Hi all, long time lurker checking in. I want to place a personal ad on the web and I would appreciate any comments you may have. Honesty is very important to me so I don’t want to overstate my credentials. Here goes:
–
Divorced male, 40, living with mother (but not in basement, I wish!) no kids, unemployed, 100lbs overweight (but working it off, someday), smoker with bad credit seeks attractive, intelligent, financially comfortable woman with no kids (I hate kids, even yours) for a long term serious relationship.
I like to surf the web, watch sports, gamble and beer. I used to be a highly motivated, fit, carrer minded person with goals, but due to false friends and horrible bosses I withdrew into a deep, suicidal depression that I am just getting out of 3 years later.
You, on the other hand, are a happy, easy-going individual with a great sense of humor and easy laugh. Owning a cottage in the counrty is a plus.
–
Guess that’s enough for starters. Don’t want to get too tied down with details, you know, “cast a wide net” as it were. Comments?
“I like to surf the web, watch sports, gamble and beer”- Say “likes travel, fine dining”
“due to false friends and horrible bosses I withdrew into a deep, suicidal depression that I am just getting out of 3 years later.”- Say “looking to try new things.”
What I don’t get are when personal ads, from men or women, go off on how they want someone who is financially stable. I swear everytime I read that it looks like someone wanting to be a mooch or they really don’t care about the person beyond the wallet.
Anyway, learn to be creative with your personal ad and make everything positive. It’s not janitor, it’s custodial engineer.
UH, if this post is for real; I’d say Voltaire’s bitch has got bigger problems than trying to get a date. If it were me I think I would try finding a job and getting my own place before anything else.
When I read this it made me think of George on Sinefeld. (sp?)
My sister tried a dating service for a year or so. In her first ad, she did not mention job or money. She had to change her second ad to include “financially stable” (or words to that effect) because she kept getting matched with losers who could not hold down careers, or succeed in many other areas of life either.
She could not have cared a hoot about the money aspect (she is the financial comptroller for a major auto manufacturer, and after work she is an amateur concert pianist and also runs a choir). She wanted talented and intelligent dates, rather than treckies living with their moms (at first she was paired with several of these sorts).
The insistence on financial stability simply set a minimum standard, based on the assumption that an employed person with a career would generally have more on the ball than an unemployed person without a career.
Does this mean that a person is only worthy if employed in a good career? Of course not? All it means is that given the limited time available for dating, and the desire to find compatible dates, there must be a somewhat arbitrary selection process. Those not making the cut would simply have to find other ways of approaching her outside of the dating service (e.g. going up to her and asking out to a concert).
I’ve been toying with placing an ad (I’m not quite ready to date at the moment), and if I do, I will be specifying that I am looking for a professional. It won’t have anything to do with money, but rather it will be because the people with whom I socialize tend to be professionals, rather than people who play bingo.
The scary thing is, the original personal ad just might work. Back where I used to live in PA, there was a women’s prison nearby, and there always used to be personal ads in the local free sheet that started off something like, “SWF, mid-20s, in prison, getting out in three months…” Someone I knew who worked for the free sheet swore that those ads always got responses. Maybe you should change your ad accordingly…
Frankly, I think it’s one of the best personal ads I’ve ever read. I would definitely reply.
Why? Because I would assume that it’s a joke, and that the guy who placed the ad must be a seriously whacked-out character. Of course, there would be a chance that it was not a joke, but it would be worth replying just to find out. If it turns out the guy was serious, I wouldn’t be interested. But I’d love to meet a guy who would post an ad like that just to see who bites.
Thanks for all the replies! They made me laugh! (except for a couple, heh)
No April Fools joke, that was a coincidence. It was all true (sorry Green Bean) except for the 100lbs overweight; it’s more like 90. I was feeling a tad silly last night so I thought I’d just throw that out there.
Of course the ad only describes my current situation and doesn’t do justice to the, dare I say, real me. When I’ve got my excrement together maybe I will run an ad like that and see what happens, lol.
Looking forward to hangin’ with the Dopers!
BTW Morgainelf, you missed another typo: “counrty”.
