Why do we need a page about CYNICAL MEN on a site about meeting Ukrainian women? Very simple: If you pursue this path you’re going to eventually meet some of these cynics, and if you’re not ready for it, they’re going to seriously kill your buzz.

If you’re like most guys who enter this pursuit of a foreign woman, you’ll start the endeavor with at least some degree of hope, optimism, and enthusiasm. Then you will encounter one of these cynics.

He will tell you he’s been at this Ukrainian thing for years, maybe even decades. He’s made many trips to Ukraine, and maybe even lived there for some period of time in search of a wife or girlfriend. He might even speak a little Ukrainian.

And from this huge wealth of experience in the culture, he KNOWS what the women in Ukraine are REALLY like, and what they REALLY want. And it’s not good.

He’ll tell you that ALL Ukrainian women are looking for rich men. He’ll say it’s just the culture there. He’ll tell you if you aren’t such a man your chances for finding a good Ukrainian woman are really slim.

Sometimes the specifics of the cynicism vary. Some cynical men say ALL Ukrainian women are scammers, or they just want entry to America for the good life, or that the whole “business end” (agencies and dating websites) is really just a front for the human trafficking industry (seriously, I have heard this).

If you’ve never even been to Ukraine or have never even met a Ukrainian, how can you argue with a guy who has so much experience? Answer: You don’t have to. I’ll do it for you, no extra charge 🙂

The short answer: Ignore them. They are wrong. They have issues. Shoot, they’ll probably even say that I’m telling you that because I somehow stand to profit from selling you a bill of goods. Whatever.

It’s all TRUE, except for the “ALL” part…

Just because they’re mostly crazy doesn’t mean they’re 100% wrong. OF COURSE there are greedy gold digging women in Ukraine. OF COURSE there are scammers. And, although I cannot say I’ve ever seen or heard any reliable first or second hand reports about the “human trafficking” business, for the sake of argument I’ll accept that it probably exists.

The real question is whether these things exist in such volume to be worth discussing, or worthy of such categorical claims by these cynical men.

And to that question the answer is a definite NO.

Of course there are ways you can approach this mission that ensure you’ll see more of this dark side. If you use the wrong agencies, pick the youngest, hottest women, etc., you stand a good chance of reaching the conclusion that the women are up to no good. I’m confident that’s how most of the cynical men come to their conclusions.

So YES, there is a dark side, but nothing like the cynical man wants you to think.

Is the cynicism justified?

How can I argue with cynical men who have visited Ukraine many times or even lived there? That’s quite a lot of experience for me to just wave off as totally wrong.

Well, I have two general lines of reasoning in reply to the cynical men, (1) common sense and (2) my own experience. Let’s jump right in.

Common sense

“All men fear commitment”

Have you ever heard women say “All men fear commitment”? I’m sure most men have heard something like this.

But if all men fear commitment then how do these women explain married men? Clearly those men didn’t fear commitment. Or if they did at least they overcame it.

But pointing this out does no good. She won’t even hesitate before answering: “Well, that was the past – men NOW aren’t like that”.

If you point out that you know five couples who got married in the past six months she might say “Well, it is SINGLE men who won’t commit…” But all those married men WERE previously single men, right?

She might reply with “Where did these couples live?…. OH, of course, maybe this is true in those more rural areas, but in larger modern cities men won’t commit.”

No matter the evidence, they will never abandon their perspective.

What’s REALLY happening here? I’ll come back to that below under the subheading below A little pop-psychology: What’s really happening?

All Ukrainian women want rich men

I lead with the example of women complaining about men fearing commitment so that you could consider all the factors involved more objectively. In reality these common complaints among women are EXACTLY IDENTICAL to the complaints of cynical men about Ukrainian women (“All Ukrainian women want rich men”).

Obviously NOT ALL Ukrainian women are like this. Not even most of them are this way.

But if you describe twenty situations you know where a fairly “regular guy” (not wealthy, famous, good looking, influential, or powerful) met and married a Ukrainian woman, they’ll say “Of course there are exceptions”, or “You don’t really know what happened in those cases”, or “Yeah, but how old were they? What did they look like?”

In reality far more Ukrainian women are exceptions to the cynic’s way of thinking than actually match his way of thinking. The gold-digger is the real exception.

And just like the bitter women who would never question their perspective, cynical men will never see it that way. Just as the case with bitter women I described above, no matter what you say, or how much reason or evidence you present to contradict their position, they have an answer, no matter how ridiculous.

But if there really aren’t so many gold diggers, then how do these guys come to their view on this?

A little pop-psychology: What’s really happening?

What’s the common denominator here between the claims that “All men fear commitment” and “All Ukrainian women are gold diggers or scammers”?

Well, I’m only an amateur psychologist, but I’ll take a stab at it.

They come to believe these broad, sweeping statements because they’ve experienced failures in their relationship pursuits and are either unable or unwilling to examine the problem more deeply to come up with a better explanation. It’s just easier to say “IT’S EVERYONE ELSE’S FAULT” than it is to be open to the possibility that THEY are the cause of the failures and that THEY must change in order to fix it.

But usually – and I’d guess more than 99% of the time – it’s THEIR fault. THEY are doing something wrong to CAUSE their failures. When you get to know them it’s usually pretty easy to see the problem from the outside.

Psychologically healthy people encounter a few failures all having a similar look and feel and start asking questions.

Maybe they start with “Why does this always HAPPEN TO ME?”. But if they stick with their quest for an answer, new questions emerge, “Is it ME? Am I doing something wrong to cause this?” Almost always this will get them closer to the solution.

I remember a time many years ago when I had such an epiphany.

Every relationship pursuit in which I engaged quickly took a very similar route into the ditch. I eventually asked myself, “Are ALL these women this messed up, and in nearly exactly the same way?”

Realizing this couldn’t really be the answer, I persevered in my quest to understand the phenomenon.

Then I considered a few other options. I thought maybe it wasn’t that they were ALL that messed up, but that I had a knack for picking the messed up ones, or maybe something I did brought out the worst in them.

Now I don’t intend to convey from this little story that I’m Mr. Know-It-All about women, but I do still constantly find myself revising how I believe things work, and the more I do this the more things make sense. And, if nothing else, at least I’m not running around whining about how “ALL women are gold diggers or scammers”.

But the cynics typically go with the other approach: It’s everyone else’s fault. No further investigation needed.

Why do the cynical men keep going back?

If you’re still intimidated by the sweeping claims of cynical men that all Ukrainian women are gold diggers, consider this glaring anomaly in their story: THEY KEEP GOING BACK.

Think about that for a second. These guys’ claim to expertise is rooted in the fact that they’ve been to Ukraine many times or have even lived there. That’s how they know so much, right?

Well, how long does it take for the obvious question to pop into your mind: If these women are so horrible, why do these guys keep going back for more? Shouldn’t they have quit going there as soon as they came to the realization that all Ukrainian women are gold diggers or scammers?

This contradiction should help you see that their thinking isn’t quite as solid as it initially sounds.

The odd experience of the wealthy man

The claim of the cynical men is that many Ukrainian women are primarily seeking men of wealth. Oddly enough many of the cynical men who make this claim – maybe almost half of them – are quite wealthy themselves.

If Ukrainian women primarily sought men of wealth, THESE MEN WOULD HAVE SUCCEEDED BY NOW. But they HAVEN’T. THAT fact fairly conclusively disproves the view of the poorer cynics that one needs to be rich to get a Ukrainian woman.

How does that happen? Shoot, everyone everywhere thinks that wealth would contribute to a man’s success in finding a woman.

In Ukraine (and probably everywhere) it works a little like this.

Since wealthier cynics believe that one needs wealth to get a Ukrainian woman, they show off their wealth to attract women.

They stay at the Hilton/Hyatt when visiting Ukraine. They wear expensive designer clothing and jewelry. And I’m sure their wealth is very evident in all of their conversations. They MUST make sure the woman knows about his wealth since they assume that’s what the women want.

And, wouldn’t you know it, the kind of women who actually do seek men for their wealth SHOW UP. And then these men complain that the women are only interested in them for their money.

Isn’t that a little like a fisherman complaining that all the fish he caught were only interested in him for the worms?

Really… what else would these men expect? They thought money was required. They used money as bait. And the kind of women who seek wealth above all else came. Hence “All women are gold diggers”.

My own experience

I will write more about my own experiences in Ukraine elsewhere on this site later, but I can summarize enough of the relevant parts to answer the claims of the cynical men.

My Resume

Prior to 2016 I had been to Ukraine eight times and between visits I spent much time on email or Skype communicating with Ukrainian women. Additionally I was briefly married to a Ukrainian woman. And from all that experience I wrote this site, which has resulted in much greater contact with this part of the world.

Then, since December 2016 I have lived mostly in Ukraine until now (mid 2018).

So that’s my resume. While some cynical men may have actually been here more often or have been visiting over a longer period of time, my time and experience here certainly qualify me to make an observation or two.

What I see…

Since I arrived in 2016 for my extended visit I have NOT used the services of marriage agencies or dating sites. That’s because for at least the first year here I was seeing someone. So, instead of looking for women, I just sort of assimilated in Kyiv.

THAT MEANS that in a big way I’ve gotten to see Kyiv and Ukraine in a much more authentic, natural fashion than if I were on a dedicated search for a wife. One might argue that this makes my observations less credible (“Yeah, of course you think all Ukrainian women are great, that’s easy to say if you’re not trying to find one to marry…”) or more credible (I get to peak behind the curtains and see how things here really work and what the people are really like). Take your pick (HINT: The latter is more accurate).

So what do I see from this vantage point?

As I have made friends in Ukraine – both men and women – I have found that for the most part they are as decent as people come. The idea that they – including attractive women – are all out for wealth or life in America is just ridiculous.

MAYBE one out of twenty Ukrainian women would even give moving to America a second thought, let alone marrying an American in order to pull that off.

And while a “typical” Ukrainian girl might expect that a man have a job, little consideration is ever given for a man’s wealth.

Yeah, if you hang out in night clubs where the hottest prostitutes on the planet congregate you will probably encounter some women who fall squarely into the cynical paradigm.

If these kinds of women are your thing, you might want to just pay the nightly price, and maybe even try to negotiate some kind of quantity discount. That will probably be cheaper in the long run. Just make sure you adequately secure your money, passport, and any other important or valuable items before you invite them to your apartment.

*** Reviewed/Updated June 2018 ***