COLUMNISTS

Deidre Dare

I recently got a phone call from a pretty English girl I know here. She was upset because her boyfriend had left both Moscow and her. The Moscow expat life often seems to be all "hellos" and "goodbyes" and not much in-between, doesn't it?

I did what any friend would do and grabbed a few bottles of wine and went over to her flat to comfort her, but, in truth, I was extremely envious of my friend.

In my entire adult life, I'd never been "left," and had always had to do the leaving. Being left is much easier than leaving. The Leaver has to deal not only with the sadness and loss all ends inevitably bring, but will also be tormented with doubts, second thoughts and guilt. The Leaver can always go back and thus is continuously tortured.

If you're left, you're free from all that. The decision to end the relationship is out of your hands and you find yourself, without any effort at all on your part, freed from a relationship that wasn't good anyway. Trust me, if someone leaves, then the relationship wasn't good and was never going to get better in any permanent way.

Russian women seem to have a hard time being left and devote themselves to efforts to win the Leaver back. There are two tactics they generally employ. The first is to make the Leaver jealous, usually through Facebook (which has become today's equivalent of sending oneself roses with a card that says "Can't wait to see you again, beautiful!") The second tactic employed by Russian girls is to present themselves as unable to go on without the Leaver, thus using his guilt and torment against him.

The two methods are not contradictory. The image presented is almost perfect. The girl can't go on without the Leaver, she spends her days in tears because of her love for him, yet, despite her grief, other men pursue her relentlessly.

These efforts remind me of my own after the one time I was left, by Jim Giordano, when I was 15. I spent my time making a mixed tape of love songs, including Bread's "Everything I Own", which has such powerful lyrics as: "I would give anything I own, Give up my life, my heart, my home. I would give everything I own, Just to have you back again." Unsurprisingly, the tape didn't change his mind. I'd also forgotten to send myself flowers.

So, when I was finally left recently, I decided to throw myself and my clear conscience into moving on rather than into making any mixed tapes, and, in the past few weeks I've dated nine different men.

I've gone out with the Italian diplomat (of course), an English journalist, a Russian musician, an American real estate mogul (who is selling, at a very good price, shares in his flats in Paris - coopergl@gmail.com, if you're interested), an English lawyer, an American businessman, a Russian writer, an American publicist and a perfectly delicious officer in the French Army (who charmed me right out of my yellow dress when he harmonically opened our champagne simply by caressing it with a crystal glass).

Going on these dates reminded me of something that's needed to be said now for a long time.

Size matters, boys.

Whenever we girls tell you it doesn't, we're lying. It's not the "motion of the ocean," it's the size of the boat. We only say it doesn't matter because we don't want to hurt your feelings and there's nothing you can do about your anatomical endowments.

I've been with guys the size of a peanut (and that's just sad) and guys the size of a baseball bat and towards the baseball bat end of the spectrum is much, much nicer.

I have this to say to any woman, Russian or expat, who has been left recently: forget adding hunky guys to your Friends List on FB, certainly avoid at all cost making sappy compilation tapes and don't try to lure your Leaver back with pathos. Instead, go out and find someone in the baseball bat range and have a little fun. If the guy who left you was hung like a horse, go out and find someone who is hung like an elephant.

When it's time to move on, it's been time to move on for a long time. So, in all areas of your life, I advise you to move on to bigger and better things.

xxoo

DD

Deidre Dare's novel "Expat" and "Moscow Moment" video reports can be viewed at: www.deidredare.com