In the spirit of St. Bernardâs via negativa, there are few things to make you more appreciative of your spouse than perusing on-line personals. âTell me Iâll never be back out there,â Carrie Fisherâs character says to Bruno Kirby in When Harry Met Sally, and after looking through a few on-line personals, the âdating sceneâ shows itself to be most definitely âout there.â
A good personal ad is an art. Just try describing yourself and what youâre looking for in less than 200 words. Less is more difficult.
Piling words on top of each other is much easier than constructing well-written sentences. But despite the fact that this is the _first_ impression theyâre making, no one — neither men nor women — takes it so seriously. Instead, we read things like, âHmmm about me. I guess you can say I’m a pretty funny broad.â Already weâre smiling at how much her word choice has said about her. Scroll down and we find, “Ok, where to start⊠like many people, I feel that I am just not meeting the ‘right people’ out at barsâ To begin with, start without the âwhere to start.”
In advertising themselves, people tend to fall into clichĂ© with alarming frequency â then wallow about in it. And it starts with the adâs header:
- I’m a nice girl looking for her shining knight.
- Looking For Mr. Right
- Don’t judge a book by its cover
- Is Miss Right out there?
- Looking for the right one.
- Looking for Adventure
- No DRAMA!
- lookn 4 u!!
Some communicate on so many levels (many of them distressful) that they seemed to be masterpieces of Freudian innuendo:
- Animal lover seeking non-puppy kicker
- Gotta pay the cost to be the boss
Yahoo! personals washed up more than its share of clichés and freaks, but there were some thoughtful openings as well.
Well, one: âcarpal tunnel love.â It just makes me all the more thankful that Iâm married, that I no longer have such worries as âWill I still be alone when Iâm sixty-four?â
Sheâll still need me; sheâll still feed me.
I actually have a fair amount of experience with online ads. My favorite cliché from the time I read them frequently was “I like to have fun,” a line that had to be in about 30% of Yahoo! ads at the time. But I do think it’s great practice for people who are relatively withdrawn.
Dating Services, however, are another matter entirely.
Yes, I forgot that “I like to have fun.” It’s still there. I’d be so much more inclined to contact someone that said, “I like root canals and sitting over dinner at McDonald’s listening to stories about my date’s mother.”