In the last few days I’ve received two emails from different young gay men in Russia. This can’t be a coincidence, but I haven’t quite figured out what’s going on yet. Both found me through my profile on gay.com. There are a few different explanations, but so far I have no sense of which is closest to the truth. It could be a scam by someone here posing as young Russian gay men in the hope of extracting money from lonely American gay men with a fondness for Russian boys. (I’m older and have a fondness for Russian boys, though they have no reason to know that. But I’m certainly not lonely.) This seems like a lot of work for a dubious payoff—all of that writing to random people. It doesn’t seem like a good plan for a single scam artist. It could also be a scam by actual Russian boys working separately, trying extract money from the same lonely American men, or a passage to the U.S. somehow. This seems to fit better with the fact that there is much work for a questionable return—the Russian boys are enterprising and have the time to work on easily duped lonely gay men. The third possibility is that gay.com is suddenly expanding into Russia—it is in much of Europe already—or somehow the word has gotten out in Russia about gay.com. This would mean the Russian boys, with their earnest and voluminous emails, are sincere—a notion I’d like to believe but can’t. I’m betting on the second possibility. Here are the facts.

First both boys, on different days within the same week, leave short emails at my gay.com address introducing themselves and wanting me to write back. Both leave email addresses for me to use. One address has a domain with a simple .com extension. The other has an extension of .by (Belarus). I respond to both with very short emails wondering how they found me. (Why little ‘ole me?) Within a day or two both respond to my emails with effusive, lengthy text and an attached photo. First there is Ivan, who, in his opening remark, commented on my “pleasant letter”—it was definitely not pleasant. His English is disjointed (except for places where it reads oddly well) but comprehensible, as if he feed his Russian through a translation program. He apologizes for the poor English, claiming that he studied English for only a few years and going on to mention that although there are translation programs, he was unable to use them. He is writing from an Internet café, for he has no access at home. In his attached photo he is sitting alone at a dark table in a dark room, looking friendly and somewhat handsome, but not exceptional. Ivan is from the city of Kstovo, which is 400 km or so southeast of Moscow and has a population of about 70,000.

Sergey is the second fellow, 25 years old. He claims to be a “consultant.” He is from Ufa, Russia, which is 1200 km east of Moscow, with a population of one million. His photo is better. He is sitting next to a window at a brightly lit restaurant, smiling and eating pizza.

There is no question that both responses are tailored specifically for me, addressing questions I posed in my first email. Both young men claim to be lonely and looking for friends, correspondence or life partners—they seem to be willing to take any of those options. Both say they have many friends but that they are closeted to all but their immediate family. Both speak of the persecution of gays in Russia, and of the difficulties of being gay there, but they don’t belabor the point. It is simply made. Both hope their age difference with me will not be a problem. Both have former relationships lasting a few years, finally terminating with the bf cheating (Sergey) or moving away (Ivan). Neither boy is looking for sex, though they both are clear that they like sex—they both want “stability” and to be loved body and soul.

Both go into agonizing detail about their respective cities. Imagine paragraphs beginning “In the beginning of XV century” and “After reform of 1861.” Both very much want me to write back. Ivan wants me to send a photo. I’ve responded to both. We’ll see what happens.