Personal Adspeak

In My Humble Opinion
1

[Attencion! Achtung! Warning! OP has odd sense of humor.]

I have been recently perusing an unnamed Internet dating site and have come to the conclusion that many of the profiles posted by the single women there must contain code words for their preferred traits and, when pressed, I could not get any woman of my acquaintance to identify for me. For example:

adventurous: To me, this brings to mind an Indiana Jones crashing through jungles with a hat and bullwhip. It must mean something else in this context… but what?

sense of humor: All of the funny people I know are single or unhappily married. Could this be some arcane translation of a forgotten language?

romantic: Again, a word fraught with such meaning that it is paradoxically meaningless. Could an ancient alien civilization have given the concept of “romantic” to ancient tribes of female warriors?

treat [her] like a princess: As much as I hope to understand this phrase, I have been unable to parse its meaning. It could be related to some ritual carried across the Pacific by early seafaring female settlers of Rapa Nui.

spoil (her): Were women of the Ancient World somehow lacking preservation techniques? Does “spoil” really imply as much labor and expense as it seems?

walks on (the) beach: Why is this legend true even in landlocked and drought-stricken lands far from the nearest shore, or in Viking towns where the beaches are strewn with heaving sea ice? Modern scholars believe there is a close meaning to “romantic” which eludes etymologists.

Okay, so behind this goofy presentation is a real question, hopefully for lady dopers (dopinas?) to answer. What in the heck do women mean when they target men with these traits? (I don’t read the men’s profiles, but if you have questions about any Code Words there, I’d toss my own opinion out for a quick look.)

FISH

2

I’m probably wrong, as I don’t circulate in that world. Nevertheless, some WAGs:

adventurous: either a.) willing to get kinky or b.) not particularly financialy secure and doesn’t require that of you, either;

sense of humor: perhaps this just means a sense of humor, but these codes confuse me - perhaps it’s some kind of code for she doesn’t feel like she’s that physically attractive; i.e., personality is the selling point;

romantic: uh, you provide the income?

treat [her] like a princess: don’t go there;

spoil (her): ditto

walks on (the) beach: I think this is some romantic ideal that has become something of an iconic reference, as with liking fires in the fireplace - to me it just means she wants to be in love.

Well, I hope that helped. Somehow I doubt it did.

3

First – Fish, love your signature – let the ladies know you have skills like that (and the time to burn), and they’ll be lining up at your door.

As a female with ads posted, I should feel qualified to answer some of these, but I use a completely separate set of codewords, so these are guesses.

Adventurous – occasionally willing to do something other than sit in front of the TV watching football and sucking beer. Maybe even something he’s never done before, like go see a dance performance, watch a movie with subtitles, or eat in an Indian restaurant.

Having a sense of humor – it’s like “good in bed” – no one wants to entertain the possibility they might be lacking in this department. Even totally humorless toads advertise themselves as both having one and wanting one. I assure you, this shit is in the men’s ads just as much. It’s empty verbiage. Look for an ad that makes you laugh, if that’s what’s important to you.

ot – a guy responded to one of my ads saying, I never know what to say, why don’t you ask me some questions? So I did, providing my answers to all of them, just in the spirit of fair play. They were great questions, too – what was your childhood nickname? What’s the last movie that gave you nightmares? What positive things would your underlings at work say about you that it might not occur to your friends and family to mention? etc. – I think there were 6 or 7 altogether. Asshole never wrote back. Fuckin’ sissy./ot

where was I?

Romantic – again, she’s looking for something besides a sports-obsessed troglodyte. If she’s completely whacked, she’ll expect you to remember the anniversary of the first time you talked on the phone (or instant messaged) – but at a bare minimum, she’s hoping for…your remembering Valentine’s Day. I dunno, I’m not really into all that mushy stuff either, so I’m not the one to ask. Flowers? (I like flowers.)

Spoil her, treat her like a princess – she’s insanely high maintenance, run screaming in the other direction, you’ve been fairly warned.

Walk on the beach – no kidding, they say this in Kansas? I’m on the east coast, so it actually kind of makes sense. I’m gonna have to go check my ads and make sure I’ve never said this, since I actually do like to walk on the beach. I think it’s some
hand-in-hand-facing-the-vastness-of-the-universe trip.

Hope this helps, but know it probably doesn’t…

yr pal in the cyberfernbar wars…

twickster

4

I’d avoid ads with those buzzwords like the plague. They’re all trite phrases from people writing content-free ads. Rather than worrying about what it all means, your time would be better spent looking for something more original that tells you why the ad poster is unique. I’m of the “show me, don’t tell me” philosophy. The sense of humor and adventurousness and whatever other qualities should come through in the way the ad is written and presented.

Just my $0.02

5

Oddly, twickster, a Doper gave that to me as an improvement on the stupid fish I did myself. My mad phat ASCII skills are limited to knowing how to spell ‘mad phat ASCII.’

Thanks for the advice, though; I always suspected the phrases of meaning little to nothing.

FISH

6

yeah – what fizgig said, far more concisely than I did. My main criterion is that the ad should be reasonably grammatical and show some evidence of having been proofread. I’m an editor, so I have to remind myself to cut people some slack, but anyone who clearly didn’t take any opportunity to read through their ad and put in that missing word or fix that egregious typo ain’t gonna be hearing from me.

Just remember – you can’t take any of this stuff (people not writing back, etc.) too personally – er, seriously. I’m doing my best to have fun with the process. Hope you can too.

7

spoil her/treat her like a princess–She’s looking for a sugar daddy. Avoid this woman like the plague.

8

[slight hijack]
I can never figure out something about ads… it’s like the guys never read the women’s ads, and the women never read the guys’. They’re saying they’re looking for completely incompatible sets of things. Why on earth do they expect to get any hits?

Also, those “chance meetings/crossed signals/ships in the night” ads–do guys actually think they’re going to get a response to these? “10/25, Rainbow Foods parking lot, blonde in red sports car; you were leaving as I arrived, dark hair, green Explorer, our eyes met. Call me.” “10/23, Norwest Bank, Fairview branch; I stood behind you in line, you talked about asparagus. Give me a call.”

The heck?

[/hijack]

9

My favorite is the word ‘Generous’.

“I’m attracted to men who are very generous.”

Do you suppose she’s looking for a guy who gives away half his paycheck to the Salvation Army or to the American Red Cross?

Somehow I doubt it.