Thursday, May 6, 2010

American men v Ukrainian men

I know my paper sounds like Matthew Liberty’s “Old Cow v New Cow.” It’s just lately I have had to deal with Ukrainian men again and I have remembered why I did not want anything to do with them! About a month ago I got a phone call from my step-dad to come to Ukraine and sell my house because he does not want to mess with it anymore. The request came so suddenly that I really did not know how to answer. It’s not like I live in the next town over; I am in the middle of nowhere in Africa! You just do not jump in a car and you are there! On top of everything else, I’m a mother, wife and a full time student. I can’t just drop my life as it is and be on the next plane to Ukraine! But my dad’s favorite saying is “Sluhay syuda!” which means, “You listen to me, you ignorant fool, and get over here!”

So now I am trying to get everything taken care from here so I can just go, sign the papers, get the money, and leave. Since my house is actually one half of a duplex, the most reasonable thing would be to sell it to the guy who lives in the second half. I try to call Sergey, this potential buyer, over and over to see if he wants it. Finally I get through and tell him how much I want for it. His reaction? “Dollars?” No, Soviet rubles! Of course I want US dollars! Only later on, Lena, my sister, told me that it was his way of saying that I want too much for that house. Now his “thinking it over time” is up and I am trying to get a hold of him again to see whether he will take it or if I should go to a real estate agent. Every time his phone rings a couple of times it starts to make busy signal all of a sudden. I started getting this nagging feeling that he is putting me off and does not want to talk. Why? Ukrainian men are very proud and it would kill them to tell a woman that they cannot afford to buy something. Ohhh! I forgot all about that little nuance. So, I’m giving him till Sunday to decide. If he still will not answer his phone, the house is going to the agent! I’m in no mood to play these cross-cultural games!

You may wonder, “Why did she name this blog ‘American men v Ukrainian men’?” I know, there are a lot of not overly nice men in America and I have had the displeasure of meeting several of them on occasion. But yet those American men do not hold a candle to the arrogance and “know it all” attitude of men in Ukraine and Russia. Let me present Putin as my example! The guy is your typical embodiment of a Slav male who never smiles and gets drunk just about every single day! Two of my sisters married such “jewels” that get drunk every pay day and then beat them severely if they dare to ask what they will do now that there is no money to buy food! And if they do not feel man enough, they beat their children as well! I know that there are some really nice men in Ukraine as well but somehow they are lost in the shadow of the really bad ones.

I would like to end this rant by letting you ladies cherish your American men because you could have been married to something that crawled from under a rock in Ukraine!

2 comments:

  1. Soooooo, what your saying is, "USA, USA!" Just kidding, surly not all Ukranian men are that bad? Well anyway, on behalf of all American men, I say, thank you.

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  2. I think my ex might have been a Ukraine man in a past life.

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