Gratuitous Criticism of On-Line Personal Ads, From One Too Chicken To Post/Answer 'Em

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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A few months ago, my co-workers discovered that a former co-worker of ours (who was universally regarded as a complete loser) had posted an online personal ad. Out of curiosity, I found myself perusing a whole bunch of ads on match.com and Yahoo personals.

What I noticed, more than any other thing, was the preponderance of ads where men (I’ll be honest, I didn’t look at any women’s ads) had filled out the personality surveys as follows:

Items marked as “No preference”:

Height
Eye Color
Hair Color
Religion
Political affilition
Smoking status
Drinking status
Hobbies/interests
Single/divorced/separated
Wants/has kids
Income level
Educational level
Type of job

Items always filled out:

Body type - fit
The message I came away with was pretty clear…no one gives a shit if you’re a chain-smoking, alcoholic, homeless, lazy, skinhead, neo-nazi, kitten-stomping, axe murderer divorcee with 13 kids, as long as you’re not a fat chain-smoking, alcoholic, homeless, lazy, skinhead, neo-nazi, kitten-stomping, axe murderer divorcee with 13 kids.

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Many of the women’s ads are just the opposite - so many qualifications that they effectively eliminate any possible matches. He must be a non-smoker, non-drinker, have no kids, make $100,000+, single or divorced only (no “separated”), full head of hair, “fit”, professional (whatever that means), over 6 feet tall…

Oh, and “no baggage”.

I don’t have “baggage”. I prefer to think of it as a tasteful set of matched luggage. Just because I have it doesn’t mean I take it everywhere I go. Besides, doesn’t our “baggage”, and how we deal with it, help define who we are? n

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Is that why we haven’t been able to drag you out to Trivia Night yet? Get a couple of beers in us, we’ll get along swimmingly with Vlad the Impaler. :wink:

For what it’s worth, I met my wife through online personals. So it isn’t always a waste of time.

And in the spirit of the OP, if you want additional amusement, check out these from Seattle’s alternative paper. “MR. POOPY WANTS TO FIND MS. POOPY.” Yeah, okay.

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Having tread the treacherous waters of on-line personal ads, I can say with authority is that you should worry more that they do like you. My mantra before every date was “Lord, please let them like me no more than I like them”
My advice - don’t ask for what you want. What I found is whatever I asked for, I would inevitably get the opposite. Instead, try write your description about yourself aimed at what you want; i.e. if you want an intelligent person, talk about your intellectual hobbies or write at a very high skill level.

Every time I placed an ad I got at least one cheater and at least one fisher. (When I specifically said that I didn’t want cheaters, I got more!) Fishers are identifiable because they give no information - my theory is that they are trying to connect with prostitutes or easy lays.

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I have a friend at work who does a lot of online dating, and it drives him crazy that women’s ads so often say, “seeking a man who is as comfortable in a tux as in jeans.” He sees it as obvious golddigging, and not very smart, as he, for one, is a wealthy man who has never worn a tuxedo in his sixty-some years of life.

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What I want to know is why, when I specifically state an age range (I always do), I continue to get responses from men signifigantly over it.

I mean this as no offense to all the middle aged guys out there looking for a date. I wish you luck. But I’m 24. I’m pretty, well educated, and financially independent. What gives these guys the impression I’d want to date someone as old as my Dad? Creeps me out to no end.

Next time I try online dating I’m going to include a question and answer section: Was there ever a time you were concerned you might have to go to Vietnam? Then you’re not the man for me.

What would these guys want from a woman my age other than sex? We’d have nothing in common. Do they seriously think I’d go out with them? Ick Ick Ick.

Also: All men look good in a tux. I dare you to find one that doesn’t. I think “looks good in jeans or a tux” means “willing to wear a tux”. My question is, to what? Other than weddings and proms, who wears tuxes anymore? Maybe this is the casualness of the West Coast, but even the SF Opera isn’t black tie. While sometimes my dress is long, I’d never expecte a date to wear a tuxedo.

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BRICKER, you are the sweetest guy. Lucky, lucky Mrs. B. :slight_smile: (And the little Bricklet.)

I appreciate the advice on how to do this, but I’m really not gearing up to do it. I’m more at the “let’s see who else is doing it, and how they do it” stage. And I do find it amusing to read through them and take pot-shots at people (only within the confines of my head, or this Board, of course).

The thing is, I’m not very good at doing stuff in secret, if you know what I mean. I hate being embarrassed, so I try to avoid doing things that are potentially embarrassing. As a matter of principle, I try even harder not to do things I’m ashamed of. And if I’m doing something (pretty much anything), my friends and family (and coworkers) can usually count on being totally apprised of it. (If they want to be or not. :slight_smile: ) I’m sort of reticent about some personal stuff here on the Boards, but IRL, my life’s pretty much an open book. Heck, I can’t even consider doing this without telling, oh, 10,000 people. I can’t imagine taking out an ad – or answering ads – without telling at least my very good friends and my family.

So I ask myself: Would I be comfortable telling them I was responding to/ placing an online ad? Would I be embarrassed if my coworkers knew? Would I be ashamed to admit it? If any of those answers are (in order) “no,” “yes,” or “yes,” then I just won’t do it. And truthfully, I don’t know the answers at this point. So I’m kind of checking out who else is doing it (perfectly nice people, most of them, as far as I can tell), and what they say. I’m assessing what my comfort level is. And amusing myself by reading the crazy-ass stuff some other people put out there. :slight_smile:

And CERVAISE, I am dying to go to trivia night, to meet you and the other Seattle Dopers. Beer and trivia and Dopers – what could be better? But my Tuesday night commitment doesn’t get over until 9:30, I couldn’t be over there much before 10, and that sounds like when everyone starts to go home.

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Then they’re an idiot.

Then they’re an idiot.

Seriously, I think online personal ads are a fine notion, and only have stigma for stigma’s sake. What’s wrong with online personal ads? They’re for losers. Why are they for losers? Because they’re online personal ads. And so forth.
So if you run into men who don’t appreciate you, just send them board-ward, and the Society of Male Dopers Who Think Jodi Is The Cat’s Pajamas will set them straight in a hurry.

As for stupid things people put in personal ads, there are two that bug me more than anything else:
-People who prominently mention their zodiacal signs
-People who have a very short profile, a large portion of which is devoted to describing what music they listen to

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More later, since I posted a related thread in the Pit, but didn’t know this was around.

I tend to glide over any ad that uses a touch of class. Such ads, almost always accompanied by early 1990s-era Glamour Shots and the usual cliches of candlelit dinners, knights in shining armor and sipping wine by the fireplace, are usually strong indicators of yellow Pontiac Firebird-driving gals that have feathered hair, who are attracted to men with moustaches, a job at the plant, and a 900 square foot Cape Cod in Hammond, Indiana; Depew, New York; Garfield Heights, Ohio or Pasadena, Texas, a block away from an aging strip plaza with a sports bar, discount cigarette store, and a hair salon with a name like “The Mane Event” or “Curl Up and Dye,” which is where the aforementioned woman with a touch of class usually works.

Picky: doesn’t respond to anyone.

I am intelligant and independant: definitely not intelligent, or as they would write, “definately.”

Can you keep up?: so busy, they’ll only throw you scraps of my time. Otherwise, everything else comes first.

I love motorcycles: a lower middle class girl looking for a blue-collar bad boy. She’ll sleep with anything that moves … as long as he spent time in Sturgis or Attica. If she writes you, it will only be after she gets over her wild-child stage, shortly after she “found” …

Jesus (anywhere in ad): don’t care what kind of guy you are, as long as you’re a right-wing religious fanatic. If you’re not, they’ll try to convert you. Maybe then, they’ll you touch their boobies.

Jewish (here where I live in heavily Jewish Beachwood/Pepper Pike/Lyndhurst/University Heights/South Euclid, Ohio, at least): If you’re a goy boy, forget it. If you practice a different form of Judiasm (i.e. Conservative when she is Reform, etc), you might as well forget it, too. Why not just go to jdate.com if you’re only looking for The Chosen Man, huh?

Write to me at s e x x y h o t t i e 4 u (at) m o i s t c o o t e r. c o m: A guy, and the ad is only bait intended to lure you into a porn site.

I am caring kind loving women seek goodly man for longing term relationships: Although the profile says she lives in West Des Moines, Iowa, or Edina, Minnesota, she really lives in Brnczljk, Formrsovjetrepublikistan.

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Before I forget … anyone else here notice that profiles vary from region to region? When I was living in Denver, a standard match.com profile had the title Can you keep up?, followed by a long list of outdoors activities which the ad poster participated in on a daily basis (skiing black double diamond slopes, bagging fourteeners, caving, mountain biking in Moab, weekly triathlons and Ironman competitions, and so on), a long checklist including the required 666 (six feet tall, six digit income, six pack abs), ambitious, participates in tons of sporting activities, travelled the world, and so on. The photos … usually a little dot on the side of a mountain, a little dot on a ski lift, and a face among 30 at the latest party she was at; it’s up to you to guess which one is her.

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So, a woman this week actually spent $20 to reply to my personals add and make contact with me. It is actually kind of flattering but equally unsettling…I hope that I turn out to be a good investment (she said it was only 5 double mochas, so I can dig that reasoning :wink: ).
The hard part of the deal, and where I am at now, is the pre-meeting correspondence. It is so difficult to represent myself knowing so little about her… I have just jumped in and replied enthusiastically and honestly, letting her know some things about me, but she remains a little more of a mystery and claims she is shy. I have let a few of my major truths out, just in the interest of total honesty and not misrepresenting myself… hope I didn’t scare her away this soon! My “truths” usually are big turnoffs when it comes to finding a significant other (I won’t go into these long, embarrassing, and unfortunate personal problems here to save a bit of my online credibility.).
I am not new to the online dating scene and actually met a girlfriend of about 9 months online and overall my experience has been favorable. I admit that I am a “loser” in many dating aspects but it hasn’t stopped me from meeting some other very kind and beautiful losers with huge hearts online, you’d be surprised! In some cases it brings the lonely together and is a godsend in that respect.
Just some pertinent commentary.

Jodi, I still feel a little weird about the social stigma of online dating sometimes (usually only in online contexts, as such, though), and it may feel embarassing to admit it to family and friends. But when you’re kissing your “online love” for the first time and engaged in new passion it is the farthest from your mind, and any negative associations are replaced with a little “Thank God for the internet!”. The internet seems to be chock full of small blessings for all of the geeks and losers. I mean, all you need is to look here at SDMB for proof. :smiley:

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These are the ones that always crack me up. Executives who make 100+K with model good looks don’t need to go online to find women.

33

Still pretty much the same, Elmwood. You forgot rock climbing and white water rafting. And that from these activities, they can go from grungy to gorgeous in half an hour, and be out the door to one of their frequent black tie charity events, or jetting to London for a weekend show.

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Thanks to this thread (and the one in the Pit), I actually signed up for Match.com, just to see what all the fuss was about. I haven’t read personals since I was in college, where I’d peruse the ads in LA Weekly and LA Reader for amusement.

I don’t think I’m really “online ad” material (I’m afraid I’d attract psychos and I’d be too stupid to know who was a psycho and who wasn’t). And then there’s the whole “stigma” thing that Jodi is talking about. But hey—maybe these kinds of ads might be a good way to find a like-minded person to chat about art, who knows. Anyway, browsing the ads certainly has been amusing! (And even I could detect a few psychos in the mix. Eek!)

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“Chicken Lady Loves Life”

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My ad is pretty generic I think and I like it that way. I do give out some information about what I like doing and what my interests are but I dont go into any detail about what I’m looking for because I dont know. I actually did correspond with one person because he gave me his email address and not the match one but that doesnt happen much any more.
I am not big on the you must work out type ads where I have to keep up with you and all your sporting activities. And I dont like tuxes so I dont care if you look good in one.

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Let’s not forget some of my favorites …

The driver’s license photo, with the state seal covering half of their head: screams “NOT A MEMBER! SIGNED UP AT WORK BECAUSE I WAS BORED!”

Bikini, Lycra/spandex, cat/black leotard Halloween costume : great, except these images usually accompany ads from fundamentalist Christian women, or a profile that reads Last activity: over six months ago.

Webcam, looking down: I’m sooooooo emo, and you better be too.

Nothing but group hug shots: I’m sooooo popular, and I don’t have any free time to spend with you.

Shirtless (male): cheesy.

Frilly dress: deep, deep kountry. Will probably e-mail you glurge after you get to know her.

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I signed up for a couple online personals sites over the summer (match.com and eharmony.) Of course, I am unwilling to pay, because I am a broke college student, so all I can do is use the ‘wink’ feature and hope the girl has a paid account…but since most of the girls I wink at are also in college and probably broke…nothing happens.

Though one time a girl winked at me (this rarely happens,) so I winked back. Nothing. I got an offer to have three days free, no charge, I took it, emailed her with my non-match.com email so we can communicate regulary, waited until the end of the three days, ten canceled the paid account, but I never got a reply. Oh well.

I don’t even know if my ad is a ‘good’ one or not. My photos are OK, (actually, I should take one down because I am in the foreground…but in the background is my friends being silly in an almost disturbing sort of way.)

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Anything with the words “lady,” “knight in shining armor,” “cuddle,” or “candlelit dinner” should get the heave-ho!!!

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Of course not, they can just cruise down Hollywood Blvd. in their lawyer’s brand new sports car and pick up Julia Robert’s style hookers.

Why would they need the internet? :wink:

~J