Nah

Monday Jun 20th 2005

I was scanning the online personals today, just perusing through the ads and so on. After looking around for a lil’ while I just said to myself “Nah.” After the shit I just went through in my last relationship, no thanks.

The people you meet online are just weird. Maybe that means I’m weird. I dunno. I read some of the ads and was taken back at how idiotic they sound. Here’s a few choice ones:

Title: looking for my fate

Ad: Sagittarius aim to harmony, comfort and I’m not an exception. I want everything around me to be beautiful. I’d like to have a man who can value me, who loves me as I am. I want to feel that I am needed, that there is loving, tender and devoted man by my side who is ready to share the warmth and comfort of family with me and become good father for our children. Believe me I want to live, to love and to be happy!!!!!

First of all I don’t think you can go looking for fate..? Although I like Sag’s, this one is just way too forward. It almost sounds like she’s shouting to the heavens.. Tone it down, lady. Oh, and as “happy” as this girl is, there is no smile in her picture. At all.

Title: Nice girls don’t finish last

Ad: Well, according to my friend Kim, I’m intelligent, witty and open minded. I would say, I’m really bad at bragging about myself. I guess if you want to know more, just let me know. A few of my favorite things…music, dancing, spoken word poetry, sports (especially the Yankees)and just hanging out with some good people.

This is an example of the worst possible ad you can put on the personals. ANYONE can say they like “music, dancing..” and so on. Okay then, WHAT KIND of music, WHAT KIND of dancing.. TELL ME SOMETHING, don’t be so fucking generic. ARGH!

Additionally, don’t ever say “open minded” in an ad. Bad phrase to use. Using that phrase in reality means that they hope you’re open minded so you don’t recoil in disgust after being with this person for five minutes.

Title: Lost and confused

Ad: I am very outgoing and up to mostly anything. i am not like most women… I love sports. and anything outdoors.I have been through a lot of pain and always giving and not to be selfish i would like to be treated like a princess for a day. I am looking for a great friend that can turn into maybe something more. Email me if you want to have a good conversation.

This girl directly contradicts herself in her first sentence. You’re “lost and confused”, but yet “very outgoing”. How you can be outgoing, lost and confused at the same time? Stating that you’ve gone “through pain” only means one thing - you have emotional baggage you want to dump on someone else. And of course, the ad says absolutely nothing about her. Nothing.

—

The type of personal ads I respond to (if I’m so inclined) are ones where they shed some type of light into the girl’s personality, because seriously, that’s what we’re all looking for. All of us want to be with someone to share things in common with, so when the sex gets old you have something to talk about.. or something to do or whatever.

As far as the actual writing of a personal ad goes, this is what I would do:

(Note: Play the online personals game - see how many of these you can spot in girl’s personal ads!)

1) I would eliminate any personal ad that begins with any of the following:

“People describe me as..”
“I’m (or I am)..”
“Looking for..”
“Can you..”
“No more..”
“Just got out of..”
“Why is it..”
“My life..”
“My kids..”
“First of all..”
“My last..”

2) I would filter out all these words and phrases:

“likes music”
“likes movies”
“dancing”
“family”
“loves life”
“outgoing”
“open minded”
“sense of humor”
“energetic”
“sassy”
“nuturing”
“my kids”
“relationship”
“serious”
“conversation”
“for who I am”
“as I am”
“tender”
“devoted”
“maybe more”
“into something more”
“people describe me”
“friends describe me”

..there are more, but those are the biggies.

3) I would make it MANDATORY that all personal ads begin with something that describes something.. ANYTHING.. about the person who’s writing it in the FIRST SENTENCE, such as:

“Monty Python movies really crack me up.”

See there? Sense of humor, likes dry British comedy, knows the “spam song” — rock on!

“I make the best omelette you’ve ever tasted.”

Ah, someone who likes to cook. Is the way to a man’s heart through his stomach? YES.

“Jeans and sneakers are better than a cocktail dress.”

Nice and laid back. Very nice - and true.

—

Ah, well.. what ya gonna do. To date, there was only one personal ad I saw a really long time ago (6 years ago?) that was so awesome I had to write her. Her and I had absolutely nothing in common, but I wrote and thanked her for writing something so unbelievably cool. It included things like “Smurfette” and “Princess with no crown”.. trust me, it was awesome. She wrote back and thanked me for thanking her. I hope she did well. She deserved it.

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