On about half the profiles I read include “walking on the beach” as part of the perfect date. Only problem is, we both live in New Mexico, which is hundreds of miles from a real beach. I’m willing to spring for dinner on a first date, but not airline tickets.
“Buffalonian?”
When I was a teenager I used to read the profiles in the San Francisco Bay Guardian to see what kind of weirdness people came up with, also to lustily imagine what these females seeking males were like in person. One that caught my eye went like this:
These were precisely the things I was into at the time. The only reason I didn’t call was because my mom would have kicked my ass for calling a 900 number.
1-900-4BDiddy
Even though I’ve been married for more than a quarter of a century, I still look at the personals every now and then. What really makes my eyes roll is the statement “I like to have fun.” Just what does this mean? “I like to get high/drunk”? “I like vegging out in front of the TV”? “I like to go out to bars and hang out with my friends”? WHAT? On the other hand, if I were seriously in the market, I’d appreciate such a statement in the personals, as it would show that the one who placed it had no imagination, and quite possibly no detectible brain activity, so I could cross that person off my list of people to contact.
Since I’m hetero female, I generally read the M looking for F ads. I’m always amazed at the number of guys who are looking for a perfect woman, though they are not prizes themselves. For instance, a woman must be perfectly healthy, in perfect shape, with sizable financial assets, job skills in a lucrative field, and have no baggage (which usually seems to mean no kids from previous relationships). While I can understand a guy not wanting to get involved with a woman who has half a dozen kids already (especially if they all have different fathers), any woman who is over the age of about 25 is likely to have had at least one previous lover. Women don’t just lock themselves into crystal cages until Mr. Right comes along. She’s had a life before yesterday, if she’s interesting at all. Now, I’m not saying that a man should just accept a woman who has a jail record, for instance, but I do believe that he shouldn’t expect to be the first guy she’s ever dated.
At the risk of sounding like an ad for SciConnect, members run the gamut from hard sciences to sales, with a concentration of men in the computer fields(!). It’s also cheaper than Match and each pic and profile is screened by a couple of actual carbon-based life forms who are nice Canadian ladies. Downside? Its membership is a small percentage of Match’s, even though it’s worldwide.
(YOU try answering an email in Swedish! I didn’t know what to say or ask, and when I suggested a reply in English I never heard from him again. Perhaps that was his screening process?) I am complimented by your insinuation that I’m a geek for going on ScioConnect.
I’m w/ Furt on this - Buffalonian? Sounds like something you’d put on a cracker w/ a slice of swiss cheese. 
One thing I almost hate to admit about my membership on match.com is that it’s a free full membership. I’m a “charter member,” one of the first few thousand to sign up on match.com when it first went live in … I think 1996. Charter memberships were promised free lifetime memberships, and later owners of the site honored it.
Why not admit it? Hey, if yhou were on match.com for eight years, and still can’t land anyone, it’s definitely a sign that something is wrong with you. 
elmwood’s a Buffalonian, man. That means he went to Chinese auctions, ate extra-hot wings, and went to the Ralph to watch the K-Gun attack in his former life.
As long as we’re talking pet peeves in personal ads, my least favorite is actually the opposite of the “not enough information” personal, the TMI personal. I remember one personal ad I saw during my brief visit on match.com which ended in the line “I used to be married but my husband died in a car accident.” I’m sorry for your loss, ma’am, but wouldn’t it just be better to say “widowed” and leave it at that? It would tend to put a damper on first-date conversation.
I will be filling out my own personal, on e-harmony, and probably somewhere else too, pretty soon. I have to say I’m learning a lot from this and the other thread. See, you do learn from the Dope!
Yep. And this works both ways. “SWF seeks generous (read: filthy rich) white male of Irish descent aged 25-25.5 years old with Lamborghini and a German shepard named Rufus.”
Sometimes baggage means previous relationships, and sometimes it means baggage. I once dated a woman that was so obsessed with her mean, selfish, uncaring bastard of an ex-husband that there was no real room in the relationship for me.
Eh, I wouldn’t deny it goes both ways. It’s just that I tend to read the M ISO F ads, not the F ISO M ads. Sometimes I do examine the other side of the street, as it were, and then I get amazed at the ads that women place which essentially say “I’m a really cute but incredibly shallow golddigger. Don’t even bother to contact me unless you’re willing to wine and dine me extravagantly. If at all possible, I’ll suck you dry and leave your soul and bank account empty.” The male equivalent is “I want you to be available for my every need, but you gotta let me hang out on my own now and then. You must be able to provide for yourself financially, and maybe me too. I want sex on the first date, but I have no plans to stick around for the long haul unless you’re really talented in bed. If you get pregnant or need me in some emotional way, I am SO gone. Don’t bother me with your interests, my interests will fulfill you. Oh, and I don’t want an exclusive relationship. Well, I want you to be exclusive to me, but I gotta have my freedom.”
And I do see guys in their forties and even fifties, wanting to meet a “never-married” woman. It’s not that they have objections to divorced women, they don’t want any widows, either.
People. The more I see of people, the more I like my cat.
I’d also like to bitch about when people do send an e-mail, INCLUDE YOUR E-MAIL ADDRESS! If you’re actually interested in the person enough to send a note, and to write a very nice intro to show me you read my profile, put down an e-mail address. Why? Because I’m not a paying member. I’d bet that 70% of the profiles on match.com aren’t paying members. Non-paying members can’t send you an e-mail if they don’t know your address! So I’ve got a couple dozen e-mails from some very nice ladies, and no way to respond to them. It makes me feel like a jackass, but what can I do (other than cough up the cash)?
Yes? What?
Oh, sorry… carry on.
Elmwood - Great specific ad, but I can see why you don’t get a lot of replies. You are so specific on what you are looking for that it is a bit indimating. That, and given your age bracket, finding a woman who is all those things who has never been married is going to be a hard find. I find it interesting that it is ok if she has kids but not ok if she has been married. You are entitled to your opinion, though.
I feel qualified to comment because your ad describes me except two things - I am divorced and I don’t live in Ohio. 
Sorry for the typo - intimidating. :smack:
Actually, to come to elmwood’s defense, “Divorced” is one of the “marital statuses” he is looking for.
I agree, it’s a good ad, and the sort of ad I might have written. I’d have to disagree with you, though, chrisk72. I think you’re better off being upfront about what you’re looking for, and therefore being more specific, because, otherwise, you just have to wade through a lot of responses from people you’re just not interested in. I’d rather have three or four responses from interesting women than several dozen (though who am I kidding? as if that would happen to me) from women I’m not interested in.
Thing is, generic ads get responses.
Or at least in my unofficial, informal, incredibly unscientific survey (looking at the ads and response ratio of my friends with generic ads v. the few people I know who have interesting, quirky, clever, or in any other way slightly individual ads.)
The ones who like to have fun while eating candlelight dinners on the beach without playing games get way more responses.
Duke, if you prefer to get next to no responses, then fine, but Elwood has been upset that he doesn’t get much response. You also have to think about what someone will read between the lines about your ad. By being so specific, a woman reader would tend to think that Elwood might be very picky and opinionated, given his overly descriptive points. It would make me afraid that he is so picky that I don’t want talk to him because he has this ideal in his head that no real woman will ever measure up to. That may be true or not, but this is his only chance to make a first impression. Better to hedge your bets. You don’t want to scare off anyone too soon for the wrong reasons. If he was getting 12 responses a day, then it might be worth it to weed out now. At the rate of one response every 2-3 weeks, I think he could stand to waste a little more time weeding himself.
I stand corrected on the divorced part. I missed it at the end of the “About my date” list.
I have GOT to stop posting from work - rushing and making all these typos. I am VERY sorry ELMWOOD is your name, not Elwood. I did it twice. My apologies.
Well, I’m posting from work too, so that’s my excuse for missing the “one response every 2-3 weeks.” :smack: Yeah, I suppose it might be time to cast a wider net in that case.
Or, maybe, there’s an online service in elmwood’s neck of the woods with more prospects. I know that, for example, a lot of Canadians subscribe to Lavalife. In my case, since I live close to the border, if you look at the Lavalife site you’ll find dozens of people from Niagara Falls, St. Catherines, and Welland, and almost nobody from Buffalo.
No biggie, as I’m typo-prone myself. Maybe I should have chosen “Elwood,” since I do like the Blues Brothers.
Defending my profile: I’m not extraordinarily picky, as I don’t have a long checklist of "you must be this, that, and that, and you must be this, that and the other thin ag"s many WSM (and I assume many MSW) profiles have. After all, I did say that “I’m not seeking a clone who shares all my beliefs or interests … just mutual acceptance and joy at each other’s presence.”
Superficially, my ideal match isn’t taller than me, nor does she larger. Physically, in such relationships things seem out-of-whack, and I have this hardwired sense that I need to be a “protector,” just as the majority of women prefer dating men who are taller than they are. As for personality traits, I say “ideally, you’re like …”
My only big dealbreakers are:
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Way too young or too old (I’m 38, my preference is to date someone 30 to 42 or 43). Beyond that, there’s either a generation gap, or she really looks and seems much older than me.
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“you aren’t a holy roller” : I’m a UU who hasn’t signed the membership roster. Half of my family is Jewish. I don’t want to date a fundamentalist Christian, because in the past they’ve always witnessed and tried to save me. ALWAYS.
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“foo-foo glurgey kountry kitschy” : self-exclamatory. I don’t want to live in a kountry kitschy environment, and women that are into that are usually way into that; there’s no compromise.
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"pining for an ex: : too many times, I’ve dated somoene who has gone back to the ex-boyfriend.
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"extremely reserved: I don’t want to do all the talking on a date.
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Too many kids, which I really don’t mention in the ad.
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Not legally married (for obvious reasons), or separated but not divorced (knowing my luck, she’ll return to the husband).