon.
About writing--when I started trying that, one of the Bogota agencies (ODEE) offered to host biographical and contact information for their ladies for free. I said that I understood Spanish, which was a distinct exaggeration. I received a ton of email, much of it in Spanish. As a result my efforts to learn Spanish were pushed along. Of course I came up with a "thanks but no thanks" form reply. I kept in touch with a few of these ladies--actually it dwindled down to 2--and eventually went down to visit them. As it happened the ladies I had kept in touch with were distinctly middle class. That was logical in retrospect. A poor girl wouldn’t have had the time or money to keep email correspondence with someone who was not coming down soon, and a rich girl would have had more interesting things to do with her time and money. But obviously there are exceptions to all generalizations.
As it happens, I haven’t kept in touch with these original two email contacts, but I have kept in touch with others than I met through them. One thing I notice (as with DaveyRich's post) is that even guys who start out at agencies often end up doing a certain amount of traditional networking (as you're doing with your Mexican friends). The middle class girls will sometimes get cold feet on you. That’s not a bad thing--better that it should happen down there rather than up here. Again, the result from my writing experience is that, if I were starting today from scratch, I’d only write women who I might see face-to-face within 3-6 weeks. This would, of course, mean targeting your letters to selected geographical locations and not writing to women in, say, all of Colombia.
I would like to hear what your Mexican friends have to say about agencies. I wouldn’t be concerned about getting a war started, but if you are concerned about it then please email the remarks to my address (given with this post).
