I’d probably contact you, assuming the pic in the ad speaks to me, (yes, you should ALWAYS include a pic, and a good one!) because I’m a sucker for self deprecation and a sesquipedalian vocabulary. I get REALLY tired of the long walks on the beach/Sunday paper and coffee in bed/fine dining/got a great car/yawn, yawn, yawn ads everybody seems to be writing like they had a universal template somewhere… I’d bet (going JUST from the tone of the ad, mind you), that we would probably do well as friends but that you wouldn’t have the killer instinct/huge brass balls that are pretty much a prerequisite for any guy to be able to stand me as a lover for any length of time. I’m a deceptively easy to get along with chick, but as soon as things move into the romantic area of life I get very challenging and most men get freaked out and don’t want to take up the dropped/hurled with great force gauntlet.
So, if I’m wrong and you really DO have that killer instinct/huge brass balls and you like women who respond to it, I’d amend the ad a bit.
Of course, a line about being able to groom your eyebrows with your tongue is always amusing…
Years ago a friend and I would look over personal ads and laugh at their rosiness and their deception. We decided it’d be funny to see what sort of response if we went the other way - brutally honest, listing all our faults, and such.
Well, I got no replies. She, however, was a cute girl, and had 18,000 replies within 30 seconds, even though she managed to make herself sound pretty unappealing.
For what it’s worth, which is pretty much nothing, if I were a woman and dug dick (I qualify for neither) I’d be far more interested in your ad than a typical ad. I can’t imagine a flakey, idiotic person writing an ad like that, and that would motivate me to give it a shot.
You should include some more positive stuff along with the negative stuff, though - up front and honest doesn’t have to mean being negative-centric.
Here’s another update. Of the dozen or so responses I got to the ad, only one really took my fancy. It was from a woman who began her e-mail by stating, “This is perhaps the best personal ad I’ve ever seen in my life.” Which was a pretty good start. We’ve exchanged a few e-mails and she seems, overall, to be witty, intelligent, and articulate, although I don’t know all that much about her. Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure she’s blowing me off now, or at least putting me on the way back burner. Ah, well.
I wonder if the photo I sent her was unflattering. (It’s the only picture in the folder marked “Party” here, if anyone wants to give me their thoughts.) She hasn’t responded with one of her own, which is usually a bad sign.
Well, you win some, you lose some. I think that it’s a good picture of you, in my opinion. You look relaxed and you’re smiling. You come across as being warm and friendly. Hell, if you lived anywhere near me, I’d take you out for a beer (FTR, I’m a guy). Too many guys try to look all serious and tough, and frankly it rarely works.
Thanks, Emperor Penguin. That makes me feel better.
And yeah, I’ve been around long enough to have far more painful woulda-couldas than this one, both online and in real life. (And, of course, I’m sure I’ve been a woulda-coulda a few dozen times myself.) But it’s never much fun.
Ah, well.